hankyoreh

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

In an appeal to the North Korean people, leader Kim Jong-un used the old socialist catchphrase of “speed battle.”

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published an appeal from Kim on June 5 in which he asked the people to accelerate work at Masikryong Ski Resort to open a new golden age in every part of the building of a socialist state. “When the Party throws a thunderbolt, the military workers will pick up the pace at Masikryong through their indomitable spirit and their tenacious blitzkrieg attack,” Kim said. “We absolutely must complete the construction of the Masikryong Ski Resort before the year is over,” he urged.

Masikryong is a mountain located near Wonsan in South Hamgyeong Province that is 768m above sea level. On May 26, Kim toured the construction site of the ski resort that is being built. North Korea is planning to construct a “world-class ski resort” with a helipad, a hotel, and ski slope that is 110,000m long and 40-120m wide. With the port of Wonsan close by and the Pyongyang-Wonsan highway in the vicinity, the mountain is an ideal location for a tourist attraction.

While there is nothing surprising about North Korea using the term “speed battle,” experts consider it significant that the term has been applied to a ski resort.

“In the past, ‘speed battle’ had been used for building up industry within a certain period of time or producing important materials, but this time it was used in reference to a ski resort,” said Kim Yeon-cheol, a professor of unification at Inje University. “This shows how interested Kim is in a life of leisure.”

An analysis of 31 actions of Kim that were reported in the KCNA since May shows that 11, or 30% of the total, were personal visits to cultural, sports, or leisure facilities. This is in striking contrast to the activity of his father and former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. In the years 2005 and 2006, only four to five of a yearly average of 100 published visits were related to culture.

There are also some analysts who think that North Korea has begun to view leisure facilities such as ski resorts as important infrastructure for the country. “Kim’s appeal seems to be based on a plan to aggressively draw foreign tourists to the ski resort,” said Lee Woo-yeong, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

The problem is that the North wants to expand this sort of speed battle to other areas of society. At the end of the appeal, Kim said, “We must never stop working to innovate, not only in the construction of the Masikryong Ski Resort, but also in every major construction project that the party has entrusted us with. Let us learn from the warrior spirit of the soldiers who are building the Masikryong Ski Resort as we tackle the two-track approach.” The two-track approach refers to developing nuclear armament and the economy at the same time.

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