Kim Jong Un likens North Korea's economic troubles to catastrophic 1990s famine

Kim Jong Un appears on a news broadcast.

(Image credit: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images)

published 9 April 2021

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday compared his country's economic struggles to the devastating 1990s famine that left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

The Korean Central News Agency reports that while speaking to lower-level Workers' Party of Korea members, Kim said there are "many obstacles and difficulties ahead of us," and it's up to everyone in the WPK to "wage another ... arduous march in order to relieve our people of the difficulty, even a little." Earlier in the week, he told party members the country is facing its "worst-ever situation."

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and sanctions over North Korea's nuclear program, Kim is facing his most difficult test as leader, foreign experts told The Associated Press. China is North Korea's biggest trading partner, but with the border closed because of the pandemic, that partnership has been crippled. In January, Kim told party officials the country needed to rely more on domestic manufacturing and less on imports.

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Food is needed in North Korea, but monitoring groups told AP there are no signs of mass starvation taking place. There were several driving forces behind the 1990s famine, including natural disasters, mismanagement, and the loss of aid from the Soviet Union, and experts told AP it's unlikely there would be another famine today, because China would first offer assistance in order to keep North Korean refugees from entering the country.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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