North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament has passed a budget that sustains a high level of defense spending despite economic troubles as leader Kim Jong-un pushes for an aggressive expansion of his nuclear arsenal amid stalled diplomacy.
State media reports indicated that Kim did not attend the Supreme People’s Assembly’s two-day session that ended on Wednesday. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) did not mention any comments by assembly members toward the US or South Korea in its report of the meetings.
The assembly convened weeks after Kim called for an “exponential increase” of nuclear warheads, mass production of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons targeting “enemy” South Korea and the development of more advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the US mainland.
Photo: AP
His statements last month during a major political conference underscored an intensifying nuclear standoff with the US and its allies in Asia after he pushed North Korea’s weapons tests to a record pace last year.
North Korea fired more than 70 missiles last year, including multiple intercontinental ballistic missile launches, and conducted a series of tests it described as simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean and US targets.
Analysts say Kim’s aggressive arms expansion and escalatory nuclear doctrine are aimed at forcing the US to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power, and to negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength.
KCNA said the assembly’s members projected overall state spending would increase by 1.7 percent this year, but made no mention of the actual size of the budget.
The assembly’s members devoted 15.9 percent of this year’s national budget to defense spending, the same proportion as last year, to support efforts on “further bolstering up the war deterrence both in quality and quantity,” and “defending the dignity and security of the country and the people,” KCNA said.
It is difficult to gauge how much money North Korea would be spending on its military capabilities, considering the poor quality of the limited statistics it discloses.
North Korea possibly spent about US$4 billion on defense in 2019, which would have amounted to 26 percent of its estimated GDP, the highest proportion among 170 nations reviewed, according to the US Department of State’s 2021 World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers report.
KCNA’s report on the assembly meetings hinted that North Korea was struggling to revive a moribund economy battered by mismanagement, US-led sanctions over Kim’s nuclear ambitions and COVID-19-related border closures.
North Korean Minister of Finance Ko Jong-bom lamented unspecified shortcomings in raising tax revenues from state companies. He called for economic workers to strengthen their “ideological resolve” and put broader national interests before the interests of their specific units, KCNA said.
The assembly’s members also passed a new law aimed at protecting the “cultured” dialect specific to the Pyongyang region, apparently the nation’s latest step to stem South Korean and other foreign cultural influences.
They also discussed strengthening the surveillance activities of the Central Public Prosecutor’s Office to establish “revolutionary law-abiding spirit,” underscoring how Kim’s government continues to strengthen its control of its people in the face of the deepening economic challenges.
Kim last appeared at the assembly in September last year, when he defiantly stated his nation would never abandon the nuclear weapons he clearly sees as his strongest guarantee of survival.
The assembly’s members then passed legislation that authorized pre-emptive nuclear attacks in a broad range of scenarios where it might perceive its leadership as under threat, which included conventional clashes or conflicts that would not necessarily amount to war.
Alarmed by the growing North Korean nuclear threat, South Korea and Japan are scrambling to strengthen their defense postures in conjunction with their alliances with the US.
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