Youths and students attend a dance party to celebrate the 61st anniversary of the late leader Kim Jong Il's first field guidance for the revolutionary armed forces at the plaza in front of April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. AP-Yonhap

North Korea's main newspaper on Friday stressed the importance of ideological education for younger generations ahead of the county's Youth Day, urging officials to look out for any "exotic elements" in their lifestyles.

The Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the North's ruling Workers' Party, made the appeal in an editorial, referring to the youth as a generation vulnerable to capitalistic ideas and foreign culture as they have "never experienced the hardships of a revolution."

"The hostile forces are obsessed over schemes to infiltrate their reactionary ideology and culture to corrupt the new generations both mentally and morally," it said.

The paper called on officials to stay "sensitive in capturing the psychological changes" of the youth and warned against overlooking even the slightest "exotic elements."

The North has celebrated Youth Day on Aug. 28 annually since 1991, claiming that its founder Kim Il-sung established the Communist Youth League on the same day in 1927.

The article appears to reflect the country's concerns that young North Koreans may be overly exposed to foreign cultures and the principles of a market economy amid Pyongyang's increasing trade with neighboring countries.

The North has stressed discipline and ideological education to its people as efforts to prevent an outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the North have protracted in an economy already faltering under international sanctions. (Yonhap)