Is this what a North Korean malaise speech looks like?

Readers know that I’ve been critical of those who cherry-pick words out of North Korean dictators’ rambling New Year speeches to find evidence to support their arguments. Having made the sacrifice of actually reading this one (full text below the jump), I would not characterize it as profoundly different from the same old crap North Korean dictators have told their subjects year after year. No, it was not quite a North Korean “malaise speech,” but it was filled with clear (if tacit) acknowledgments that the byungjin policy (nukes plus economic development) hasn’t delivered the “white rice and meat soup” Kim Jong-un promised North Koreans five years ago. 

So, on guard against overstating the significance of what follows, this language shows more contrition and introspection than I’m accustomed to from North Korean tyrants.

My desires were burning all the time, but I spent the past year feeling anxious and remorseful for the lack of my ability. I am hardening my resolve to seek more tasks for the sake of the people this year and make redoubled, devoted efforts to this end.

Previously, all the people used to sing the song We Are the Happiest in the World, feeling optimistic about the future with confidence in the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. I will work with devotion to ensure that the past era does not remain as a moment in history but is re-presented in the present era. On this first morning of the new year I swear to become a true servant loyal to our people who faithfully supports them with a pure conscience.

Alternative translation here, via NK News. Of course, Kim Jong-un and his father have struck notes of contrition in these speeches before. The theme of a self-sacrificing paternal leader deeply concerned for the welfare of his subjects is an old one in North Korean propaganda. Even so, this seems even more contrite than usual. I haven’t the time or the stomach to do a line-by-line linguistic comparison, but I don’t recall His Porcine Majesty having used — or closed with — such strong language before. Clearly, he knows that things should have been better by now. He knows that his people are unhappy with their standard of living, and perhaps more. Whoever wrote the text saw a need for him to acknowledge the misery of his people, lest he seem detached or callous about it.

Contrast Kim’s aspirational claims about prosperity and economic development with his claims of “consolidating the defence capability of Juche Korea” and that North Korea had “achieved the status of a nuclear power, a military giant, in the East which no enemy, however formidable, would dare to provoke.” There’s nothing aspirational about that. Still, it can’t be lost on his people that he’d traded away their prosperity for his nukes, so he tried to project blame:

Even though the enemy grew more blatant in their obstructive schemes and severe difficulties cropped up one after another, all the service personnel and people drew themselves closer together around the Party and waged a vigorous struggle in the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and fortitude. This was how they achieved the world-startling, miraculous successes under such trying circumstances. 

Last year the imperialist reactionary forces’ moves for political and military pressure and sanctions against our country reached an extreme. But they failed to break the faith of our service personnel and people in victory, and could not check the vigorous revolutionary advance of Juche Korea.

We should resolutely thwart the enemy’s sinister and pernicious schemes to check the warm and pure-hearted aspiration of our people who follow the Party single-heartedly and to alienate the Party from them.

Other statements in the speech acknowledged social and political problems that belied the many claims of single-hearted unity.

We should thoroughly apply the people-first doctrine, the crystallization of the Juche-oriented view on the people, philosophy of the people, in Party work and all the spheres of state and social life, and wage an intensive struggle to root out abuses of power, bureaucratism and corruption that spoil the flower garden of single-hearted unity.

They should resolutely break with defeatism, self-preservation, formalism and expediency, and devote their heart and soul to the struggle for carrying out the Party’s plans and intentions.

There may be various reasons why Kim Jong-un’s birthday celebrations were relatively muted this year. He may be sensitive about his age, but I suspect that the idolization of Kim would be more advanced by now if the regime believed that he was deeply and genuinely popular.

Reportedly out of concern for adverse publicity, the regime has banned public executions (it’s killing people privately instead). Kim Jong-un has even reportedly told his security forces to stop searching homes without warrants(!) due to “escalating disgruntlement and official complaints to the district office over the the tyrannical behavior of law enforcement officers.” That is the kind of order that seems unlikely to stick in practice, but if it’s true, it would be evidence of discontent with security crackdowns like those that preceded last year’s party Congress. The Daily NK also points to other, more recent acts of protest. See also this post.

More than 1,400 North Koreans defected from North to South in 2016, a rise of 11 percent. This is the first increase since Kim Jong-un’s succession, but that is not necessarily useful evidence for measuring popular morale. More likely, it indicates that an initially successful crackdown on border control is flagging due to low morale and indiscipline within the border guard force (as with the rest of the military) and due to the destruction of border posts and fences, and the border guards themselves, by last year’s floods.

What does seem significant for morale, however, is that higher-ranking North Koreans and those of higher “songbun” (political loyalty classification) are defecting in higher numbers, for reasons that are more political than material. Some reports attribute this to sanctions, which may be partially true — North Korean elites posted overseas have rigid quotas for sending cash back to Pyongyang. In some cases, those who can’t meet those quotas due to sanctions may be tempted to defect rather than return home. That North Korean workers in Russia report an increase in wage theft may mean that they’re being squeezed to make up for revenue lost elsewhere (which in turn leads to more group defections like this one — the “death spiral” I’ve spoken of before). That many of the elites are afraid of being purged is another likely factor. 

Overall, however, the prospect of a long, bleak future under Kim Jong-un and the fading of any hopes that he would be a reformer may well be the greatest cause of North Korea’s malaise. I’ll give Thae Yong-ho the last word:

Pyongyang, January 2 (KCNA) — Respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un made the New Year Address for 2017.

    The full text of the New Year address reads:

    Dear Comrades,

    Having seen out 2016, in which we glorified each and every day with gigantic struggle, creating a new history of great prosperity unprecedented in the history of the Juche revolution, we are seeing in the new year 2017.

    Availing myself of this meaningful opportunity, when we look back with dignity upon the great year filled with proud miracles wrought by our great people, I, with the noblest mind, offer warm greetings to all the Korean people, who overcame with optimism trials of all hues unprecedented in history, sharing weal and woe with the Party and throwing in their lot with it by forming an integral whole with it in ideas, intention and will, and extend glory and blessing of the hope-filled new year to them.

    My warm greetings go also to the compatriots in the south and abroad and to the progressive peoples of the world and other foreign friends who aspire after independence and justice.

    The year 2016 was a year of revolutionary event, a year of great change, worthy of note in the history of our Party and country.

    Last year, amid the soaring revolutionary enthusiasm of all the Party members, service personnel and other people and great interest of the world, the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea was held in a meaningful and splendid way as a grand political festival.

    The congress proudly reviewed our Party’s glorious history of advancing the revolutionary cause of Juche along the victorious road under the wise leadership of the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and unfolded an ambitious blueprint for accomplishing the socialist cause under the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.

    Through this historic congress, the iron will of our service personnel and people to continuously march along the road of Juche following the Party was fully demonstrated, and lasting groundwork for the Korean revolution was laid. It will be etched in the history of our country as a meeting of victors that demonstrated the invincible might of the great Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist party, as a glorious meeting that set up a new milestone in carrying out the revolutionary cause of Juche.

    Last year an epochal turn was brought about in consolidating the defence capability of Juche Korea, and our country achieved the status of a nuclear power, a military giant, in the East which no enemy, however formidable, would dare to provoke.

    We conducted the first H-bomb test, test-firing of various means of strike and nuclear warhead test successfully to cope with the imperialists’ nuclear war threats, which were growing more wicked day by day, briskly developed state-of-the-art military hardware, and entered the final stage of preparation for the test launch of intercontinental ballistic missile; we achieved other marvellous successes one after another for the consolidation of the defence capability. This provided a powerful military guarantee for defending the destiny of the country and nation and victoriously advancing the cause of building a powerful socialist country. Our valiant People’s Army reliably defended the security of the country and the gains of the revolution by resolutely frustrating the enemy’s reckless moves for aggression and war, and gave perfect touches to its political and ideological aspects and military and technical preparations, as befits an invincible army. The brilliant successes achieved in the sector of national defence instilled a great national dignity and courage in our people, drove the imperialists and other reactionary forces into an ignominious defeat, and remarkably raised the strategic position of our country.

    Last year we achieved proud successes in the 70-day campaign and 200-day campaign organized for glorifying the Seventh Congress of the Party.

    These campaigns were a do-or-die struggle in which all the people smashed to smithereens the enemy’s vicious schemes to isolate and suffocate our country and brought about a turning point on all fronts where a powerful socialist country is being built, a massive struggle of creation that gave birth to a new Mallima era.

    Thanks to the heroic struggle of the Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s working class and all other people, the ambitious goals the Party set for the 70-day campaign and 200-day campaign were attained with success and a fresh breakthrough was made in the development of the national economy.

    Our resourceful, talented scientists and technicians, following the successful launch of the earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong 4, succeeded in the static firing test of new-type high-thrust motor of the launch vehicle for a geostationary satellite. By doing so, they have opened up a broad avenue to the exploration of outer space. Also, they established fully-automated, model production systems of our own style, bred high-yielding strains with a view to ramping up agricultural production and achieved other laudable scientific and technological breakthroughs one after another. All this will be of great significance in developing the country’s economy and improving the people’s livelihood. The electric-power, coal-mining, metallurgical, chemical and building-materials industries, rail transport and other major sectors of the national economy attained their respective production and transport goals, thereby demonstrating the potential of our self-supporting economy and giving a powerful impetus to the building of a socialist economic giant. Numerous industrial establishments and cooperative farms registered the proud success of surpassing the peak-year level. The People’s Army stood in the vanguard in adding lustre to the history of “gold seas” and in creating a legendary speed at important construction sites. The sectors of education, public health and sports, too, made admirable achievements. When some areas in North Hamgyong Province were devastated by a sudden natural calamity, the whole country turned out in the restoration effort in hearty response to the Party’s appeal and achieved a miraculous success in a short span of time.

    During the 70-day campaign and 200-day campaign we created a new spirit of the times for building a powerful socialist country, and our people’s trust in the Party and confidence in socialism grew firmer. Last year, in which the whole country kept on seething with vigour day and night, all the Party members and other working people, youth and service personnel gave full scope to the indomitable attacking spirit of braving ordeals and difficulties, the death-defying mettle of answering the Party’s call with devotion and practice in any adversity, and the collectivist might of helping one another and leading one another forward to advance by leaps and bounds.

    The brilliant successes we achieved in all the sectors of the revolution and construction last year are by no means attributable to any good conditions, nor are they a fortuitous result of any divine power. The mysterious power that brought about all these miraculous successes is just the single-hearted unity of all the service personnel and people, their great capacity for self-development. Even though the enemy grew more blatant in their obstructive schemes and severe difficulties cropped up one after another, all the service personnel and people drew themselves closer together around the Party and waged a vigorous struggle in the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and fortitude. This was how they achieved the world-startling, miraculous successes under such trying circumstances.

    The single-hearted unity is the lifeblood of Juche Korea and the dynamic force for a leap forward, and we must invariably follow the road of self-reliance and self-development–this is the invaluable truth of the Juche revolution confirmed by our army’s and people’s gigantic struggle in 2016.

    I extend my heartfelt thanks once again to all the service personnel and people who, with unshakeable confidence in the final victory of the revolution, adorned last year, eventful and arduous, with laudable exploits by devoting their patriotic loyalty, sweat and blood to building a powerful socialist country.

    Comrades,

    We should turn out again in the new year’s march towards a greater victory.

    To build on the successes already gained and turn a heyday in the revolution into a great golden age is an ideological and spiritual characteristic and work style of all our service personnel and people who were trained under the care of the great leaders. In this significant year, by further encouraging the revolutionary spirit that was heightened to an incomparable degree in the course of the previous miraculous year, we should make remarkable progress in the implementation of the decisions adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Party and thus translate the people’s ideals and dreams into brilliant reality on this land.

    We should concentrate our efforts on implementing the five-year strategy for national economic development.

    This year is of key importance in carrying out this strategy. In order to open up fine prospects for the implementation of the strategy and develop the country’s overall economy onto a higher plane, while building on the successes gained last year, we should attain the goals for this year’s struggle without fail.

    “Let us accelerate the victorious advance of socialism with the great spirit of self-reliance and self-development as the dynamic force!”–this is the militant slogan we should uphold in this new year’s march. We should wage a vigorous all-people, general offensive to hit the targets of the five-year strategy on the strength of self-reliance and self-development.

    The strength of self-reliance and self-development is that of science and technology, and the shortcut to implementing the five-year strategy is to give importance and precedence to science and technology.

    The sector of science and technology should concentrate efforts on solving scientific and technological problems arising in modernizing factories and enterprises and putting their production on a regular footing with the main emphasis on ensuring the domestic production of raw materials, fuel and equipment. Production units and scientific research institutes should intensify cooperation between themselves, and enterprises should build up their own technological development forces and conduct a proactive mass-based technological innovation drive, propelling economic development with valuable sci-tech achievements conducive to expanded production and the improvement of business operation and management.

    The electric-power, metallurgical and chemical industries should take the lead in the efforts to hit the targets of the economic strategy.

    The electric-power industry should carry out its production plan without fail by ensuring good maintenance of generating equipment and structures and stepping up its technical upgrading. It should run the nationwide integrated power control system effectively and organize alternated production scrupulously to ensure balance between power production and consumption; it should also develop the various sources of power to create a new generating capacity on a large scale.

    The metallurgical industry should introduce advanced technologies to lower the iron production cost and ensure normal operation of Juche-based production lines to turn out iron and steel in larger amounts. The state should take stringent measures to supply raw materials, fuel and power to the Kim Chaek and Hwanghae iron and steel complexes and other metallurgical factories.

    The chemical industry is a basis for all other industries and plays an important role in consolidating the independence of the economy and improving the people’s living standards. This sector should revitalize production at the February 8 Vinalon Complex, expand the capacity of other major chemical factories and transform their technical processes in our own way, thus increasing the output of various chemical goods. It should direct efforts to establishing a C1 chemical industry to carry out the tasks at every stage promptly and satisfactorily.

    The coal-mining industry and the rail transport sector should meet the demands for coal and its transport by power stations and metallurgical and chemical factories on a top priority basis.

    The machine-building industry should be rapidly developed. Machine factories should step up their modernization, perfect the processes for the serial production of new-type tractors, vehicles and multi-purpose farm machines, and produce and supply different kinds of high-performance and quality machinery and equipment.

    This year light industry, agriculture and fishing industry should be radically developed to make greater progress in improving the people’s living standards.

    Light industry should work out proper management strategies, regarding use of domestically available raw and other materials as their core, so as to revitalize production and bring about a turn in diversifying the range and types of consumer goods and improving their quality. It should normalize production in the mines and enterprises in the Tanchon area, so that they can prove effective in improving the people’s living standards.

    The agricultural front, the major thrust in building an economic giant, should raise a strong wind of scientific farming and push forward the movement for increasing crop yield. It should widely introduce seeds of superior strains and scientific farming methods, whose advantages have been proved in practice, expand the area of land under two-crop farming, and be proactive in inventing and introducing high-performance farm machines.

    By doing so, it can attain the production goal of grains. It should adopt measures to run the livestock farming base in the Sepho area on a normal basis and increase the production of fruits, mushrooms and vegetables, so that the people can enjoy benefits from them.

    The fishing sector should conduct a dynamic drive for catching fishes and push perseveringly ahead with aquatic farming. It should build modern fishing vessels in a greater number and lay out a comprehensive fishing equipment production base in the east coast area, so as to consolidate the material and technical foundations of the fishing industry.

    The construction sector should complete the construction of Ryomyong Street at the highest level and concentrate its forces on the major construction projects including the building of the Tanchon Power Station, modernization of the Kim Jong Thae Electric Locomotive Complex and the development of the Wonsan area. It should also build more educational and cultural facilities and houses in an excellent way.

    Upholding the slogan of self-reliance and self-sufficiency, every field and every unit of the national economy should launch a dynamic struggle to increase production and practise economy to the maximum, and thus carry out the plan for this year on all indices.

    The whole country should turn out in land administration. We should further transform the appearance of the land of our country by building modern tree nurseries in provinces, perseveringly pressing on with the forest restoration campaign and conducting river management, road repair and environmental conservation on a planned basis.

    In order to bring about a turnabout in implementing the five-year strategy for national economic development, it is imperative to carry on economic guidance and business management with clear objectives and in an innovative way. The Cabinet and other economic guidance organs should work out tactics to ensure the sustainable economic development by putting the overall national economy definitely on an upward track, and implement them with an unflinching perseverance.

    All the fronts in the sector of culture including education, public health, sports, literature and the arts should effect a new, revolutionary upsurge to accelerate the building of a civilized power. The whole country and the whole society should launch a dynamic drive this year, a year of scientific education, to improve the facilities and environment for this education.

    The political and military position of socialism should be further cemented so that it can be an impregnable fortress.

    Single-hearted unity is the precious revolutionary legacy the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il bequeathed to us, and herein lies the invincible might of our style of socialism. All the service personnel and people should establish the ties of kinship with the Party, their hearts pulsating to the same beat as it, and unite closely behind it in ideology, purpose and moral obligation, so as to struggle staunchly to achieve the prosperity of the country. We should thoroughly apply the people-first doctrine, the crystallization of the Juche-oriented view on the people, philosophy of the people, in Party work and all the spheres of state and social life, and wage an intensive struggle to root out abuses of power, bureaucratism and corruption that spoil the flower garden of single-hearted unity. We should resolutely thwart the enemy’s sinister and pernicious schemes to check the warm and pure-hearted aspiration of our people who follow the Party single-heartedly and to alienate the Party from them.

    In this year of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, we should raise the fierce flames of increasing the military capability.

    The People’s Army should conduct the Party’s political work in a proactive manner, so as to ensure that it is pervaded with the ideology and intentions of the Party alone. It should designate this year as another year of training, another year of perfecting its combat preparedness, and ensure that all its units of different arms, services and corps raise a hot wind of perfecting their combat preparedness in order to train all its officers and men as a-match-for-a-hundred combatants, tigers of Mt Paektu, who are capable of annihilating any aggressor force at a stroke. Officers and men of the Korean People’s Internal Security Forces and members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and Young Red Guards should prepare themselves politically and militarily and maintain full combat readiness to firmly defend the socialist system and the people’s lives and property.

    Officials, scientists and workers in the defence industry, burning their hearts with the “Yongil bomb spirit” of the days of the anti-Japanese struggle and the revolutionary spirit of the workers of Kunja-ri of the days of the Fatherland Liberation War, should develop and produce larger quantities of powerful military hardware of our own style. By doing so, they can build up the arsenal of the Songun revolution.

    Success or failure of this year’s struggle aimed at carrying out the decisions of the Seventh Congress of the Party depends on the role of Party and working people’s organizations.

    Party organizations should concentrate their work on carrying out the Party’s policies and the major revolutionary tasks advanced for their respective sectors and units. They should correctly identify the problems to which the Party attaches importance and which are the main links in the whole chain of bringing about an upsurge in production, and should resolve them by enlisting all their forces. They should move the theatre of political work to the seething production sites and launch a revolutionary ideological offensive there. In this way they can powerfully arouse the masses to the general mobilization struggle for carrying out the Party’s ideas and policies. All the primary Party organizations, by applying the main spirit of the First Conference of Chairpersons of the Primary Committees of the Workers’ Party of Korea, should ensure that the spirit of continuous innovations and continuous advance is displayed to the full in this year’s all-people, general offensive.

    All the youth league, trade union, agricultural workers’ union and women’s union organizations should enlist their members and encourage them to be astir in the advance for great upsurge, and ensure that they become innovators, creators of the Mallima speed.

    The current stirring era demands that our officials, standard-bearers in carrying out the Party’s policies, improve their working style and attitude in a revolutionary way.

    Our people’s enthusiasm for labour is very high now; when this enthusiasm is supported by bold and scientific operations, effective command and personal examples of our officials, there is no fortress we cannot conquer and no difficulty we cannot overcome. All the officials, well aware of the noble mission they have assumed before the Party and revolution, should become locomotives that lead the masses in the vanguard of the ranks.

    They should plan their work in a big way with innovative insight, always think what to do and work in a keyed-up and militant way. They should resolutely break with defeatism, self-preservation, formalism and expediency, and devote their heart and soul to the struggle for carrying out the Party’s plans and intentions.

    Last year, in reflection of the national desire for reunification and the requirements of the times, we put forward the Juche-oriented line and policy of reunification at the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea and made strenuous efforts to this end. However, the south Korean authorities turned a deaf ear to our patriotic appeal and ignored our sincere proposal. Instead, they clung to their sanctions-and-pressure schemes against the DPRK and persisted in clamouring for a war against it, thus driving inter-Korean relations towards the worst catastrophe.

    Last year, south Korea witnessed a massive anti-“government” struggle spreading far and wide to shake the reactionary ruling machinery to its foundations. This resistance involving all south Korean people, which left an indelible mark in the history of their struggle, was an outburst of pent-up grudge and indignation against the conservative regime that had been resorting to fascist dictatorship, anti-popular policy, sycophantic and traitorous acts and confrontation with their compatriots.

    This year we will mark the 45th anniversary of the historic July 4 Joint Statement and the 10th anniversary of the October 4 Declaration. This year we should open up a broad avenue to independent reunification through a concerted effort of the whole nation.

    Positive measures should be taken to improve inter-Korean relations, avoid acute military confrontation and remove the danger of war between north and south.

    The improvement of inter-Korean relations is the starting-point for peace and reunification, and it is a pressing demand of the whole nation. Any politician, if he or she remains a passive onlooker to the current deadlock between the two sides, can neither claim to be fully discharging his or her responsibility and role for the nation nor enjoy public support. Every manner of abuses and slanders aimed at offending the other party and inciting confrontation cannot be justified on any account, and an immediate stop should be put to the malicious smear campaign and other acts of hostility towards the DPRK, all designed for the overthrow of its system and any other “change.”

    We are consistent in our stand to safeguard the security of the compatriots and peace of the country without fighting with the fellow countrymen. The south Korean authorities should not aggravate the situation by finding fault with our exercise of the right to self-defence thoughtlessly, but respond positively to our sincere efforts to prevent military conflict between north and south and ease the tension.

    They should also discontinue arms buildup and war games.

    The whole nation should pool their will and efforts to usher in a heyday of the nationwide reunification movement.

    All the Korean people in the north, in the south and abroad should achieve solidarity, make concerted efforts and unite on the principle of subordinating everything to national reunification, the common cause of the nation, and revitalize the reunification movement on a nationwide scale. They should promote active contact and exchange with each other irrespective of differences in their ideologies and systems, regions and ideals, and classes and social strata, and hold a pan-national, grand meeting for reunification involving all the political parties and organizations including the authorities in the north and south, as well as the compatriots of all strata at home and abroad. We will readily join hands with anyone who prioritizes the fundamental interests of the nation and is desirous of improving inter-Korean relations.

    It is necessary to frustrate the challenges of the anti-reunification forces at home and abroad who go against the aspiration of the nation for reunification.

    We must put an end to the moves for aggression and intervention by the foreign forces including the United States that is occupying south Korea and tries to realize the strategy for achieving hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, and wage a dynamic pan-national struggle to thwart the moves of the traitorous and sycophantic anti-reunification forces like Park Geun Hye who, failing to see clearly who is the real arch-enemy of the nation, is trying to find a way out in confrontation with the fellow countrymen.

    Well aware of the will of the Korean nation to reunify their country, the United States must no longer cling to the scheme of whipping up national estrangement by inciting the anti-reunification forces in south Korea to confrontation with the fellow countrymen and war. It must make a courageous decision to roll back its anachronistic policy hostile towards the DPRK. The international community that values independence and justice should oppose the moves of the United States and its vassal forces aimed at wrecking peace on the Korean peninsula and checking its reunification, and the neighbouring countries should act in favour of our nation’s aspiration and efforts for reunification.

    All the fellow countrymen in the north, in the south and abroad should do something to make this year a meaningful year of a new phase in independent reunification by stepping up a nationwide grand march towards reunification through the concerted effort of the nation.

    Last year the imperialist reactionary forces’ moves for political and military pressure and sanctions against our country reached an extreme. But they failed to break the faith of our service personnel and people in victory, and could not check the vigorous revolutionary advance of Juche Korea.

    We will continue to build up our self-defence capability, the pivot of which is the nuclear forces, and the capability for preemptive strike as long as the United States and its vassal forces keep on nuclear threat and blackmail and as long as they do not stop their war games they stage at our doorstep disguising them as annual events. We will defend peace and security of our state at all costs and by our own efforts, and make a positive contribution to safeguarding global peace and stability.

    Our Party and the government of our Republic will remain committed to the ideals of our foreign policy of independence, peace and friendship, expand and develop the relations of good-neighbourliness, friendship and cooperation with those countries championing independence, and make concerted efforts with them to ensure genuine international justice.

    Comrades,

    As I am standing here to proclaim the beginning of another year, I feel a surge of anxiety about what I should do to hold our people in greater reverence, the best people in the world who have warmly supported me with a single mind out of their firm trust in me.

    My desires were burning all the time, but I spent the past year feeling anxious and remorseful for the lack of my ability. I am hardening my resolve to seek more tasks for the sake of the people this year and make redoubled, devoted efforts to this end.

    Previously, all the people used to sing the song We Are the Happiest in the World, feeling optimistic about the future with confidence in the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. I will work with devotion to ensure that the past era does not remain as a moment in history but is re-presented in the present era. On this first morning of the new year I swear to become a true servant loyal to our people who faithfully supports them with a pure conscience.

    And I will push the effort to set up across the Party a revolutionary climate of making selfless, devoted efforts for the good of the people.

    As long as the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is illuminating the road ahead of us and we have the single-hearted unity of all the service personnel and people around the Party, we are sure to emerge victorious.

    Let us all march forward dynamically towards a bright future, holding up the splendid blueprint unfolded by the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea to develop ours into a powerful socialist country. -0-        (2017.01.02)