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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presiding over a meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea politburo in Pyongyang on Nov. 15. (KCNA/Yonhap News)

North Korean leader “analyzed and assessed the serious worldwide spread of COVID-19” and emphasized measures to “further tighten the emergency anti-epidemic front,” the Rodong Sinmun reported in an article that took up the entire front page of its Nov. 16 edition.

Speaking on Nov. 15 at the 20th Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) at the party’s headquarters, Kim “clarified the tasks for the Party, military and economic fields to further tighten the emergency anti-epidemic front, the major front of the 80-day campaign,” the article said. Kim was further quoted as “stress[ing] the need to keep a high alert” and “build[ing] a tight blocking wall.”

With Kim ordering the “build[ing of] a tight blocking wall]” and otherwise beefing up the disease prevention posture in response to COVID’s resurgence in the US, Europe, and elsewhere as winter approaches, the closing of national borders since late January is expected to continue for some time. The continuation of the closing of North Korea’s borders is also seen as likely to delay any resumption of inter-Korean exchange and cooperation. In a speech at a military parade held on Oct. 10 for the 75th anniversary of the WPK’s establishment, Kim said he “look[ed] forward to the day when we will triumph over the health crisis and the North and the South will hold hands together.”

The meeting on Nov. 15 also “reported the analysis of non-socialist practices in educational organizations and in society as a whole, and seriously discussed the issues to decisively root them out,” the newspaper reported. In particular, it singled out the “Party committee of Pyongyang University of Medicine which committed a serious crime.”

“Sharply criticized at the meeting were [. . .] the irresponsibility and extreme dereliction of duty of relevant departments of the Central Committee of the WPK, judicial and procuratorial organs and security organizations which shielded, connived and fostered the crime,” the report said.

The meeting further “emphasized the need to [. . .] wage a fierce Party-wide struggle to root out practices against the Party, the people and socialism,” the article said, adding that it had stressed the need to “make sure that beautiful socialist traits are maintained in the overall socio-political, economic and moral life.”

The newspaper did not provide specifics regarding the nature of the “non-socialist practices” criticized during the meeting. Its message was interpreted as a measure to increase internal controls by raising a sense of alarm among the regime and public at a time when all energies are being devoted to the “80-day campaign.”

But while the Rodong Sinmun directly quoted and emphasized Kim Jong-un’s statements and guidelines regarding the intensification of COVID-19 prevention efforts, the remarks about the anti-socialist “serious crime” by the Pyongyang University of Medicine WPK committee were credited only to the “Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau,” without any direct remarks quoted from Kim.

The Rodong Sinmun report was the first to mention public activity by Kim in the 24 days since an Oct. 22 report on his visit to pay respects at the Cemetery of Chinese People's Army Volunteer Martyrs. Photographs of the meeting published in the newspaper also showed Kim’s sister Kim Yo-jong, first vice director of the WPK Central Committee.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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