Reform or Status Quo? An Analysis of North Korea’s Party Congress

Last week, North Korea launched its Seventh Worker's Party Congress, a major meeting of regime leaders that has not been convened in 36 years. Although analysts had high expectations for the meeting, there were few major announcements out of Pyongyang. What significance did the meeting have? What changes does it signal for the DPRK in the future?

To answer some of these questions, this week Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson sits down with Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation. They discuss some of the announcements that Kim Jong Un made at the Congress, some of the expected moves that he chose not to make, and why he may have chosen to wear that infamous striped suit.