The triumph of Kim Jong-un
By Choe Sang-Hun
During the coronavirus pandemic, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, made a teary-eyed apology on national television.
“I am really sorry,” he said. “My efforts and sincerity have not been sufficient enough to rid our people of the difficulties in their life.”
The apology shocked observers. This was North Korea, after all, where the supreme leader is traditionally revered as an infallible, godlike figure.
But times were dire, even in a country used to hardship. The coronavirus, food shortages and international sanctions were all taking a toll. Around this time, reports began emerging from North Korea of a nation sinking into despair — citizens who, as one analyst with internal contacts put it, “saw no way forward, didn’t know how they were supposed to live on.”
Today, Kim is in a very different mood. At his Workers’ Party congress this year, he triumphantly declared that North Korea was in a glorious and prosperous new era, a far cry from his weepy apology in 2020. People can now hope to have “both sweets and bullets,” the party said, referring to its policy of seeking both economic recovery and military prowess. North Korea is a de facto nuclear power, and Kim is viewed as the country’s most powerful leader to date.
And he couldn’t have done it without the war in Ukraine.
A surprising opportunity
The economic tailspin of the pandemic era was partly the result of Kim’s own actions.
Kim used the pandemic to tighten his grip on North Korean society. He shut down the border with China, clamping down on trade and smuggling. He targeted the informal markets where many once eked out a living trading Chinese goods and foreign entertainment smuggled in on thumb drives; the penalties for those consuming and distributing what he deemed anti-socialist content included execution by firing squad.
These moves helped stamp out foreign influence. They also meant that what few economic opportunities ordinary North Koreans had disappeared.
“We were not allowed to make money,” one defector, who fled to South Korea in 2023, told me. “He tightened the noose on his people, as if he didn’t want them to have a better life.”
But Kim was making plans to revive the economy — and, this time, to keep it under state control. He collected wages earned by North Korean workers in China, who continued to work for the government during the pandemic. He unleashed an army of hackers to steal billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 — and Kim saw an opportunity.
North Korea’s munitions factories roared to life to supply the Russian war effort. About 16,000 North Korean troops have fought in the war. Workers were also sent to Russia to earn cash for the regime.
In exchange, Russia sent back new weapons technology, along with badly needed food, oil and tourists. The two nations even signed a mutual defense and cooperation treaty.
In 2024, North Korea’s economy is estimated to have expanded 3.7 percent, the highest growth rate in eight years.
The new Russia-North Korea partnership has undermined international sanctions efforts, which have been a crucial lever for influencing North Korea’s behavior in the past. It has also helped Kim gain leverage with China — by far North Korea’s biggest trading partner — which had earlier joined the United States in imposing severe sanctions.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, arrived in North Korea on Monday for a two-day state visit, his first in seven years. According to the Chinese government, during his meeting with Kim, Xi called for a united front between China and North Korea against American influence and offered to expand “practical cooperation” between the two countries.
Smartphone apps and spa resorts
There have been clear signs of economic improvement across North Korea in the past few years, although poverty endures outside Pyongyang.
Kim has finished some of his long-delayed pet projects, such as developing seaside, ski and spa resort towns. New apartment towers have gone up not only in Pyongyang but also in provincial cities.
In the capital itself, which was once dimly lit at night, neon signs blaze brighter than ever. High-rise apartment towers operate their elevators for at least a few hours a day, according to recent defectors and visitors. There are more gas stations and more privately owned cars. Families use smartphone apps to shop and order food delivery.
Any notion of renewing talks with President Trump on denuclearization or reconciling with South Korea seems long gone. Instead, Kim wants to be recognized as the world’s newest nuclear power. “North Korea has the most leverage today that it has had in the last 30 years,” one former Korea expert at the Pentagon said.
Addressing North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament in March, Kim spoke of a “miraculous transformation.” He pointed to manifold increases in investment and sweeping, large-scale residential construction. And he underscored what all this newfound prosperity had bought.
North Korea, he said, “is no longer a country that is susceptible to threats from others.”
Read Sang-Hun’s full story here.