2020 North Korea New Year's Address Analysis and Implications Panel Discussion

It is customary for North Korea to release a New Year’s address each year announcing its annual plan or strategic focus to its domestic audience, but also well aware that the outside world is watching. However, contrary to expectations, the document that showed up on January 1st was not the usual New Year’s address but instead five pages of coverage in the Rodung Sinmun outlining Chairman Kim Jong Un’s report to the 5th plenary meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. It was the first time that a keynote speech had replaced a New Year’s address since 1987. Particularly due to this unusual change in format and the eschewing of the New Year’s address, there was a great deal of interest from academics, civil society activists and NGO staff, as well as members of the public in the Korean Sharing Movement’s debate forum analyzing Kim’s statements. The forum was hosted on January 2nd in Seoul City Hall. The debate forum ”Analysis and Prospects based on the 5th plenary meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea” attracted over 270 attendees.



Kim Dong Yeop, the director of research in Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Jihwan Hwang, a professor at the department of international relations at the University of Seoul, and Ellen Kim, a researcher at Ewha Woman's University presented on the implications of the plenary contents for inter-Korean relations and defense, international relations, and North Korean society/culture respectively. Cho Youngju, a research fellow at the Korean Women's Development Institute, moderated proceedings. The discussant panel consisted of Lim Suho the director researcher of the Institute for National Security Strategy, Lee Sang Sook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, and Korean Sharing Movement secretary-general Hong Sang-Yong who carried out the post presentation discussion.

 

Director Kim Dong Yeop claimed that the contents of the 5^th meeting seemed similar to the 2019 New Year address. Therefore, the change of format was perhaps a tactic to maximize Kim Jung-un’s successes and demonstrate versatility in delivery whilst avoiding direct repetition from the year before. Instead of delivering the New Year address directly and individually, Chairman Kim Jung-un’s gathering of multiple working-level officials, the directors of people's committees, and many military officers together, illustrated his desire to highlight the significant responsibility that he feels for North Korea’s future. 2020 has to be successful. There seems to be an acknowledgement that anything other than success, could well damage Kim’s legitimacy power. Also, director Kim Deong Yeop highlighted North Korea’s definition of its new pathway as a 'head-on breakthrough'. In contrast to the more recent past, where North Korea looked to develop its economy by improving ties with the United States, now it would empathize self-reliant development once again and was prepared for a long struggle based on military self-defense. In a disappointing oversight for Seoul, there was no reference to inter-Korean relations in the report. While referencing the fact that Chairman Kim allowed President Moon to speak in front of North Korean citizens in Pyongyang in 2018 and that they visited Mount Baekdu together, director Kim said, "North Korea displayed their trust for South Korea in 2018 through action. In 2019 the trust was no longer evident, it appeared broken." Kim Dong Yeop added in his analysis that ”in order for trust to develop once more it is necessary for South Korea to take bold, brave independent action.”

 

Professor Hwang noted that the Rodong Sinmun article covering the 5th meeting was one third longer than 2019’s New Year address (18,000 characters compared to 12,000 letters). This suggests that the article is a sufficient replacement to the New Year address with corresponding authority. Moreover, because of the extended duration of the 5th plenary meeting held from December 28 to 31st, we can assume that North Korea is deliberating deeply on how to deal with the current situation. The main focus of the plenary meeting was US-North Korea relations. North Korea emphasized a new key strategic phrase, 'self-reliant development', to prepare for drawn out struggle with the US. Chairman Kim also indicated he is willing to develop new strategic weapons to “safeguard DPRK sovereignty”. Furthermore, professor Hwang explained that North Korea felt that the US had reneged on their commitments at the Singapore summit by continuing joint military exercises with South Korea and that this was regarded as a key betrayal. This enabled North Korea to imply that the responsibility for the deadlock in relations should be attributed to the U.S.. As a result, North Korea has decided to focus on self-reliant economic growth as a nuclear armed state in the international arena. This contradicts the 2019 New Year address which stated ”we (North Korea) will forge normalized relations between our two countries and build peace throughout the Korean peninsula in accordance with the June 12th DPRK-US joint statement...”.- It is therefore a strong indication that negotiations between North Korea and the U.S. are set for a period of uncertainty.

 

Researcher Ellen Kim analyzed the report for implications regarding the outlook for North Korean society and culture. She stated that the society and culture related contents in the 5^th meeting do not differ greatly from the principles espoused at the 7^th Congress of the Workers Party in 2016. All citizens should be able to enjoy the highest level of civilization within the construction of the “civilized socialist state”. For the attainment of this so-called “civilized socialist state” developments must be made in certain areas such as education, health, sports, and the arts. This 5^th plenary meeting concentrated on education and public healthcare projects. Chairman Kim stated that “science is the driving force of economic growth, and education is the mother of science” while emphasizing practical and modern education. Regarding the importance of healthcare projects, Chairman Kim stated that ”healthcare marks the point where the supremacy of the socialist system touches on our people’s lives.” Researcher Kim insisted that as 2020 is the 75th anniversary of North Korea's foundation and marks the end of the current five year economic plan, the Kim Jung-un regime needs to show the North Korean people economic results. That is why education and the public healthcare system related to the national economy were emphasized.

 

After the three analyst's presentations, there was time for a twenty minute discussion with questions from the audience. One interesting question requested an assessment of the prospects for the North Korean economy in 2020. Lim Suho replied that "due to a lack of resources because of sanctions, in their quest to develop ‘new strategic weapons’ the North Korean state could move to an emergency management system mode which would see the state increasingly intervening in the market. This could lead the government to try to collect in-circulation foreign currency with the possibility that this would lead to upheaval and disorder in the economy.” As the discussion drew to an end the Korean Sharing Movement's secretary-general remarked that "the fact that around 900 North Korean political leaders of various authority participated in the 5th plenary meeting suggests it was a rather frank discussion about how to overcome the realities that an isolated North Korea is facing. The North seems to have coalesced on a resolve to embark for an undetermined length of time on a period of self-reliant struggle. Nevertheless, in the midst of this deadlock inter-Korean exchange at the civil society level should continue to be strived for.

 

Through the discussion the audience was able to get a sense of what implications North Korea's frequently cited 'head-on breakthrough' and self-reliance strategy might have for the year ahead. The Korean Sharing Movement will continue to make efforts to reinvigorate exchange between South and North at the civil society level while hosting many debate forums to continue to encourage debate regarding humanitarian cooperation and inter-Korean relations with related experts and the general public.