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North Korean dictator Kim Jongun is experiencing his most difficult year since he came to power in 2011, not because of his alleged illness, but because everything is going wrong for the regime that follows the Juci ideology. If the regime tries to get out of the well again by its own hair, it will be rude.
It is not insistent that since Kim Jongun came to power in December 2011, the year 2020 represents the greatest challenge for North Korean leaders. – writes Chad O “Carroll, publicist for North Korea News. The tightening of economic sanctions against the country in 2017 was maintained despite Kim’s two-year relaxation offensive, the crown pandemic did not spare North Korea Nor is the climate, which caused serious damage.The problems are not an existential threat to the regime, but in the short and medium term they could lead to a deterioration in living standards or even more serious problems.
Challenges
The country’s leadership expected its smile offensive in early 2018, which initially abandoned the missile experiments and then Kim Jongun met several times with South Korean President Mun Jin and US President Donald Trump. , could ease the economic sanctions in place against North Korea. 90 percent of the country’s legal exports are blocked in 2017 by stricter restrictions at the time due to weapons tests, which they were unable to change. So Kim was forced to tell the people of the country late last year that they should tighten their belts this year. That was the message he said in 2011: It will never happen again.
Due to the pandemic, the China-Russia border was closed and commercial air traffic was suspended in February. All of these have eased in recent months. The most important ports were closed at the beginning of the year, opened in March and then closed again in August. Incoming goods are either disinfected or quarantined. A public health leader told a Japanese newspaper that the border closure would be maintained as long as there is no cure for the coronavirus disease.
News also reached state media that corrupt leaders had been ousted and that major construction works had slowed down. Other economic problems have also been reported and in May it became known that the current five-year plan could not be implemented (not even on paper). This is exacerbated by rainy weather in July-August and the destruction of a medium-force typhoon that could cause food problems in 2021. The UN warns that more than 10 million North Koreans already need urgent food aid this year.
Consequences
Due to problems, priority investments are delayed: the development of a resort has been delayed for two years and the construction of the Central Hospital in Phenjan has also slowed down. There are also problems with smaller infrastructure projects, housing, and bridge construction. Meanwhile, the country’s isolation has increased after the number of foreign communities was reduced to a minimum due to the coronavirus epidemic. The number of foreigners working in the country fell by a third, leaving only three of the seven humanitarian organizations operating in North Korea.
As a result, tourism has drastically decreased. While many people came from China in 2018 and 2019, bringing the country $ 175 million in revenue, the pandemic ended it. This has led to mid-level unemployment among middle-class people who have worked in tourism, significantly making life worse for families who depend on foreign exchange earnings and bonuses distributed to state-owned companies. Food shortages triggered a shopping panic in Pyongyang in April.
It is striking that the regime has not conducted missile tests since April. It is unclear if this has to do with the pandemic and economic problems, but it cannot be ruled out that construction sites are also slipping into the weapons testing site. Late last year, early this year, they only experimented with extended-range submarine missiles.
Where is it next?
The first of the options facing the country is to depend even more on China. At the end of last year, news came that Beijing had supported the country with a million tons of grain. It makes sense for Kim to seek more help, although this would require easing trade restrictions imposed due to the epidemic, which is upsetting Pyongyang. It would also increase the regime’s dependence on neighboring superpowers.
They could strengthen ties with South Korea, which, although it does not face sanctions from the United States, that is, does not seek a relationship with its northern neighbor that will bring it significant foreign exchange gains, would be open to deepening economic ties. Seoul’s leadership is frustrated by the unpredictable Asian politics in Washington. However, the price for this would be that many South Koreans would show up in the north, posing a risk to the safety and health of the Pyongyang regime. Furthermore, measures must be taken to reduce the nuclear arsenal.
Old recipe
In exchange for much greater disarmament, the United States could reduce economic sanctions and even switch them to investment aid, but instead Pyongyang’s leaders are much more likely to scrap the old recipe, that the country itself will try to get out of the well. without help.
It did the same in the 1990s, ending the famine of hundreds of thousands of people, but the regime did not collapse. Even if this solution did not have the consequences of two decades ago, it would not only worsen the living standards of the masses of the population, but would also bring disappointing years for the middle class and the elite of the system. Therefore, the dictator would be forced to depend much more on the armed forces than in the last nine years of his reign.
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