The North Korea that leaves the ninth Workers’ Party Congress is a different country from the one that left the eighth congress in 2021. Five years ago, the centrepiece of the eighth party congress was an ambitious weapons development programme unveiled by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and accompanied by belligerent rhetoric against the United States, both of which indicated the North Korean leadership’s concerns about their vulnerability.
Now, Kim’s regime has an improved and resilient…
Nuclear-armed North Korea is pivoting from reunification to coexistence
