Category: North Korea

Has Kim Yo-jong’s profile risen too much that her brother is trying to now reduce it or have intelligence analysts just been wrong about her status?:

 The demotion of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister at an ongoing party congress is raising questions over whether it signals any change in her status in the top echelons of power.

During the sixth-day session of the party’s eighth congress in Pyongyang on Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, the leader’s younger sister, was not listed as a member nor as an alternate member of the party’s politburo, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Her absence on the politburo list drew a sharp contrast with South Korean intelligence authorities’ assessment that the younger Kim is “the de facto No. 2 leader” steering overall state affairs. They earlier predicted that she would be elevated to a higher party rank in the party congress.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is just a prelude to probably what is coming up, a crisis manufactured by North Korea to test the incoming Biden administration:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called the United States the “foremost principal enemy” of his country, threatening to continue advancing its nuclear capabilities, state media said Saturday.

Kim also said Washington’s policy against Pyongyang won’t change regardless of who is in the White House, adding that “key to establishing new relationship” between the two countries “lies in the U.S. withdrawal of its hostile policy towards” North Korea, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim made the remarks reporting to the eighth congress of the ruling Workers’ Party currently under way in Pyongyang, the North’s first reference to transition of power in Washington since Joe Biden’s election as U.S. president in November.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As long as North Korea continues to put the vast majority of their resources into their military and nuclear weapons program they are never going to develop their economy. This apparently is okay with Kim Jong-un:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his five-year economic plan had failed to meet its goals “on almost every sector” as he kicked off a congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, state media KCNA reported on Wednesday.

The rare political gathering, which Kim last hosted in 2016, has drawn international attention as he is expected to unveil a new five-year economic plan and address inter-Korean ties and foreign policy. The congress, attended by 4,750 delegates and 2,000 spectators, comes just two weeks before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

In his opening speech, Kim said the country had achieved a “miraculous victory” by bolstering its power and global prestige since the last meeting, referring to military advances that culminated in successful tests in 2017 of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland and a series of meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump.

But the five-year economic strategy he set forth in 2016 had failed to deliver, he said, urging North Korea’s greater self-reliance.

“The strategy was due last year but it tremendously fell short of goals on almost every sector,” Kim said, according to KCNA.

In his 2016 plan, Kim called for accelerating economic growth and expanding domestic sources of energy, including nuclear power, to boost electricity supplies. He also underscored the “byungjin” policy of parallel development of nuclear weapons and the economy.

Reuters

You can read more at the link, but for the Kim regime to remain in power they have to maintain their threatening military capability. If North Korea did not have the military capability to destroy Seoul with their artillery and threaten the U.S. and its regional allies with nukes they would not be taken seriously.

The U.S. can have a good relationship any time it wants with North Korea by giving them everything that they want like dropping sanctions, removing USFK, and letting them keep their nuclear weapons:

North Korea wants to forge a good relationship with the United States, according to a Wall Street Journal report, Thursday (local time), raising speculation that Pyongyang may return to nuclear talks with Washington.

The media outlet said the reclusive state first reached out to a European Parliament Committee days ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Nov. 3, and Lukas Mandl, head of the European Parliament delegation, had a one-hour virtual meeting with the North Korean ambassador to Berlin in December. 

The report also said that the diplomat repeatedly stressed the North wanted to have good relations with the U.S. should the U.S. abandon its hostile policy against his country, but the North’s stance was not negative, given that the North did not represent a darkening in its position on the incoming Joe Biden administration. Kim Jong-un has remained quiet on Biden’s election. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Over in Newsweek Rabbi Abraham Cooper and human rights activist Greg Scarlatoiu have a response to Pyongyang’s mouthpiece in America, Christine Ahn who is demanding the Biden administration give in to all of North Korea’s demands:

The truth is that no one has the answer to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula. But caving to tyrants’ demands isn’t an option. North Korea is ruled by a regime that joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty, then withdrew and developed nuclear weapons. The Kim regime commits crimes against its own people and citizens of other countries. By entering a peace treaty and normalizing relations with a criminal regime in possession of nuclear weapons, the U.S. would be creating a precedent and blueprint for other tyrants: brutalize your subjects, develop weapons of mass destruction and the U.S. and the world will blink.

Newsweek via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but giving in to North Korea’s demands is more than setting a precedent. Giving in also means advancing North Korea’s strategy of ending the U.S.-ROK alliance and establishing their confederation policy with them in charge of the peninsula.