⁍ North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to shed tears at the weekend as he thanked citizens for their sacrifices.

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⁍ It was the most striking demonstration yet of how he is relying on his ‘man of the people’ persona to tackle his country’s deepening crises.

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⁍ Since succeeding his father in 2011, Kim has made economic progress a cornerstone of his agenda.

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– North Korea celebrated its 70th anniversary with a military parade and an emotional speech from Kim Jong Un, who apologized to his people for failing to raise living standards. “Our people have placed trust, as high as sky and as deep as sea, on me, but I have failed to always live up to it satisfactorily,” he said, per Reuters. “I am really sorry for that.” The speech was “the most striking demonstration yet of how he is relying on his ‘man of the people’ persona to tackle his country’s deepening crises,” says Rachel Minyoung Lee, an independent researcher and former US government analyst. “Kim’s modesty and candour, and his tears and choking, were all highly unusual, even for someone who publicly acknowledges shortcomings and has an established pattern of being expressive,” Lee says. “The speech was clearly intended to be for and about the people,” says Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, a North Korean economy expert at the US-based Stimson Center think-tank. “Kim has been more personally present and visible at disaster reconstruction sites and the like, and he’s prioritised a lot of the symbolic construction projects designed to show economic progress,” Silberstein says. “Kim’s essentially left with tears, apologies, speed battles, and squeezing out funds wherever they can be found.” North Korea closed its borders to nearly all traffic during the recent coronavirus outbreak.