North Korea stages military parade to mark party’s 80th anniversary

Under the leadership of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the country is ready to host top officials from China and Russia to mark 80 years under the ruling Workers’ Party, a celebration which plans to wrap it in the form of a lavish military parade with the involvement of thousands of people.  

It has been reported that North will stage the parade in the night, planning for the spectacle the event involves performances along with the display of its huge weaponry.  

Amid war with Ukraine, and gaining immense support from Russia sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces. The Worker’s party of Korea has been the sole ruling party of North Korea blending with the idea of dictatorship and communism with the dynastic rule of Kim Jong Un.  

Kim met Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin at an elaborate military parade in Beijing last month.  

The grand event will be a “public spectacle that materialises the strategic consolidation of the China-North Korea-Russia axis,” Seong-Hyon Lee, a visiting scholar at the Harvard University Asia Center, told AFP.

After Kim visited Beijing it deepened the strategic ties between the two and renewed the relation between the two. Along with China, the military ally of North Korea, Russia announced their close partnership by signing a mutual defence pact last year, and Kim assisted Moscow amid Russia-Ukraine war.  

A parade with intention 

Strategists expect the parade  to showcase a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could put the US mainland within Pyongyang’s reach, as well as new drones and hypersonic weapons aimed at threatening US forces.

Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korea studies at the University of Oslo said, “The Ukrainian war reportedly showed Pyongyang the importance of the ‘drone revolution’ in warfare and they are doing their best to catch up now, assumedly with Russian help.”

The images that appeared ahead of the parade shows the military preparedness in the state which mounted the air-defence system which is noteworthy and deepened the military ties.  

Pyongyang and fond memories of Trump 

Relations between North Korea and the US have seen a blurred vision as their untimely meeting did not amplify their relations. There are reports that the pair of Kim and Trump has “fallen in love” as they met three times during summits and official meetings.  

Their agreement has failed to secure a lasting agreement on the nuclear programme. Mutual ties between North Korea and the US have been frozen over disagreements on sanctions relief and Pyongyang’s nuclear concessions.

North Korea has declared itself as an “irreversible” nuclear state. While US President Donald Trump has shared his view of meeting Kim again possibly this year. Pyongyang has also said that the city has fond memories of Trump and is open to talk if Washington dropped its demand that the North give up its nuclear weapons.

The upcoming parade will be Pyongyang’s message to Trump that “the old formula for dealing with North Korea is defunct”, said Harvard’s Lee.