Kim Jong-un At Critical Juncture Into His Decade Long Rule

Too young. Too weak. Too inexperienced. Since taking power following his father’s sudden death 10 years ago this week, Kim Jong Un has erased those widespread doubts that greeted his early attempts to extend his family’s dynastic grip over North Korea, Associated Press (AP) analyst Kim Tong-hyung wrote.

Photo Insert: Kim Jong-un visiting Berlin

Early predictions about a regency, a collective leadership or a military coup were crushed. The ruthless consolidation of power, together with a larger-than-life personality seemingly made for carefully packaged TV propaganda, has allowed Kim to make clear that his authority is absolute.

But as North Korea’s first millennial dictator marks a decade in rule this Friday, he may be facing his toughest moment yet, as crushing sanctions, the pandemic and growing economic trouble converge.

If Kim can’t uphold his public pledge to develop both nukes and his moribund economy, something many experts see as impossible, it could spell trouble for his long-term rule.

The modest economic growth he achieved for several years through trade and market-oriented reforms was followed by a tightening of international sanctions since 2016, when Kim accelerated his pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles targeting the United States and its Asian allies.

South Korea’s spy agency recently told lawmakers that North Korea’s annual trade with China declined by two-thirds to $185 million through September 2021. North Korean officials are also alarmed by food shortages, soaring goods prices, and a lack of medicine and other essential supplies that have accelerated the spread of water-borne diseases like typhoid fever, according to lawmakers briefed by the agency.

Talks with the United States are in limbo. The Biden administration, whose pullout from Afghanistan underscored a shift in US focus from counterterrorism and so-called rogue states like North Korea and Iran to confronting China, has not offered much more than open-ended talks.

The North has so far rejected the overture, saying Washington must first abandon its “hostile policy,” a term Pyongyang mainly uses to refer to sanctions and US-South Korea military exercises.

“North Korea is not going to surrender its nuclear weapons, no matter what,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “The only topic they are willing to talk about is not the pipe dream of denuclearization but rather issues related to arms control.”

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