North Korea is attempting to maintain the security of its regime by regularly replacing top officials and holding a number of national events with Kim Jong-un in his third year in office, South Korea’s unification ministry said Wednesday.
In a report to the National Assembly, the ministry also said marketization is spreading in the communist nation, although it’s still in its early stages.
“In North Korea, efforts continue to refurbish the power structure for the stabilization of the Kim Jong-un regime, which is in its third year, and to spread the mood of allegiance (to the leader),” it said.
It noted the relatively frequent change of powerful military officials, including the appointment of Hwang Pyong-so as director of the Korean People’s Army General Political Bureau in May. Last month, the Supreme People’s Assembly tapped him to double as vice chairman of the National Defense Commission.
Hwang, apparently the second-most powerful man in the country, led a special delegation to the closing ceremony of the Incheon Asian Games held last week in South Korea.
The unification ministry views the unprecedented dispatch of such a high-level delegation to the South as aimed at “shifting the phase” of inter-Korean ties.
“Through the senior-level delegation’s visit to Incheon, outwardly, North Korea tried to demonstrate its active attitude toward the improvement of South-North relations,” said the ministry.
It also said Pyongyang has sought to diversify its diplomatic channels to break its isolation amid signs of strained ties with China but “there has been no noteworthy tangible results in its external relationship so far.”
On the North’s economy, the ministry said it has shown indications of some improvement amid the spread of marketization.
“However, fundamental limits to economic recovery still exist,”
it said, citing the misuse of resources and obstacles to foreign investment mainly attributable to the country’s policy of developing nuclear weapons and the economy at the same time.
While becoming relatively flexible on social changes like mobile phone use and new fashion styles, the North has also tightened control over defections and the inflow of outside culture, according to the ministry.
The number of North Korean defector arriving to the South annually has decreased from 2,000-3,000 to around 1,500 since the launch of the Kim Jong-un regime, it said. (Yonhap)
