When North Korea broke a three-week silence on leader Kim Jong-un’s public activity yesterday, it offered no clue as to where he had been during a period of intense global speculation about his health and whereabouts, or why he was hidden from the public for so long.
Instead, state media simply showed him surrounded by aides and appearing confident at a gleaming fertilizer factory that is believed by outside experts to be part of a secret nuclear weapons program.
While much remains a mystery about Kim’s condition, the abrupt re-emergence of the relaxed and smiling leader was an obvious choreography of key messages from the secretive government: Kim is the supreme leader in full control of a drive to improve the impoverished country’s food security and economy, amid tough international sanctions and the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: AFP
The official Rodong Sinmun yesterday devoted three of its six pages to touting Kim’s leadership, crediting him for what it called “prosperity and self-reliance.”
Reuters could not verify the accuracy of official accounts or the authenticity of pictures from the event.
The sprawling complex is the result of Kim’s vision to build a modern factory that would support agricultural production and make progress in automating its chemical industry, former North Korean premier Pak Pong-ju said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony where Kim reappeared.
Kim’s appearance at the Sunchon fertilizer plant, which official media said occurred on Friday, was an example of “field guidance” — a key part of Kim’s public persona, where he presides over a major industrial or social project event, or at military drills involving strategic weapons, such as ballistic missiles or tactical warfare.
His second public visit this year to the site 50km north of the capital, Pyongyang, included a sizeable audience of officials from the army, the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the local community. Many wore masks in an apparent precaution against the coronavirus.
“Agricultural production is a top priority, which has a direct impact on the lives of the people,” said Koh Yu-hwan, president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a South Korean government think-tank.
Kim’s sudden return was “a strategy to be in the center of world news without resorting to nuclear or missile tests,” Koh said.
The phosphate fertilizer factory in Sunchon, under construction since June 2017, has received much attention from North Korea’s leaders.
International observers have said that the plant is part of the North’s clandestine pursuit of uranium extraction for use in nuclear weapons, as the mineral can be a byproduct of making phosphate fertilizer.
There is strong evidence the factory is involved in uranium extraction, said a report this month by the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under