This year the North Korean authorities and the state media have been focusing on the importance of scientific endeavor. Notably, they have done so by building, and reporting on, a complex of apartments “for scientists” in the suburbs of Pyongyang.
Rodong Sinmun, the official publication of the Chosun Workers’ Party, reported on the 14th that Kim Jong Eun recently paid yet another visit to the project, which is under construction at Ryongheung Intersection in the Daeseong district of the capital. The apartments were described in the accompanying piece as “gifts” from Kim Jong Eun to the professors and researchers of Kim Il Sung University.
Kim’s on-site inspection of the construction site was his third, following one on July 1st and another on August 7th. The North Korean media claims that Kim is personally excited about the construction, and is receiving frequent briefings on the status of the construction.
The construction is in line with this year’s televised New Year’s address, in which Kim declared that North Korea must focus on science to help develop the national economy. Speaking during his onsite visit, Kim reaffirmed the same stance, asserting, “We must prioritize our scientists and technicians, and give them special treatment if we are going to be able to accomplish the Party’s focus on science.”
However, the fact that Kim has now made three visits to the same construction site in order to wax lyrical about promoting science is indirectly revealing. Apartments, no matter how liveable, are not the kind of hi-tech outcome that a pro-science policy is designed to bring about, and this implies that North Korea is still short of genuine scientifically or technically advanced projects outside the military. If there were any such projects, they would be used for propaganda.
One expert on North Korea, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Daily NK, “Currently Kim Jong Eun is promoting economic development through science at a time when he needs to generate some achievements. But North Korea is a society centered on the military; in other words, one in which everything is concentrated in the Second Economy. It is difficult to develop the People’s Economy by simply saying you are prioritizing science to improve the people’s lives. It could all end up being nothing but propaganda.”
Professor Cho Young Ki of Korea University added also, “Science is one way to develop an economy, but how you use it is important. If you use it for things like developing nuclear weapons, it is of no help to the people’s lives, even if it does foster science and technology.”
“It’s important to see how far this focus on science goes,” he went on. “Science is not just about the head; it also requires resources, and given North Korea’s situation it appears there will be a limit to it.”
