[New Year Special Commentary Series - EAI Prospects and Strategies for Korean Diplomacy 2021] IV. The 8th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea: North Korea's Next Five Years Stand Still

Editor's Note

As the fourth report in the New Year Special Commentary series "EAI Prospects and Strategies for Korean Diplomacy 2021," a commentary by EAI Chairman Ha Young-sun (Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University) predicting North Korea's next five years based on the 8th Party Congress has been published. Analyzing the North Korean Party Congress report, the author presents North Korea's self-assessment of its past five years' tasks and points out the limitations of North Korea looking to the future through the lens of the past. The commentary predicts that North Korea's five-year economic plan will face difficulties due to ongoing economic sanctions and the limitations of self-reliance. It warns that the continuous strengthening of defense capabilities, including nuclear weapons, will lead to the enhancement of the opposing side's defense capabilities, thus creating a self-contradiction that weakens security. Meanwhile, it suggests a long-term cautious approach as a measure for improving inter-Korean relations. Regarding North Korea-U.S. relations, it anticipates the challenge of the U.S. new administration's demand for complete denuclearization, including freeze, verification, and comprehensive reporting, which contradicts North Korea's demands for sanctions relief and regime guarantees. The author argues that to successfully overcome the triple challenges of economic sanctions, health crises, and natural disasters that North Korea will continuously face over the next five years, it must move beyond 19th-century survival strategies like strengthening the three revolutionary capabilities and develop a new 21st-century strategy for coexistence, denuclearization, survival, and prosperity.

The 8th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea, which will guide North Korea for the next five years until the 9th Congress, has been held. Chairman Kim Jong-un delivered a report reviewing the subjective and objective factors that hindered North Korea's progress over the past five years since the 7th Party Congress, outlining the struggle and methods to innovate all current party and state affairs and advance North Korean socialism to the next stage of victory. However, the report was structured with the framework and language of the revolutionary line that emerged in the mid-1960s, replacing the war line, and thus did not significantly depart from the limitation of viewing the future through the lens of the past. The report covers, first, the achievements of the past five years since the 7th Party Congress; second, the progress of socialist construction domestically; and third, the development of unified independence and foreign relations.

The report first summarizes the difficulties and achievements in politics, economy, military, and diplomacy over the past five years. In the political-ideological field, it emphasizes "people-centered leadership" as the core of its guiding ideology. Next, in the field of economic construction, it assesses that "although the projected strategic goals were not met," valuable foundations have been laid for continued economic development through self-reliance. In the military field, it details achievements in strengthening nuclear war deterrence and self-defense capabilities, particularly elaborating on efforts to modernize nuclear weapons. It evaluates these efforts as having "propelled our country to become a globally recognized nuclear and military power, permanently ending the era when major powers could arbitrarily negotiate our nation's and people's interests." This demonstrates how difficult it is for North Korea to accept complete denuclearization, contrary to our hopeful expectations. In the diplomatic field, it states that "due to the desperate offensive of the United States and the desperate blockade maneuvers of the forces following it, the external environment surrounding our Republic during the total period was more severe than ever before in its history." It further claims that the Party Central Committee "organized and led agile diplomatic activities to create a peace trend that the international community sympathizes with, foster an atmosphere for dialogue, and enhance the Republic's international standing through bold line shifts and offensive strategies." Accordingly, it evaluates North Korea-China, North Korea-Russia, and North Korea-U.S. relations from the perspective of strengthening international revolutionary forces.

Subsequently, it reviews the tasks in the fields of economy, national defense, science and technology, and culture for a groundbreaking advancement in North Korean socialist construction. First, to establish the national economic development five-year strategy starting in 2021, it reviews the economic shortcomings of the past five years, attributing them objectively to "the worst, barbaric sanctions and blockade maneuvers enforced by the United States and hostile forces," "severe natural disasters," and "the prolonged global health crisis," and subjectively to the deficiencies in the economic development five-year strategy and outdated work systems and methods. Therefore, the new five-year economic plan aims to restore and reorganize the organic relationship between economic work systems and their components, solidify the self-reliant foundation, and achieve sustained economic growth and a marked improvement in people's lives, unswayed by external influences. However, despite the clear limitations of overcoming the international economic sanctions, health crises, and natural disasters that will continue during the five-year plan period solely through self-reliant efforts, it fails to present desirable solutions.

The report next emphasizes the strengthening of national defense capabilities. It states, "As long as imperialism remains on Earth and the danger of war of aggression by hostile forces against our country persists, the historic mission of our revolutionary armed forces can never change, and our national defense capabilities must be continuously strengthened along a new path of development." It mentions the miniaturization and lightening of nuclear weapons, the development of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, and the possession of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines as means of nuclear delivery, as well as research and development of advanced weapons and military satellites. It declares that the strengthening of these national defense capabilities will continue until the military buildup by the United States and hostile forces ceases and the threats and intimidation against North Korea end. However, the continuous strengthening of national defense capabilities will lead to the enhancement of the opposing side's defense capabilities, creating a self-contradiction that weakens security over time. Simultaneously, the excessive strengthening of military power, including nuclear capabilities, will prolong international economic sanctions and lead to a surge in inefficient investments, ultimately resulting in the weakening of overall domestic capabilities.

Chairman Kim Jong-un's report emphasizes that by promoting science and technology, the core of socialist construction, and creating a "Juche-style civilization" as a new flowering of socialist culture, along with developing corresponding state and social systems, North Korea can demonstrate the superiority and power of its own brand of socialism even under difficult circumstances.

The report's next topic is the development of independent unification and foreign relations. Chairman Kim Jong-un stated, "Our nation stands at a critical crossroads: whether to resolve the serious stalemate in inter-Korean relations and move towards peace and unification, or to continue to suffer the pain of division amidst a vicious cycle of confrontation and the risk of war." He declared a principled stance: "We must adopt an approach and attitude to resolve fundamental issues in inter-Korean relations, cease all hostile acts against the other party, and earnestly implement the inter-Korean declarations." Therefore, North Korea emphasized that South Korea should not propose non-fundamental issues such as cooperation on epidemic prevention, humanitarian cooperation, or individual tourism, but rather should resolve fundamental issues for peace on the Korean Peninsula, such as the cessation of advanced military equipment deployment and the suspension of ROK-U.S. joint military exercises, to open a new path for inter-Korean relations based on trust and reconciliation.

From North Korea's perspective, it is emphasized that its defense capabilities must be strengthened as long as threats from hostile forces persist. However, from the perspective of South Korea and the United States, they too must strengthen their defense capabilities as long as threats, including North Korea's nuclear weapons, exist. Therefore, North Korea's demands reveal self-contradictory limitations. To overcome these difficulties, historical experiences in international politics offer several fundamental principles. Firstly, in a stage where even "confidence-building measures for trust-building" are met with mutual distrust, as is the case between North and South Korea, non-essential issues that North Korea does not prioritize are extremely important as the first step in resolving essential issues. Secondly, for the essence of peace on the Korean Peninsula, a substantive agreement must be reached on complete denuclearization by North Korea and security guarantees for North Korea. Thirdly, in the process of forging new inter-Korean relations, to prevent a vicious cycle, a minimum mutual deterrence system must be maintained, economic cooperation should be increased, and efforts should be made to contribute to the establishment of future-oriented strategies for survival and prosperity.

Meanwhile, regarding the development of foreign relations, it first outlines the overall direction: "We will consistently adhere to a strategy of confronting powerful adversaries and great powers wielding coercive force with strength." It then lists important principles to uphold. First, firmly uphold the principle of self-reliance to protect national interests. Second, pursue diplomacy offensively for sovereignty and the right to development. Third, focus foreign policy activities on subjugating and defeating the United States, the primary enemy and the greatest obstacle to revolutionary development. Fourth, regardless of who is president, the reality of the United States and its fundamental policy toward North Korea remain unchanged; therefore, strategically formulate U.S. policy and continue to expand solidarity with anti-imperialist and self-reliant forces.

North Korea's core foreign policy, its policy toward the United States, will critically influence North Korea over the next five years. The newly elected President Joe Biden is taking a more cautious approach, strongly criticizing President Trump's North Korea policy. First, instead of one-sided, top-down diplomacy like the Trump-Kim summits, he will place relative emphasis on bottom-up diplomacy. Second, Biden, who emphasizes U.S. leadership over "America First," will prioritize multilateral negotiations, such as the Six-Party Talks, to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue in conjunction with relevant parties.

Third, while the ultimate goal is denuclearization, discussions on a nuclear freeze will be initiated first. However, a nuclear freeze can serve as an intermediate stepping stone, but negotiations for a nuclear freeze will not proceed without trust in the ultimate goal of complete denuclearization. Therefore, the U.S. will only engage in nuclear freeze negotiations if North Korea provides comprehensive reporting of all nuclear facilities and capabilities, thereby building trust that it has made a strategic decision for complete denuclearization. As seen at the Hanoi Summit, the Kim Jong-un regime may negotiate partial denuclearization, but it has never made a strategic decision to abandon its nuclear arsenal necessary for regime security, nor will it easily do so in the future. Meanwhile, if complete denuclearization is difficult immediately, the U.S. is demanding at least comprehensive reporting and verification. Consequently, intense negotiations are inevitable between North Korea's desired sanctions relief and regime guarantees, and the U.S.'s desired freeze, comprehensive reporting, and verification. Fourth, the Biden administration, emphasizing democracy, believes that North Korea needs indigenous efforts to make the final decision toward denuclearization. For this, information about the rapidly changing world order is critically important, thus raising the issue of freer information flow within North Korea.

If North Korea responds to the Biden administration's North Korea policy based on its future fundamental stance on foreign policy, serious discussions on sanctions relief and regime guarantees, which North Korea desperately needs, will realistically be impossible. Facing the triple challenges of economic sanctions, health crises, and natural disasters for the next five years, North Korea must move beyond the past perspective of strengthening the three revolutionary capabilities and formulate a new survival and prosperity strategy from a 21st-century future perspective. The Asia-Pacific region, where the Korean Peninsula is located, is entering a period of significant order reconstruction under the dual impacts of the global spread of COVID-19 and the strategic competition between the U.S. and China. North Korea must also move beyond 19th-century self-reliance towards 21st-century coexistence, develop a new blueprint that combines indigenous efforts for a denuclearized North Korea with the co-evolutionary cooperation of relevant parties, and emerge as a new protagonist in the new Asia-Pacific order. ■

■ Author: Ha Young-sun_Chairman of EAI, Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University. He served as a member of the Senior Advisory Council for the Inter-Korean Summit Preparation Committee and the Presidential National Security Advisory Council. He holds a bachelor's and master's degree in Diplomacy from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. in International Politics from the University of Washington, USA. He was a professor in the Department of Diplomacy at Seoul National University (1980-2012) and a visiting scholar at the Princeton University Center for International Studies and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. His recent works include "The World Politics of Love: War and Peace" (2019), "Revisiting the History of Korean Diplomacy: Tradition and Modernity" (2019), "US-China Competition in Building the Asia-Pacific Order" (2017), "The Korean Peninsula and the Four Powers in 1972 and 2014" (2015), "Ha Young-sun's International Politics Columns 1991-2011" (2012), "Theory of Complex World Politics" (2012), and "Young People in History" (2011).

■ Management and Editing: Seo Jeong-hye, EAI Research Fellow

Inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 207) / jhsuh@eai.or.kr

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