Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
Recently, Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece for the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) released a commentary entitled, “Strengthening Self-Reliance through Science and Technology” to elaborate on the term, ‘self-development-first’ principle mentioned in this year’s New Year’s speech.
The ‘self-development first’ policy was discussed in an editorial titled, “Self-Development Is a Powerful Weapon of Building a Powerful Socialist Nation,” which appeared in the January 27, 2016 edition of the newspaper.
Previously, Kim Jong Un stated, “The principle of giving priority to self-development should be maintained in building a thriving socialist country,” and referred to ‘self-development-first principle’ to signify the power to strengthen oneself where “self-development alone is the road to sustaining the dignity of our country and our nation and to paving a broad avenue for the revolution and construction.”
In addition, ‘self-development’ was emphasized as a principle that protected and highlighted ‘socialism of our-way.’ The newspaper further elaborated that in order to promote economic development and improve the livelihoods of the people ‘self-development-first principle’ must be upheld. Moreover, it stressed that powerful nations should not be worshipped and becoming import-dependent must be avoided. In other words, the antonym for ‘self-development’ was ‘worship of big nations’ and ‘import-dependent.’
In last year’s new year’s speech, Kim Jong Un used the term ‘import disease’ to refer to ‘import-dependence’ as he stressed, “All the factories and enterprises should wage a dynamic struggle to get rid of the proclivity to import and ensure the domestic production of raw and other materials and equipment, while sprucing themselves up by taking their cue from the model units put forward by the Party.”
In this regard, North Korea boasted on specific technological achievements such as subway trains as well as “Juche-based metallurgical industry and model and standard factories of the era of the knowledge-driven economy in various parts of the country . . . opening a new road of advance for developing the overall economy and improving the people’s standard of living.”
North Korea’s emphasis on ‘self-dependence’ is seen as a way to make a breakthrough in a difficult situation with international economic sanctions enforced to make up for ‘lacking’ and ‘inadequate’ resources from the outside world.
The newspaper particularly stressed, “self-development principle is based on science and technology and is an impetus to achieve economic revival.” It added, “Self-development principle inevitably calls for emphasis on science and technology. Self-development can be developed more powerfully and in rapid speed only with the backing of modern science and technology which can serve as the basis to achieve the prosperity of the nation to make a new leap in the construction of a strong nation.”
Ultimately, the editorial explained ‘self-development-first principle’ in the current stage is implemented through promotion of science and technology, which is seen as the key to solve the immediate tasks of achieving economic development and improvement of people’s standard of living.
Kim Jong Un’s announcement of ‘self-development-first principle’ and Rodong Sinmun’s elaboration of the principle in this recent editorial, in conjunction with the calls for science and technology development, reflects and exemplifies what North Korea’s current stance and methodology is in constructing its economy and nation.
