North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reduced his public activity in recent years but has accelerated his personality cult by using the title reserved for the country's late founder, South Korea's unification ministry said Thursday.
Kim was referred to with the title "President" on 26 occasions in state media reports in the first seven months of this year, up from 23 in 2022, according to data from the ministry. The figure was also up from 16 occasions in 2021 and four in 2020.
"Great President" is a title used to idolize the country's late founder, Kim Il-sung, who is also known as the incumbent leader's role model.
The secretive regime has bolstered the use of the title "President" for Kim Jong-un as a way to cement the dictatorship, the ministry said. He was often called "Great President" on a par with the title of his late grandfather Kim Il-sung.
In state media, the North's leader was also spotted shedding tears on 10 occasions, such as at a military parade held in late July.
"This is the epitome of a tyrant's politics appealing to people's emotions," a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
The North's leader has conducted public activities on 57 occasions so far this year. In the first half of this year, the number of his public inspections reached 32, fewer than the average of 62 in the past.
Kim has carried out military-related inspections on 30 occasions so far this year, while the number of his economy-related activities came to four.
Since assuming power in 2011, Kim's public activity has been largely on the decline after peaking at 214 in 2013. The number of his "field guidance" excursions has fallen below 100 since 2017.
Meanwhile, North Korea's serious food situation seems to be somewhat alleviating, aided by supplies of summer farm produce, such as potatoes and corn, the ministry said.
The North's food situation appears to have deteriorated amid deepening economic hardships caused by its COVID-19 border closure and disruptions in a state-controlled food supply system, with deaths from starvation occurring in some regions.
"The North's crop production may not be bad for this year, given that the country has not suffered severe damage from heavy rains," the ministry official said.
Still, ordinary North Koreans appear to be shouldering heavy costs to purchase food as food prices spiked early this year.
The price of flour soared 445 percent in the first quarter, compared with the same period of 2019, one year before the country imposed COVID-19 restrictions.
Under the premise that four-member households in the North earn a monthly average of 200,000 won (US$149) and buy the same list of foodstuff as that purchased before the border closure, Engel's coefficient probably came to 94 percent in the cited period, up from 58 percent four years earlier, the ministry estimated.
Engel's coefficient measures the percentage of a household's expenditure on food to its total spending. The ministry said the estimated figure indicates the North's households' rising burdens of food purchases.
The ministry also voiced skepticism about a view that North Korea may drop the strategy of unification by dealing with inter-Korean ties as a state-to-state relationship.
In state media, North Korea recently referred to South Korea by using the South's full name, the Republic of Korea (ROK). This spawned speculations that the North may not see inter-Korean relations as a "special" relationship tentatively formed in the process of seeking reunification.
"The North seems to view that there is nothing to gain from inter-Korean relations and regard such ties as subordinate to the Pyongyang-Washington relations," the official said, adding that the North's ROK reference is an expression of its "mockery" against the South.
Source: Yonhap News Agency