Why Kim has skipped his New Year’s speech

It will take a while for Kim Jong-un to resume a New Year’s address representing an accurate recognition of reality and suggesting reasonable solutions to get his people out of poverty.

Kim Ho-heungThe author, an adjunct professor at Gachon University, is the director of the North Korea Strategy Center at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has skipped his New Year’s speech every year since 2020. He did the same in 2024. A New Year’s speech is an important political tool that allows world leaders to explain what their governments achieved over the past year and present national visions for the future. But rather than follow that tradition, the head of the reclusive state announced the conclusions reached at the plenary meeting of the Workers’ Party Central Committee at the end of December.

Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, never delivered a New Year’s speech after taking power in 1990. He instead ran a joint editorial in state-run newspapers — including the party’s mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun — as the Communist Party of China did. Kim Jong-un did the same after inheriting the throne from his father in December 2011.

But Kim began delivering a New Year’s speech in 2013 to signify the arrival of his reign. That speech was his first as head of state since his father’s New Year’s address in 1994. Wearing a Mao jacket, Kim Jong-un pompously declared that he would “complete the revolutionary missions based on juche (self-reliance) ideology,” urging his people to “join a majestic march toward the construction of a powerful state.”

But he stopped delivering a New Year’s speech in 2019 and used the Workers’ Party’s conclusions instead from 2020. Given his outstanding governance style — cherishing the power of rhetoric — the decision is hard to understand. He certainly would have wanted to portray the impoverished country as one with rosy prospects and to present himself as a compassionate leader minding his people’s livelihood and agonizing over the unification of the divided land and the peace of the world. But he hasn’t since 2020.

There are a few likely reasons that Kim discontinued his annual speech. First of all, he may want to avoid responsibility for failed policies. It is noteworthy that he halted his New Year’s speech in 2020 — a year after his failed summit with the U.S. president in February 2019 in Hanoi. Kim had traveled 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) to the Vietnamese capital, spending more than 60 hours on a train, but he returned home empty-handed.

That was a direct insult to the integrity of a supreme ruler. The botched summit also fueled frustrations with his national strategy pursuing economic development and nuclear development at the same time. As Kim admitted, his renewed “Five-Year Economic Development Plan” also failed to achieve tangible results, as in the case with its earlier version.

Admitting to such policy mistakes and taking responsibility was out of the question for the impeccable leader, as clearly seen in his shifting the responsibility for his failed economic policies to the “extremely relaxed administrative disciplines among Cabinet members.”

Second, Kim continues to shun his New Year’s speech due to a critical dearth of hopeful messages for his people. He has poured all available resources into the development and advancement of nuclear weapons over the past decade. North Korea fired missiles, including ICBMs, on 30 occasions last year alone.

The recalcitrant state also appears to be approaching a seventh nuclear test, aiming to maximize tensions, get concessions from stakeholders and help resuscitate its moribund economy. But Pyongyang’s old-fashioned brinkmanship will not overcome the firm stances of South Korea and the United States. Such a threat only helps deepen the North’s economic hardship and diplomatic isolation. The repetitive cycles have already changed from “compensation following provocation followed by compensation” to “stronger sanctions following provocation.” In the face of a colossal dilemma where Kim can only demand self-reliance from his people, the New Year’s speech will only put more political burdens on Kim.

The Workers’ Party’s recent meeting only focused on enriching the North’s nuclear arsenal, emphasizing war preparations, and conquering South Korea rather than on finding rational solutions to save the country. It will take a while for Kim Jong-un to resume a New Year’s address representing an accurate recognition of reality and suggesting reasonable solutions to get his people out of poverty.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.