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Characteristics of North Korea’s Changing Strategic Lines in Recent Years: Comparative Analysis of Changes in Pyongyang’s Messages and Reshuffling of its Leadership

Characteristics of North Korea’s Changing Strategic Lines in Recent Years: Comparative Analysis of Changes in Pyongyang’s Messages and Reshuffling of its Leadership

Characteristics of North Korea’s Changing Strategic Lines in Recent Years: Comparative Analysis of Changes in Pyongyang’s Messages and Reshuffling of its Leadership

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IF2020-07E
Characteristics of North Korea’s Changing Strategic Lines in Recent Years: Comparative Analysis of Changes in Pyongyang’s Messages and Reshuffling of its Leadership
April 23, 2020
HWANG Il-do
Assistant Professor, Dept. of National Security and Unification Studies
I. Introduction
Pyongyang’s announcements of new
strategic lines in recent years have been
the source of external audiences’
inferences about North Korea’s internal
policy-making process under Kim Jong-un. The
delivered message together with a shake up of its
leadership ranks prior to and after major policy
shifts would help us understand how Kim Jong-un
is different from his predecessors in terms of his
overarching principles guiding the policy-making
process. With this as base data, it would be possible
to get a bird’s eye view of North Korea’s political
terrain in the Kim Jong-un era.
Since Kim Jong-un’s ascension to power,
Pyongyang has tailored responses to various
security and economic issues to its designated
strategic lines. From March 2013 to April 2018, the
Kim regime’s policies were firmly anchored with his
“byungjin” policy of simultaneous development of
the economy and nuclear weapons capabilities.
Until April 2019, North Korea’s actions had been
guided by the Kim Jong-un’s re-stating of a new
strategic line that prioritizes economic
development. And from that point onward, North
Korea’s policy and propaganda efforts have been
focused on supporting the strategic line Kim
Jong-un set out calling for North Koreans to break
through barriers and to foster a self-reliant
economy.
In tackling security issues, North Korea’s
changing strategic lines can loosely be grouped into
the following timeline: a period of rapid
advancement in its nuclear and missile capabilities
from 2016 to 2017; a period of inter-Korean and the
U.S.-North Korea dialogue; and the impasse after
the 2019 U.S.-North Korean summit in Hanoi
ended without any deal or agreement. In the
economic domain, the Kim Jong-un regime has
shown a clear indication of making progress toward
the Cabinet’s stronger control and responsibility as
finalized at the Plenary Meeting of the Central
Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea convened
at the end of 2019.
Ⅱ. Analytical Framework
Ⅲ. Application to Recent Developments: In Security and Economic Domains
Ⅳ. Assessments

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