Bruce W. Bennett* says Kim Jong Un’s sudden admission of the dire pandemic situation in North Korea may be a ploy to secure more Chinese and Russian aid.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a disaster for North Korea.
Recently its leader, Kim Jong Un warned that his country faced the “worst-ever” situation.
He said this situation was creating conditions like the ‘Arduous March’ North Korea faced with the famine of the late-1990s when millions of North Koreans reportedly died from widespread hunger.
At first sight it is surprising that the leader of North Korea would admit such dire circumstances; circumstances which at face value suggest major failures on his part.
However, Kim is once again refusing to accept responsibility for his bad choices, and is making the results seem more dire than they are in reality.
Yes, the situation may be terrible in North Korea, but there is no evidence to suggest that North Korea’s economic situation is nearly as dire as the Arduous March of the 1990s.
For some time Kim denied he had a Coronavirus problem, but there was considerable evidence that this claim was never true.
However, he could not afford to have a major spread of the Coronavirus because the decrepit North Korean health care system would be unable to handle it.
So Kim closed the borders, blocking trade that would normally provide badly needed food, energy, funds, and other goods.
While the international sanctions on North Korea had cut its exports significantly, the border closure ended its much-needed imports, especially from China.
This had a greater overall impact than the sanctions.
Despite bad weather, North Korea’s food harvest was down only five per cent in 2020.
In his January Workers Party Congress, Kim admitted the failures of the North Korean economy, but turned to his normal scapegoating of other parties and situations.
However, the country’s economic problems must rest squarely on Kim.
The United Nations and United States sanctions have been applied because Kim defied the United Nations by continuing and even expanding its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs.
Kim has spent his country’s scarce resources on armaments well beyond the military capabilities he needs to deter outside intervention.
He has done this rather than providing food for his people or improved health care.
He is not even telling his people that Coronavirus vaccines have been developed, and although his country periodically experiences heavy rains, he has not built the infrastructure required to protect his people against these predictable events.
Kim knows that the major problem in North Korea is official corruption and mismanagement, yet he has not addressed the conditions underlying this corruption.
So why is Kim admitting that dire circumstances are developing in the North?
We do not know for sure, but it appears he is hopeful he can convince the Chinese and Russians that North Korea is becoming increasingly unstable and thus dangerous.
China has historically moderated its demands on North Korea despite providing it with major subsidies, fearing that North Korean instability could create a major threat to its own security.
Kim appears to be hoping that China will accept Kim’s alarmist declaration and provide North Korea increased sanctions relief.
Kim is likely also to want China to focus on the North Korean economic difficulties and not on the growing North Korean nuclear weapon threat.
At some point, the international community may need to induce Kim to face responsibility for his choices.
Kim could fix his problems by freezing his nuclear weapon production as a first step toward his promised denuclearisation.
Such an action could gain him significant sanctions relief and shift the resources being wasted on nuclear weapons to taking care of the North Korean people.
*Bruce W. Bennett is a senior international and defence researcher at the RAND Corporation. He can be contacted at [email protected]
An earlier version of this article was published on the website of the United States Centre for the National Interest.
