North Korea Likely to Lift Pandemic Border Restrictions in 2023
Sangsoo Lee
Abstract
In his speech at the Workers’ Party at the end of December 2022, the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stressed that 2023 is the third year of key significance in implementing the Five-Year Plan (2021-25). However, his only specific plan to that end is to build a new street with 3,700 new apartments in 2023. On the security front, Kim ordered “exponential” expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal and the development of a solid-fueled ICBM, as well as launching a spy satellite in 2023 – all of which require significant financial resources. To achieve its goals for 2023, the government seems to need a new strategy. Its self-reliant economic system has already been exhausted after spending three years with strict limits on cross-border trade and traffic because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sangsoo Lee writes for The Diplomat.
Related Publications
-
ISDP Annual Report 2023
ISDP’s Annual Report for the year 2023. We look back on 2023, a year in which tensions and conflicts captured the strategic space in ISDP’s focus areas, making headlines around […]
-
What Comes Next for North Korea-Russia Relations?
North Korea and Russia have taken their relations to a new level after the leaders of the two countries held an in-person summit meeting on Wednesday. While Pyongyang and Moscow […]
-
South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and the IPEF: Convergence and Commonality
For some time now, the existing multilateral networks such as those of the United Nations (UN) system have been largely ineffective in providing good global governance and helping create resilience, […]
-
Risk Reduction and Crisis Management on the Korean Peninsula
The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inherently intertwined with the growing instability of the East Asian security environment, where high tensions significantly increase the risk of unintended incidents and armed […]
-
Washington Declaration: Beyond Korea, What it Means for India?
In April 2023, South Korea and the United States released the Washington Declaration to reiterate and upgrade their treaty alliance. In outlining a joint nuclear deterrence strategy, the Declaration reaffirmed […]