Kim Jong Un’s dependence on illicit Chinese business networks and aid from Beijing is set to increase as the North Korean leader faces the country’s worst economic crisis in almost a decade, analysts say.

The 36-year-old dictator said last month that North Korea was struggling to meet its economic objectives. The admission was a rare concession of failure and a blow to his hallmark policy of economic growth alongside nuclear weapons development, a dual-track known as the “byungjin line.”

The combination of tough US and UN sanctions, coupled with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent plunge in legal trade with China — as well as a series of recent typhoons and flooding — has increased the importance of revenue from North Koreans operating businesses in other countries, remittances from overseas workers and cash from cyber crime.