North Korea Pledges a Drive for Prosperity in New Year's Message SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Sunday vowed an all-out push to improve the economic life of its impoverished people, criticized South Korea and rallied internal support for Kim Jong-un in a New Year's statement that revealed the challenges the young new leader faces. "The whole party, the entire army and all the people should possess a firm conviction that they will become human bulwarks and human shields in defending Kim Jong-un unto death," said a joint editorial carried by the official newspapers of the party, the Korean People's Army and the socialist youth league. Outside analysts scrutinize the North's annual joint New Year's editorial, which is roughly the equivalent of the State of the Union speech in the United States. This year's was Pyongyang's first since Mr. Kim took the helm of the regime after the Dec. 17 death of his father, the long-time dictator, Kim Jong-il. Analysts looked for clues on where the regime was headed during this sensitive transfer of power to the relatively inexperienced leader. Mr. Kim, believed to be in his late 20s, took over as North Korea entered a year in which it will mark the centenary of the April 15 birth of Kim Il-sung, the national founder, Mr. Kim's grandfather and a god-like figure among North Koreans. Before his death, Kim Jong-il had promised that in 2012, North Korea would enter a new era as a "great and prosperous nation." Kim Jong-il had sought to justify his family's dynastic rule by stirring a nationalistic pride with his development of nuclear weapons. But his goal of improving the living standards for people in the country had eluded him, partly because the nuclear weapons and long-range missile tests brought a wave of international sanctions. Now his son has inherited that challenge and has had to move quickly to consolidate his grip on power. Over the weekend, North Korea upheld him as top leader of the country, and on Friday, it officially made him supreme commander of its 1.2 million-strong military, a move considered crucial to protecting his power. The statement said that North Korea was "at the epochal point of opening the gates of a thriving country," with parts of Pyongyang "turned into socialist fairylands." At the same time, it acknowledged that the country's food crisis remains a "burning issue." When Kim Jong-il died, Pyongyang and Washington were negotiating the terms of a package of food aid aimed at helping North Korean children, who the United Nations has said are suffering from widespread malnutrition. Like previous New Year's editorials, this year's did not elaborate on how the country would improve the economy, other than exhorting the people to revolutionize the farm industry and increase coal and light-industry production. Rather, it appeared to focus on ensuring continuity during the transition period by highlighting Kim Jong-un as a faithful successor of his father's songun, or "military-first," policy, which directed much of the national resources toward building military might. "The dear respected Kim Jong-un is precisely the great Kim Jong-il," it said. The editorial and separate statements over the weekend called the government of President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea "unethical and anti-national" for failing to express official condolences over the death of Kim Jong-il. They said inter-Korean relations would not improve as long as Mr. Lee was in office. Over the weekend, North Korea also released an annual list of propaganda slogans that will go up in walls and billboards throughout the isolated country. One of them threatened to turn the Blue House, the presidential office in Seoul, into a "sea of fire" if the South provoked the North. Mr. Lee, who will end his single term in February of next year, planned to give a New Year's speech on Monday. In the editorial, the North did not dwell on its troubled relations with the United States over its nuclear weapons program. But it demanded that Washington withdraw its 28,500 "U.S. imperialist invasion troops" from South Korea. Although regularly repeated by Pyongyang, the demand appeared in the New Year's editorial for the first time since 2007. The editorial highlighted Kim Jong-il's trips to Russia and China, the North's Cold War-era allies with which it has sought more co-operation in recent years as its relations with Washington and Seoul soured and economic sanctions tightened. Kim Jong-un received a crucial endorsement from China on Saturday, when President Hu Jintao sent congratulations to him on his appointment as supreme military leader. "There is a deep tradition of friendship between the peoples and the military forces of China and North Korea," said Mr. Hu, according to the statement carried on Beijing's government Web site. The traditional friendly cooperation between China and North Korea is sure to constantly consolidate and strengthen. At home, North Korea called for a "monolithic leadership" by Mr. Kim, as the editorial did on Sunday. The top military post, awarded to Mr. Kim at a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers" Party on Friday, was the first official leadership title Mr. Kim has taken since the country proclaimed him to be the supreme leader at a huge rally in Pyongyang, the North's capital, last Thursday, one day after his father's funeral. It seems likely that Mr. Kim will soon assume more top titles, like general secretary of the party and chairman of the National Defense Commission. Analysts have said the speed with which Mr. Kim is collecting titles after the death of his father suggests that he is vulnerable and that his supporters are trying to forestall any challenges to his power. The strident rhetoric toward the South, they said, may be also a sign that the government is using tensions with the outside world to rally its military and people behind the new leader. "Kim Jong-un, as he is now, doesn't hold as much leadership and authority as his father did, so he must hurry to declare at home and to the world that he is the top man in his country," said Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. And the first institution he must have control of is the military, which is key to protecting power. But Mr. Chang said that it might not be Mr. Kim himself, but rather his senior guardians, who were elevating him to the top post. "They know that if they don't hang together in this sensitive transition time and protect their own vested interest in upholding the system, they might hang separately," Mr. Chang said.