Kim Jong-un changes the position of the red star on the national flag to strengthen his personal authority and downplay the imprint of his father and ancestors

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has strengthened his authority by revising the national anthem and also revised the Soviet-designed national flag that has been in use since his grandfather Kim Il-sung came to power. The Wall Street Journal reported that this is Kim Jong-un’s latest move to leave his personal mark on the country’s system.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the 13th that Kim Jong-un announced the contents of the constitutional amendment this week, revealing for the first time changes to the flag. The flag has been shortened and the red star has been moved closer to the center of the flag. The new version of the national flag was unveiled at the opening ceremony of the Asian Games and the commissioning ceremony of a North Korean destroyer in September, and the North Korean official media website seems to have also switched to the new version.

In the version before the modification, the red star was not in the center, but closer to the side of the flagpole. However, this version of the flag was too narrow, long, and heavy, and sometimes it was difficult to unfold it in the wind. It would wrinkle up and cover the core image of the red star.

Fyodor Tertitskiy, a Russian scholar at Korea University in Seoul who studies North Korean history, pointed out that in the original design, a wide red stripe in the middle was printed with red stars on a white background, symbolizing the Korean Peninsula unified under communism, while the upper and lower blue stripes represented the seas on both sides of the peninsula.

The old version of the flag was designed by the Soviet Union (before its disintegration) in Moscow after World War II and handed over to North Korea's founding leader Kim Il Sung for use. But North Korea's official propaganda decades ago attributed the design of the flag to Kim Il-sung, not the Soviet Union, and described the flag's style as a symbol of Kim Il-sung's resistance to Japanese colonial rule and the nation's common blood.

In the early days of his rule, Kim Jong-un relied heavily on his grandfather's prestige to consolidate the legitimacy of his rule. From his hairstyle to his clothing, everything is reminiscent of Kim Il-sung. But in recent years he has gradually established his mark, some through symbolic changes. In recent years, murals of his portrait have appeared in various places in North Korea, and most of the references to the former leader, Kim Il Sung, and his father Kim Jong Il in the constitution have been deleted; at the end of 2023, Kim Jong Un gave up his father and grandfather's long-standing policy of reunification with South Korea, and the following year deleted the lyrics in the national anthem that referred to the entire Korean Peninsula.

For the authoritarian leader, changing the flag is "yet another symbolic break with the past," Tertiski said.