This is part one of a multi-part series by Peter Ward on North Korea’s changing economic policy and a potential shift away from market reforms.

For many analysts and observers, there is growing fear that reforms are in retreat in Pyongyang. A project that was a half-hearted recognition of existing realities has been hit by the impact of sanctions and perhaps a growing conservatism in an older Kim Jong Un.

Whether the trend toward hypersecurization, rhetoric increasingly emphasizing survival and belt-tightening rather than development, or actual roll-back from certain more radical parts of the reform agenda