A North Korean song performed in front of the regime's leader Kim Jong-un during North Korea’s nationally televised New Year concert is suspected of plagiarizing a K-pop song. 

Kang Dong-wan, a political science professor at Donga University in Busan, said on Tuesday that North Korea’s emerging singer Chong Hong-ran’s performance of “Envy Us” appears to have copied significant portions of South Korean female group GFRIEND’s 2017 song, “Fingertip.” 

Analyzing the concert performed at the Rungrado 1st of May stadium in Pyongyang on December 31, Kang said a comparison of the two songs undertaken by a music expert revealed that they are expressed in the same pitch names, adding it is effectively viewed as plagiarism. 

“Envy Us” is an old North Korean song which was once performed during an inter-Korean cultural performance held at the Panmunjeom on August 15 of 1999. 

The professor said arranging old songs in a fashion that make them sound similar to K-pop tunes has been a consistently observed trend in the communist state since its cultural performances marking the regime’s 74th founding anniversary in September. He suspects the North’s ruling Workers’ Party is behind the move.