Seoul (AsiaNews) - North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly met yesterday for the second plenary session this year, adopting a law that extends compulsory education by a year. However, during the session, nothing was said about future reforms in the country's economy.
The meeting provides more evidence that Kim Jong-un intends to move away from his father Kim Jong-il's policies.
The heir to the late 'dear leader' appears to be trying to carve a reputation as a reformer, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the beloved Kim Il-sung. As part of his charm offensive, the new leader announced that he plans to "listen to parliament always" before introducing reforms. By contrast, his father had the assembly meet only once a year to ratify his decisions.
Extending state-funded education from 11 to 12 years is a way to cultivate loyalty among younger generations.
In addition to the country, the young marshal inherited a complex and corrupt power system from his father based on the top echelons of the military and the Workers' Party.
His goal is to open the system up in order to purge it and remove people from strategic posts, but to do so he needs new and young leaders loyal to him.
At the economic level, there has been no movement or signal for China. Beijing, Pyongyang's lonely ally, has shown increasing displeasure with North Korea's provocative military stances and disastrous economic policies.
In various high-level meetings in Beijing, Chinese leaders have called on their Stalinist cousins to be open to market reforms and follow in the footsteps of Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s.
According to some sources, in their last meeting Chinese leaders told their North Korean counterparts that they would not provide any more economic assistance unless they started opening up.
North Korea's economy has been on its knees since the early 1990s because of famine, floods, poor economic planning and huge military budgets. The country is tittering on the edge of collapse with half of the population surviving on less than a dollar a day.
In 2002, Kim Jong-il began some reforms, which he later dropped. In 2009, he launched a currency "revaluation" that proved to be a disaster, sparking an inflationary surge that wiped out savings and triggered rare public protests.
