North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to lift living standards as he opened a landmark congress, state media said yesterday, offering a glimpse of economic strains within the sanctions-hit nation.
Kim took center stage with a speech to start the Workers’ Party congress, a gathering that directs state efforts on everything from house building to war planning.
Held just once every five years, the days-long congress offers a rare glimpse into the workings of a nation where even mundane details are shrouded in secrecy.
Photo: Korean Central News Agency via Reuters
“Today, our party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people’s standard of living, and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible,” Kim said. “This requires us to wage a more active and persistent struggle without allowing even a moment’s standstill or stagnation.”
For decades, nuclear weapons and military prowess came before everything else in North Korea, even as food stocks dried up and famine took hold. However, since assuming power in 2011, Kim has stressed the need to also fortify the impoverished nation’s economy.
At the last party congress in 2021, Kim made an extremely rare admission that mistakes had been made in “almost all areas” of economic development.
Analysts believed such language is designed to head off public discontent stirred by food shortages, military spending and Pyongyang’s continued support for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
North Korea had overcome its “worst difficulties” in the last five years, and was now entering a new stage of “optimism and confidence in the future,” Kim said.
Its economy has for years languished under heavy Western sanctions that aim to choke off funding for its nuclear weapons program, but Pyongyang refuses to surrender its atomic arsenal.
Kim has already declared this year’s congress would unveil the next phase in the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
Thousands of party elites packed the cavernous House of Culture in Pyongyang for the opening day of the congress.
It is just the ninth time the Workers’ Party congress has convened under the Kim family’s decades-long rule.
The ruling parties of China and Russia sent friendly messages to mark the start of the meeting.
“In recent years, under the strategic guidance of the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, China-DPRK relations have entered a new historical period,” a telegram from the Chinese Communist Party said, using the official acronym for North Korea.
NON-NEGOTIABLE: The US president’s action ran counter to one of the US’ ‘six assurances’ on not consulting China about arms sales to Taiwan, US lawmakers said US President Donald Trump’s admission that he is discussing arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is “alarming and a blatant violation of US policy and the six assurances,” US Representative Ro Khanna said on Tuesday. Trump on Monday said he would decide soon on whether to send more weapons to Taiwan, after Xi warned him not to do so. “I’m talking to him about it. We had a good conversation, and we’ll make a determination pretty soon,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked about warnings raised by Beijing during a phone call with Xi over
REAL EMERGENCIES: To avoid overcrowding, the health minister urged people with mild or moderate symptoms to go to UCCs, while the ER should be for critical cases President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday inspected the nation’s Lunar New Year medical preparedness with a visit to an urgent care center (UCC) in Taipei and expressed confidence in the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s plans to prevent emergency room (ER) overcrowding during the nine-day holiday. The ministry in November last year launched a pilot UCC program to provide urgent medical care at 13 clinics in the nation’s six special municipalities over weekends and on holidays, aimed at relieving pressure on crowded ERs. To ease ER overcrowding during the Lunar New Year, when most hospitals and primary care clinics are closed, the National
HOLIDAY RUSH: Airport passenger volume is expected to reach a new high, while southbound road traffic would likely peak from Tuesday As Lunar New Year travelers flock overseas, passenger traffic at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is expected to shatter records, as Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC, 桃園國際機場), Taiwan’s largest aviation hub operator, projected yesterday’s passenger volume to climb to 167,000. The figure comes after a record single-day high of 161,000 passengers on Thursday, and would surpass the previous pre-COVID-19 pandemic Lunar New Year peak of 166,000 passengers in 2019, TIAC said. Long lines could be seen forming as early as 7am yesterday, filling Terminal 1 of the airport almost to capacity, yet security checks took only 10 to 15 minutes. TIAC urged
VACILLATING? Some US officials are concerned that Trump’s April visit to Beijing might be affected if Washington pushes through additional weapons sales to Taiwan A major US arms sales package for Taiwan is in limbo following pressure from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and concerns among some US officials that greenlighting the deal would derail US President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to Bejing, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Wednesday. Trump on Monday said that he would decide soon on whether to send more weapons to Taiwan, after Xi warned him not to do so. “I’m talking to him about it. We had a good conversation, and we’ll make a determination pretty soon,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked about warnings raised
RSS