It has been 40 years since Kim Jong-un was born on January 8, 1984 in Wonsan, Gangwon Province, and he has entered his 13th year in power.
Some people ask why January 8 has not become a holiday and a public holiday on the North Korean calendar, like February 16 (Kim Jong-il's birthday, the Shining Star Festival) and April 15 (Kim Il-sung's birthday, the Sun Festival)? The answer is simple, because the two "nation's biggest festivals" mentioned above are posthumous events, and Kim Jong-un is at his peak in the Spring and Autumn Period, and it is not yet time to make his birthday a holiday, just as there is no need to think about "succession" at present.
As mentioned in yesterday's article, Kim Jong-un is very busy after entering 2024, which can be described as non-stop. According to North Korean media reports on January 10, Kim Jong-un inspected some "important military factories" on the 8th and 9th. This can be described as a "meaningful birthday".
The 40-year-old marshal was in high spirits and still kept his cigarette in his hand
Judging from the situation of the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee, North Korea will still "develop economic construction and national defense construction at the same time" in 2024, which is also reflected in the current inspection itinerary of Kim Jong-un - since the new year, Kim Jong-un's inspection has basically balanced the economy and national defense. In addition to still capturing the huge "12 economic highlands", military projects such as reconnaissance satellites, various types of missiles, and naval development are the focus of national defense construction, including the mass production of nuclear weapons and various types of missiles that will continue from 2023. Although there is no mention of a "geometric progression-like increase" this year, from the point of view of continuity, this year's mass production of weapons, especially missiles, is still on a huge scale. This is also reflected in the North Korean media reports on Kim Jong-un's inspection of the military factories, which called the New Year's task of these military factories "a battle to tackle huge production targets in the new year", and the pictures released fully show the density of equipment products, highlighting the word "many" (below), and even making the figures of the marshal and the elders very small.
According to Kim Jong-un, this year is a "year of great changes in the strengthening of the country's combat readiness," and the focus will be on the mass production of weapons and equipment. There is an incentive for this, that is, the seventh enlarged meeting of the Eighth Military Commission in August 2023. The core of the meeting was "the plan for the formation of front-line combat groups and their operational tasks," and the main points were threefold -- First, under the premise that there is an incident on the peninsula, the front-line combat groups should be further strengthened in terms of "absolute superiority in military strategy, tactics, and military strength"; second, they should be equipped and deployed with new types of weapons and equipment to expand and possess more striking means for "carrying out the mission of war deterrence"; and third, military industrial enterprises should produce all kinds of weapons and equipment in large quantities in accordance with the above-mentioned requirements. These points embody the DPRK's military strategic intention, that is, to "suppress the enemy's use of forces in advance and destroy all forms of the enemy's offensive actions in the event of a war." To put it in layman's terms, once a fight starts, it will smash down thousands of artillery pieces and thousands of bullets in one go, and pour a "rain of iron" on the enemy's head.
At that meeting, Kim Jong-un also proposed targets for building up the production capacity of weapons and equipment and specific production plans, with a focus on "improving quality and increments." Since then, we have seen a situation in which there are two streams of North Korea's weapons and equipment, one is that most of it is for its own use, and the other is for the export of surplus parts, which is roughly the real purpose of the mass production of North Korea's weapons and equipment.
At the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, North Korea defined North-South relations as "state-to-state" relations and declared that it would "calm the South when something happens." This positioning, combined with the series of actions made by North Korea since the New Year, gives people the impression that the situation is tense and that war is imminent. Personally, I think there are two points that are more important -
First, it reaffirmed that "this entity" of South Korea is the "most hostile country" of North Korea, stressed that North Korea must "truthfully recognize this inevitable and irreversible reality", and proposed to take the initiative to deal with the new situation and resolutely deal with all historical issues.
At present, the United States is "the greatest enemy of the Korean revolution" and South Korea is "the most hostile country." Literally, it's pretty much the same, but the actual meaning is very different. To put it simply, in the future, the spearhead will mainly be aimed at South Korea, and the board will also be hit on South Korea, but when South Korea is beaten, the eyes are fixed on the United States, and the so-called "beating the dog to see the master" is what South Koreans usually call "the United States and sealing South Korea."
Since the beginning of the New Year, the DPRK has been beating the ROK on the one hand and showing goodwill to Japan on the other, so some ROK official think tanks believe that in addition to the tactic of "blocking the ROK through the United States," the DPRK has also played a big chess game of "blocking the ROK through Japan." Whether it is "connecting the United States and sealing South Korea" or "connecting Japan and sealing South Korea", the purpose is to bring the DPRK-US relations under the framework of DPRK-US relations (I have expressed this view many times before).
After the collapse in Hanoi in 2019, North Korea excluded South Korea from the DPRK-US relationship as a spectator between the DPRK and the United States, hoping to replace the previous third-party involvement with direct links between the DPRK and the United States. However, judging from the development of the situation, in addition to direct contact, it is obvious that the DPRK and the United States need an appropriate third party to mediate between them, and when both the left and right sides of South Korea are isolated from the DPRK-US relations, Japan has become the best choice. US-Japan relations are visible to everyone on the water, and DPRK-Japan relations are not as simple as the DPRK media scolding Japan every day. At the beginning of the new year, Kim Jong-un sent a message of condolences to Fumio Kishida, the earthquake in Japan is just a beginning, but the inevitable result of the private progress of Korea-Japan relations to a certain extent, remember last year Kishida took the initiative to extend an olive branch to Kim Jong-un?
For the DPRK, the improvement of DPRK-Japan relations can be a kind of lubricant for improving DPRK-US relations, which is much more useful than that of South Korea. Therefore, in addition to "Tongmei and South Korea", add a "Tongri and South Korea", in short, the most uncomfortable now should be South Korea under Yoon Suk-yeol.
Second, he stressed that North Korea does not want to go to war with South Korea, but it has never intended to avoid war, and Kim Jong-un's exact words are that "we will not unilaterally and resolutely carry out a major event on the Korean Peninsula with overwhelming power, but we have no intention of avoiding war at all" (KCNA's official Chinese version; there are some problems with the translation of the second half of the sentence). At the same time, Kim Jong-un once again stressed that once South Korea takes the lead in using force against North Korea, North Korea will take advantage of the situation to "mobilize all means and forces in its hands to completely sweep away the Republic of Korea."
Against the backdrop of a series of actions at the beginning of the new year, Kim Jong-un's statement is actually a strong message to the outside world. Whether it is artillery bombardment or explosives, it is just "daily training." Whose military is not routinely trained? Which country's military personnel do not train? Therefore, the DPRK's actions are normal operations, not for the purpose of "resolutely carrying out a major incident." This is a concrete measure taken by Kim Jong-un to personally control the situation and prevent the other side, especially the United States, from misjudging him.
In other words, the first half of Kim Jong-un's original sentence above "will not fight" is for the United States, and the second half of the sentence "will not evade war" is for South Korea, and the intention is roughly two-first, to let the United States hold down Yoon Suk-yeol, and second, to let Yoon Suk-yeol restrain those "military hooligans of the Republic of Korea" under him. So, what is the purpose? Of course, it is intended to improve DPRK-US relations. You see, since the New Year, North Korea has been pressing South Korea the one hand, and on the other hand, it has shown goodwill to Japan, while the United States seems to have suddenly ceased to exist in the past few days, why?
Personally, I believe that, at the very least, the hands of the DPRK and the United States are probably reaching each other's sleeves at this time.