Kim Jong Un rediscovers his love of central planning

THE NORTH KOREAN dictator’s love of high-end products from evil capitalist countries is well documented. The import of luxury goods into North Korea has been banned by UN sanctions since 2006. Yet Kim Jong Un parades around Pyongyang in a million-dollar Maybach car, drinks rare whiskies and has a magnificent yacht moored off Wonsan, a seaside resort whose beaches Donald Trump correctly identified as prime property when the two men held a summit in Singapore three years ago.

For a while Mr Kim had seemed inclined to let his subjects have a taste of the good life, too. He said in 2013 that economic prosperity was just as important as military might. He tolerated grey markets and expanded the freedoms of farmers and of managers of state enterprises. The result was modest economic improvement, both for the privileged and ordinary people. That experiment appears to have been short-lived. Entrepreneurial freedoms are being curtailed. State media and party economists have returned to the familiar old rhetoric of autarky and central control. Combined with pandemic-induced isolation, the economic effects of re-centralisation are likely to be disastrous.