North Korea: Kim names South Korea “most hostile country”

EA peaceful reunification of the North with South Korea is now more unlikely than ever since the division of Korea after the Second World War. Under the impression of the ever-deepening alliance between Seoul and Washington, North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un has now given up on what was until recently an official political goal.

In a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly on Monday, Kim increased his country's war preparedness and declared South Korea the “most hostile country.” He also ordered the destruction of a disused railway line between North and South Korea. Kim announced that he would enshrine appropriate steps in the constitution. Nevertheless, Kim said North Korea would “never start an unprovoked war.”

Kim's comments followed artillery fire in recent days in the immediate vicinity of the disputed maritime demarcation line. South Korea responded with its own maneuvers. Kim's announcement wasn't entirely unexpected. Back in December, he declared reunification with South Korea to be “impossible”. Kim on Monday declared the de facto maritime border drawn after the 1953 Korean War illegal, saying that if South Korea “violates even 0.001 millimeters of our land, airspace and water, it will be viewed as a provocation of war.”

Kim is said to have made the decision for war

Kim emphasized his country's far-reaching nuclear doctrine, according to which Pyongyang reserves the right to launch a nuclear first strike against non-nuclear states such as South Korea if it detects signs of war. “We don’t want war, but we have no intention of avoiding one either,” Kim said.

Observers were initially divided as to whether the announcements indicated an increased risk of war on the Korean island. In an article on the specialist portal 38 North, the two North Korea experts Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker wrote that the situation on the Korean peninsula is more dangerous than ever since the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. Kim Jong-un made the strategic decision for war, write Carlin and Hecker, who know North Korea firsthand and are not exactly known as political hawks.

When or how Kim “plans to pull the trigger, we don’t know,” they continue. However, if people in Seoul or Washington believe that Kim knows that an attack by his side would mean the end of his regime, then that would be a “fundamental misjudgment” that would lead to a “disaster.”

Kim admits economic failure

Between 1990 and 2019, North Korea pursued the strategic goal of normalizing relations with the USA, but Washington did not reciprocate, according to Carlin and Hecker. The Kim regime then came to the conclusion that this policy had failed. The former American special representative for North Korea, Syd Seiler, said, however, that Kim had neither the “motivation” for war nor were there “visible movements that would support such an assessment.” Kim's rhetoric and “the threat of action serve Kim more than real actions,” Seiler wrote on Platform X.

Significant parts of Kim's speech also dealt with plans to improve the living conditions of North Koreans. Kim admitted that decades of North Korean policies had failed to advance the country economically. Kim promised “modern industrial factories in twenty regions every year,” state news agency KCNA reported. Currently, “no rural factory meets the standards of the time.”

Kim complained about a wealth gap between the capital Pyongyang and the rural regions. The city of Kaesong, near the demarcation line with South Korea, should be the first to benefit from this program, Kim said. “This is another huge change and revolution, not just empty words, to eliminate the centuries-old backwardness of the regions.”

Judging by the regime's behavior so far, Kim's messages could also be a new attempt to extract concessions, attention or food supplies from abroad. The USA and South Korea have not addressed this for a long time and are relying on deterrence. “His threat to us to choose between war and peace will no longer work,” said South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in an initial reaction.