Kim’s new strategy shifts the region’s counter-reactions to a new level of risk that will invite changes in the dynamics of the military spectrum. Nuclear brinkmanship is seen and touted as more effective in restraining the counter measures taken, at least the scale of them. Whether it is a worthy experiment or otherwise, it warrants a needed shot for Kim.

In other words, the old dogma and line of deterrence by the coalition no longer hold water, at least for Kim’s new awakening. Past containing strategies are now being used by Kim against the three parties.

Strategic ambiguity no longer remains the useful option. Regional and global geopolitical twists remain centred on the supremacy of national strategic interests and security as well as national survival.

It is as much certain that Xi will not give up Taiwan as will Kim in not giving up his powerful nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrence and exerting power, at least in the near term. Unless clear, committee, collective and measurable assurances and guarantees are given, at the same time in terms that are not violating the long term survival of Kim’s regime, it is hard to foresee he will erode his only powerful deterrence at his disposal.

During the attempts to straighten out the positions under Trump, Kim foresaw the once in a lifetime opportunity to seal the ultimate breakthrough, but the cost-risk calculations were too lopsided for Washington to continue.

Kim wants to be different and to stem his own legacy in aiming for a final peaceful breakthrough, but he realises that he needs Western nodding in giving him the face-saving transition and the last say to portray to the nation that Washington somehow acknowledges the wisdom and strength of the Kim regime in coming to this compromise and peaceful conflict resolution. In this regard, Kim believes he has time on his side unlike China’s Xi.

The reality at hand does not seem to be rosy as in Kim’s projection, however. He faces both internal and external squeezes with the full-blown impact from climate challenges and a strengthened alliance of democracies and the Western order in threatening to upend internal food security and external survival.Rising inflationary pressure and the reverberations will not escape the periphery of North Korea, no matter how isolated it claims to be. As time drags on, there is only so much Pyongyang can prepare for the long ball game of withstanding the natural chain effects of the non-traditional threats that will persistently pose problems for his populations more than him personally.

There is also only so much momentum and progress that he could caulk up in sustaining an effective and trusted first strike capacities and at the same time stalling the second-strike readiness and capabilities in leaving them vulnerable to first strike counter measures from Washington or even Seoul. This will render Pyongyang’s nuclear deterrence and its long held first strike threat to be less lethal and more obsolete, giving greater space for the West to act further. The prospects of deterrence and MAD (Mutually Assured Destructions) will also greatly diminish in the long run as Washington develops a better and more holistic interceptive capacity which will provide better first strike prevention and an enhanced second-strike impact that will render Pyongyang’s past mechanism to futility. This signals that time certainly is not on the side with Jong-un and that the window for greater dialogue, engagement and diplomacy is fast closing in terms that will be beneficial for him in the long run.

The next step in further polishing Pyongyang’s nuclear fortitude and tactical capacity with the progress in launching methods from submarines and deepening ICBM capacity in the near future reflect Kim’s desire and strategy to move away from the cocoon previous dogma. The goals will be to outmatch and outrun its southern neighbour in the impending arms race especially in ensuring that it remains the clear winner in the nuclear gap while at the same time forcing Washington to change its sanction-based deterrence and archaic dependency of ties with Seoul as the main framework of negotiating from the position of strength.

Like Putin, he has long tasted Western sanctions and retaliatory responses with seemingly little detrimental and hindering effects. He can still count on Xi and Putin for now, but as the cost-benefit fulcrum increasingly tilts towards jettisoning Pyongyang for their own national needs and survival and coupled with the inescapable multi-pronged challenges to his nation’s survival, he might recalibrate his strategic manoeuvres and to grab the opening for a stunning transformation twist which will stem his legacy in a different realm. Or he might be tempted to remain defiant and to stay on to the last straw of MAD. The rest of the world certainly roots for the former.

Only time will tell.

By Collins Chong Yew Keat.

Collins Chong Yew Keat has been serving in University of Malaya for more than 9 years. His areas of focus include strategic and security studies, America’s foreign policy and power projection, regional conflicts and power parity analysis and has published various publications on numerous platforms including books and chapter articles. He is also a regular contributor in providing op-eds and analytical articles for both the local and international media on various contemporary global issues and regional affairs since 2007.

North Korea has suspended plans to increase military pressure against South Korea, after weeks of rapidly deteriorating ties which included blowing up a joint liaison office used for talks between the two sides.

The decision comes following a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the central military commission on Tuesday, which “took stock of the prevailing situation,” according to North Korean media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Possible military plans included the North deploying units into the Mount Kumgang tourist area and the Kaesong Industrial Zone, which borders the South, and setting up police posts that had previously been withdrawn from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two countries “to strengthen the guard over the front line,” according to previous reports in KCNA.
No reason was given for the apparent pull back.

The North had signaled its initial plans to increase military pressure after a group of defectors in the South used balloons to send anti-North Korean leaflets north of the DMZ.

North Korea claimed the leaflets violated the deal Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in struck in 2018 at their first summit, when both leaders agreed to cease “all hostile acts and eliminating their means, including broadcasting through loudspeakers and distribution of leaflets” along their shared border.

On Monday night, a defectors’ group in South Korea sent a further 500,000 leaflets about “the truth of the Korean War” into the North.

The group said it also sent 500 booklets about “successful South Korea,” 2,000 American one-dollar bills and 1,000 SD cards, using the 20 balloons.

In retaliation to the initial leaflet drop, North Korea cut communication lines with the South and blew up the joint liaison office, which is located in the town of Kaesong just north of the DMZ.

While the office had been shut because of coronavirus and South Korean staff had not been in the building since — the destruction was symbolic as the office was meant to facilitate dialogue between the two countries.

As well as threatening increased military pressure, the Korean People’s Army reinstalled loudspeakers at the border and indicated it would launch a propaganda campaign of its own by sending millions of leaflets into the South.

While the North has framed its actions over the past few weeks as retaliatory, Pyongyang has for months voiced displeasure that its diplomacy with South Korea and the United States has not yielded relief from sanctions crippling the North Korean economy.

Talks between the countries had stalled in the months after three inter-Korean summits in 2018. And experts say it’s possible North Korea is using the current standoff to manufacture a crisis in order to gain leverage in any future negotiations, a play it has employed previously in diplomatic talks.

By Helen Regan and Luke Henderson, CNN | Yoonjung Seo, Jake Kwon and Joshua Berlinger contributed reporting.

South Korean officials are calling for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be ill or is being isolated because of coronavirus concerns, emphasising that they have detected no unusual movements in North Korea.

At a closed door forum on Sunday, South Korea’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees engagement with the North, said the government has the intelligence capabilities to say with confidence that there was no indications of anything unusual.

Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader’s health began after he made no public appearance at a key state holiday on April 15, and has since remained out of sight.

Related: South Korean currency tumbles as unconfirmed reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seriously ill

South Korea media last week reported that Kim may have undergone cardiovascular surgery or was in isolation to avoid exposure to the new coronavirus.

Unification minister Kim cast doubt on the report of surgery, arguing that the hospital mentioned did not have the capabilities for such an operation.

Still, Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the foreign and unification committee in South Korea’s National Assembly, told a gathering of experts on Monday that Kim Jong Un’s absence from the public eye suggests “he has not been working as normally”.

“There has not been any report showing he’s making policy decisions as usual since April 11, which leads us to assume that he is either sick or being isolated because of coronavirus concerns,” Yoon said.

North Korea has said it has no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, but some international experts have cast doubts on that claim.

On Monday, North Korean state media once again showed no new photos of Kim nor reported on his whereabouts.

However, they did carry reports that he had sent a message of gratitude to workers building a tourist resort in Wonsan, an area where some South Korean media reports have said Kim may be staying.

“Our government position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, the top foreign policy adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said in comments to news outlets in the United States.

“Kim Jong Un is alive and well. He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”

Satellite images from last week showed a special train possibly belonging to Kim at Wonsan, lending weight to those reports, according to 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project.

Though the group said it was probably the North Korean leader’s personal train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.

A spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry said on Monday she had nothing to confirm when asked about reports that Kim was in Wonsan.

Last week China dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Reuters was unable to immediately determine what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health.

On Friday a South Korean source told Reuters their intelligence was that Kim Jong Un was alive and would likely make an appearance soon.

Experts have cautioned that Kim has disappeared from state media coverage before, and that gathering accurate information in North Korea is notoriously difficult.

North Korea’s state media last reported on Kim’s whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.

Kim, believed to be 36, vanished from state media for more than a month in 2014 and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.

Reporting by Josh Smith, Sangmi Cha, and Hyonhee Shin, Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Michael Perry @ Reuter

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is either dead, brain dead or just fine, depending on which Asian media report you believe.

The dictator, nicknamed “Rocket Man” by President Trump for his love of missile launches and nukes, underwent a stent procedure earlier this month that started a swirl of international speculation.

Related: China sent team including medical experts to advise on North Korea’s Kim

A Hong Kong broadcast network claimed Saturday that Kim died, citing a “very solid source.” A Japanese magazine, meanwhile, reported late Friday that he is in “a vegetative state.” On Kim’s home turf, the North Korean media has acted as if everything is perfectly normal.

Other unconfirmed reports, attributed to senior Community Party sources in Beijing, claimed Kim succumbed when his surgeon botched the minor operation because his hands were shaking so badly.

The portly leader’s absence from Saturday’s much-ballyhooed 88th anniversary of the birth of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army further fueled the death talk.

Earlier in the week, President Trump downplayed reports that Kim is ill, and an official familiar with U.S. intelligence said the government had no reason to conclude he was seriously ill.

Still, the whispers grew louder when China dispatched medical experts to help treat Kim, Reuters reported Friday.

One Chinese medic told the Japanese magazine that the leader clutched his chest and fell to the ground on a visit to the countryside earlier this month. A doctor accompanying Kim performed CPR and took him to a nearby hospital, where apparently the procedure was performed.

If Kim is dead, official verification might only come from North Korea state media, which delayed the announcements of the deaths of Kim’s despotic predecessors, his father and grandfather, for up to four days.

“When it comes to North Korea you can never be too sure until you hear the news from the country itself,” said David Maxwell, a North Korea specialist at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “But it’s worth noting that there are 6.5 million smartphones in North Korea now and even though the coverage is within the country, information has a way of getting out faster now than it did in the past.”

Maxwell theorized the coronavirus could have been a contributing factor if Kim turns out to be dead, especially since he has underlying conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. North Korea has claimed zero COVID-19 cases but could be lying, Maxwell said.

Kim has been supreme leader since 2011, when his father, Kim Jong Il reportedly died of a heart attack. Kim Jong Il had succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung, who died of a heart attack in 1994.

As for Kim’s potential successor, the smart money is on his little sister, Kim Yo Jong, 31. She is thought to be the youngest child of Kim Jong Il’s mistress Ko Yong Hui, who also gave birth to Kim and his older brother, Kim Jong Chol.

Besides being Kim’s chief aide, Kim Yo Jong is really the only family member left to take over.

Kim had his older half-brother assassinated in Malaysia in 2017. And Kim Jong Chol, who is three years older and known to be a superfan of Eric Clapton, was once dismissed as too “girlish” by their father to run the murderous regime.

“It would be unprecedented and shocking for there to be a female Great Leader but it wouldn’t be heresy,” Sung-Yoon Lee, a North Korea expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Diplomacy, told The Post. “The need to keep power in the family trumps everything, including any traditions of chauvinism or misogyny in North Korea.”

North Korea will likely shut down every inch of the border in the event of Kim’s death, Maxwell said, and the country’s Politburo will meet behind closed doors to designate his successor.

Both Kim Jong Un and his sister spent part of their childhood in Swiss boarding schools, where they learned English and had more than a taste of Western life.

Reporting by Dana Kennedy Additional reporting by Jon Levine and Melanie Gray @ NYPost

China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The trip by the Chinese doctors and officials comes amid conflicting reports about the health of the North Korean leader. Reuters was unable to immediately determine what the trip by the Chinese team signaled in terms of Kim’s health.

A delegation led by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department left Beijing for North Korea on Thursday, two of the people said. The department is the main Chinese body dealing with neighbouring North Korea.

The sources declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

The Liaison Department could not be reached by Reuters for comment late on Friday. China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Friday.

Daily NK, a Seoul-based website, reported earlier this week that Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12. It cited one unnamed source in North Korea.

South Korean government officials and a Chinese official with the Liaison Department challenged subsequent reports suggesting that Kim was in grave danger after surgery. South Korean officials said they had detected no signs of unusual activity in North Korea.

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump also downplayed earlier reports that Kim was gravely ill. “I think the report was incorrect,” Trump told reporters, but he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.

On Friday, a South Korean source told Reuters their intelligence was that Kim was alive and would likely make an appearance soon. The person said he did not have any comment on Kim’s current condition or any Chinese involvement.

An official familiar with U.S. intelligence said that Kim was known to have health problems but they had no reason to conclude he was seriously ill or unable eventually to reappear in public.

A U.S. State department spokeswoman had no comment. U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, when asked about Kim’s health on Fox News after Trump spoke said, “I don’t have anything I can share with you tonight, but the American people should know we’re watching the situation very keenly.”

North Korea is one of the world’s most isolated and secretive countries, and the health of its leaders is treated as a matter of state security. Reuters has not been able to independently confirm any details on Kim’s whereabouts or condition.

North Korea’s state media last reported on Kim’s whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11. State media did not report that he was in attendance at an event to mark the birthday of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15, an important anniversary in North Korea.

Kim, believed to be 36, has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before. In 2014, he vanished for more than a month and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp. Speculation about his health has been fanned by his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of cardiovascular problems.

When Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, suffered a stroke in 2008, South Korean media reported at the time that Chinese doctors were involved in his treatment along with French physicians.

Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping made the first state visit in 14 years by a Chinese leader to North Korea, an impoverished state that depends on Beijing for economic and diplomatic support.

China is North Korea’s chief ally and the economic lifeline for a country hard-hit by U.N. sanctions, and has a keen interest in the stability of the country with which it shares a long, porous border.

Kim is a third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father Kim Jong Il died in 2011 from a heart attack. He has visited China four times since 2018.

Trump held unprecedented summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019 as part of a bid to persuade him to give up North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

@ Reuters

Here is a look at the life of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Personal

• Birth date: January 8 (Widely believed to be in his early 30s, though birth year is publicly unavailable.)
• Father: Kim Jong Il
• Mother: Ko Yong Hui
• Marriage: Ri Sol Ju
• Children: Ju Ae and reportedly two others
• Education: Kim Il Sung Military Academy, 2002-2007

Other Facts

Youngest son of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Related: South Korean currency tumbles as unconfirmed reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seriously ill

Timeline

• April 2009 – Named to North Korea’s National Defense Commission.
• September 28, 2010 – Promoted to four-star general and named vice chairman of the Central Military Commission as well as to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
• October 9, 2010 – Kim Jong Nam, eldest son of Kim Jong Il, tells Japan’s TV Asahi that he opposes the hereditary transfer of power for a third generation. These are his first comments since the promotion of Kim Jong Un, his half-brother.
• December 17, 2011 – Kim Jong Il dies at the age of 69.
• December 28, 2011 – Accompanies the body of Kim Jong Il during the funeral procession through Pyongyang.
• December 31, 2011 – Assumes command of the North Korean army. State-run Korean Central News Agency reports that the power was transferred to him on October 8 at the behest of his father.
• April 15, 2012 – Speaks before hundreds of troops and others in Pyongyang as part of a celebration marking 100 years since the birth of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, his grandfather. Kim’s address is his first televised speech since assuming the country’s leadership.
• June 6, 2012 – Makes his second public speech, speaking to tens of thousands of children in Pyongyang on the 66th anniversary of the Korean Children’s Union. His father, Kim Jong Il, is believed to have made only one brief broadcast throughout his reign.
• July 18, 2012 – Kim is given the title marshal of the army. It is the latest in a string of moves to reconfigure the top ranks of North Korea’s military. The announcement follows the removal of the army chief, Ri Yong Ho.
• March 2013 – Hosts former NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman.
• September 8, 2013 – Upon returning from his second trip to North Korea, Rodman says he held “baby Ju Ae” and describes Kim as “a good dad.”
• January 8, 2014 – Rodman sings “Happy Birthday” to Kim before he and other former NBA players take on the North Koreans in an exhibition game.
• March 9, 2014 – Kim is unanimously elected as Deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) of the DPRK, with a reported 100% turnout.
• September-October 2014 – Kim disappears from public view for about six weeks, reportedly to have a cyst removed from his right ankle.
• July 2015 – South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se says that Kim has executed 70 officials since coming to power in late 2011.
• December 10, 2015 – According to state media outlet KCNA, Kim claims North Korea has added the hydrogen bomb to its nuclear arsenal. But outside observers are skeptical, saying that such an advance in nuclear technology seems unlikely.
• July 6, 2016 – The Obama administration imposes sanctions on Kim and 10 other regime officials for their alleged complicity in human rights abuses against the North Korean people. The move marks the first time Washington has sanctioned Kim personally.
• September 21, 2016 – South Korea’s Defense Minister announces that South Korea has elite troops on standby ready to assassinate Kim if the country feels threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons.
  December 29, 2016 – A South Korean think tank publishes a report detailing the leader’s use of executions to hold onto power. According to the report, 340 people were executed during a five-year span.
• January 1, 2017 – During a televised address, Kim claims that North Korea is almost ready to begin testing intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• February 13, 2017 – Kim Jong Nam dies after being poisoned at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport. South Korea’s intelligence agency later says that Kim ordered his death.
• September 22, 2017 – After US President Donald Trump threatens to “totally destroy” North Korea if the United States is forced to defend itself or an ally. Kim makes a rare direct statement on North Korean television, saying Trump will “pay dearly,” and “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.”
• February 10, 2018 – Extends a formal invitation to South Korean President Moon Jae-in to travel to North Korea. Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, presents the invite at Seoul’s presidential palace, marking the first time that a member of the North’s ruling dynasty has visited since the Korean War, which ended in an armistice in 1953.
• March 8, 2018 – The White House announces that Trump has agreed to meet Kim. The talks would be the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.
• March 25-28, 2018 – Kim makes a surprise trip to Beijing and meets with President Xi Jinping, Chinese state media confirms. The trip is Kim’s first abroad since he took the reins after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in late 2011.
• April 18, 2018 – Trump confirms CIA Director Mike Pompeo visited North Korea and secretly met with Kim. A White House official tells CNN the meeting occurred over Easter weekend.
• April 27, 2018 – During a day-long summit, Kim and Moon pledge to formally end the Korean War, 65 years after hostilities ceased. The Punmunjom Declaration also calls for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
• May 26, 2018 – Holds a surprise meeting with Moon, their second meeting in a month, at the Demilitarized Zone, the South Korean presidency says in a statement, days after Trump had called off a June 12 summit with Kim.
• June 12, 2018 – Meets with Trump for almost five hours in Singapore, the first time sitting leaders of the United States and North Korea have met. The two leaders sign a statement that says: “President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
• September 18-20, 2018 – Meets with Moon in Pyongyang, the third summit in 2018 between the two leaders and the first time since 2007 that a South Korean president has traveled to North Korea.
• February 27-28, 2019 – Kim and Trump meet in Hanoi, Vietnam, but the summit ends with no joint agreement after Kim insists all US sanctions on North Korea be lifted.
• April 25, 2019 – Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold their first-ever summit, in the Russian city of Vladivostok. Following their meeting, Putin and Kim give very brief statements saying they had exchanged opinions on the Korea conflict and thanked one another for coming.
• June 30, 2019 – Kim greets Trump at the border between North and South Korea. Trump becomes the first sitting president to enter North Korea. He takes 20 steps beyond the border and shakes hands with Kim. Although the American and North Korean governments tout the historic nature of the meeting, their talks do not appear to have yielded any new commitments to denuclearization.

@ CNN Editorial Research

The Korean won weakened sharply on Tuesday against the dollar on unconfirmed reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seriously ill. CNBC reports.

The Korean won last fell 1.08% to trade at 1,233.83 per dollar.

According to CNBC, the South Korean markets also saw sizable declines, with the Kospi down 1.94% while the Kosdaq index fell 2.25%. Shares of defense firm Victek skyrocketed 24.71% while North Korea exposed stocks Hanil Hyundai Cement and Hyundai Elevator dropped 2.17% and 4.7%, respectively.

The moves came after CNN reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed U.S. official with direct knowledge, that Washington is “monitoring intelligence” that Kim is in “grave danger after a surgery.”

The North Korean leader was reportedly absent during a celebration of his grandfather’s birthday on April 15, raising questions over his health. CNN reported that he had been seen four days to prior to that, at a government meeting.

Still, confusion remained over the state of the Kim’s health.

South Korea has “nothing to confirm” and “we detect nothing special going on inside North Korea,” a spokesman for the president’s office said in a statement.

Reuters also reported, citing two government sources, that Kim was not gravely ill.

An earlier report from Reuters also cited a South Korean media website, Daily NK, as saying that Kim was receiving treatment after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12. That report cited unidentified sources inside the regime.

The uncertainty of the situation and “what a potentially new regime might look like” is weighing on markets, Bank of America’ Securities’ Adarsh Sinha told CNBC’s “Street Signs” on Tuesday.

“The first thing the (foreign exchange) market does is price in higher risk premium, which means a weaker currency, or a weaker Korean won,” said Sinha, who is co-head of Asia rates and foreign exchange strategy at Bank of America Securities.

Many other currencies in Asia also weakened, he added. The onshore Chinese yuan slipped 0.2% to 7.0859 per dollar while its onshore counterpart traded at 7.0989 per dollar. The Singapore dollar also declined 0.37% to 1.4262 against the greenback.

“For the (foreign exchange) market, it’s sort of act first and think about the details later,” Sinha said.

This is developing news. Please check back for updates.′

North Korea called for tougher and more thorough countermeasures to keep citizens safe from the fast-spreading coronavirus at a meeting where leader Kim Jong Un presided, state media said on Sunday.

North Korea continues testing for the virus, with more than 500 people in quarantine, but has no confirmed infections yet, a country representative of the World Health Organization told Reuters this week.

The Korean Central News Agency said the virus had created obstacles to work on the economy, but the North had enforced consistent and compulsory “strict top-class emergency anti-epidemic measures” to maintain a stable situation.

At a meeting on Saturday, the political bureau of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea adopted a resolution to take “more thorough state measures” to protect people’s lives and safety against the pandemic, KCNA added.

It also aimed to step up emergency services nationwide against the outbreak and push ahead with economic construction, increasing the national defense capability and stabilizing people’s livelihoods this year, the agency said.

But state media photographs showed that none of those at the meeting, including Kim, wore masks or sat unusually far apart from each other.

Neighbouring South Korea reported 32 new infections by the end of Saturday, taking its tally to 10,512, with three more deaths for a total of 214, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

KCNA said part of Saturday’s agenda was to have been presented to a meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly, initially set for Friday, but it was not clear if the larger body had already met, or if not, when it is scheduled to do so.

Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister and a senior government official, was elected an alternate member of the Political Bureau, KCNA added.

In a separate report on Sunday, KCNA said Kim Jong Un expressed satisfaction at a drill of North Korea’s pursuit assault aircraft that he oversaw, but suggested important tasks to “further enhance combat efficiency”.

Agency photographs of the event showed some military officials wearing masks at the airfield, but not Kim.

Reporting by Joori Roh; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jonathan Oatis. This article originally posted on Reuters.