On Thursday, analysts predicted that North Korea would intensify efforts to solidify its fourth-generation hereditary succession system centered around Ju-ae during the upcoming 9th Congress of the Workers’ Party.
Park Young-ja, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, made this assertion in a report titled, Key Points and Predictions for North Korea’s 9th Party Congress in Politics and Inter-Korean Relations. She recalled that last September, Kim Jong Un, the General Secretary of the Workers’ Party, boasted that the issues of inheriting revolutionary traditions and cultivating the next generation of revolutionaries have been excellently resolved in the country.
Park explained that this can be interpreted as confirming that the basic direction of the succession issue, which is part of the leadership system, has been established as a four-generation hereditary system alongside strengthening Kim’s unique leadership. Even if Ju-ae, who is believed to be groomed as a successor, is not the sole focus, they are promoting a strategy that normalizes the four-generation succession both domestically and internationally.
Regarding leadership appointments expected at the party congress, she predicted that rather than selecting many new figures, proven individuals would take the lead, with the younger generation that has shown results entering the central ranks.
She particularly emphasized the importance of the Loyalty Letter Presentation Ceremony dedicated to the General Secretary held last year. This event, which continued into 2023, summarized the achievements of a nationwide Loyalty Letter Relay led by various organizations, including provincial governments, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League, the People’s Army, and the Ministry of Social Security, as well as the General Federation of Korean Residents in Japan and China.
Park analyzed that the underlying strategic goal of this initiative is to prepare for the election of a new cadre centered around the youth who will lead the North Korean regime after the 9th Party Congress alongside Kim.
Additionally, Park predicted that North Korea would fully revise or abolish the preamble of the Workers’ Party charter to entrench the two-nation framework in inter-Korean relations. Specifically, she anticipated the elimination of concepts such as unified front, nation, development of national unification, South Korea, national self-reliance, national unity, peaceful unification of the homeland, and common prosperity of the nation, with an emphasis on state and patriotism instead.
Park stated that North Korea is also systematizing discourse to justify the two-state framework. She noted that in the General Secretary’s speeches, comments such as discussing unification with this hostile nation (South Korea) is merely an expression of complete obsession and determination, Is there a historical case of two hostile states unifying? and Why should we (North Korea) pursue unification if one must disappear? suggest an increasing practical logic regarding the theory of two hostile states.