While few details have emerged about North Korea’s forthcoming Eighth Party Congress event, state media coverage suggests that it will primarily focus on turning around the country’s dire economic trajectory.

That’s no surprise given that 2020 was a year of COVID-19 concerns, chronic economic sanctions, natural disasters and international uncertainty, all of which created the most difficult year on record for Kim Jong Un. This might explain why Eighth Party Congress preparations have been so different from those of the Seventh Party Congress of 2016 – this time around, they’re much more low-profile in nature and