North Korean Economy Watch

BBC
8/20/2003

More than 200 North Korean athletes, officials and journalists have arrived in South Korea for the World Student Games, after days of political wrangling.

The North Korean delegation flew south for the games at Daegu, after reversing a decision to withdraw from the event over a recent anti-North flag-burning protest in the South Korean capital Seoul.

The row erupted at a delicate time for inter-Korean relations, just a week before crucial talks on the North’s nuclear weapons programme are due to get under way.

In a further sign that relations between the two sides are thawing, both Koreas have agreed in principle to field a unified team for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

The agreement was announced on Wednesday in a joint statement by the two delegations attending the Daegu games.

Athletes from North and South Korea marched behind a single “Korean Peninsula” flag for the first time at the 2000 Sydney Olympics but they competed as separate countries during the actual competition.

North Korea also sent a large delegation to last year’s Asian Games, participating for the first time in a major sporting event hosted by South Korea.

The BBC’s Charles Scanlon in Seoul says the North’s participation in those games was seen as an important symbol of warming ties.

But he says the next big test will come next week in Beijing, when the North Koreans sit down with their Asian neighbours and the United States for six-party talks aimed at putting a stop to Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

Triumphant arrival

The North Korean delegation arrived in the South on Wednesday waving their hands and smiling at supporters waiting for them at the airport.

“Brothers in the South, we are happy to see you,” said Jon Guk-man, head of the North Korean delegation.

Reuters news agency said South Korea was paying all the expenses for the North’s team, which organisers consider a major draw in an event short on big sporting names.

North Korea’s about-face over its decision to boycott the games came after South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun expressed regret for last Friday’s anti-North protest, describing it as “inappropriate”.

Mr Roh’s government has been struggling to maintain good relations with Pyongyang, despite signs that the North is pushing ahead with the development of nuclear weapons.

His conciliatory remarks contrasted with comments by US President George W Bush on Monday, who said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was a “dangerous man” who loved “rattling sabres”.

Pyongyang has repeatedly warned that the US must change its “hostile policy” towards the North if forthcoming Beijing talks, which will also include Washington, are to make progress.

BBC
6/27/2003

More than 100 elderly South Koreans travelled to the North on Friday for a tearful reunion with relatives they had not seen since the Korean war ended nearly 50 years ago.

Tens of thousands of Koreans have been cut off from their families – with no mail, telephone service or other form of communication between them.

But since the two sides held an unprecedented summit in 2000, there have been seven rounds of temporary reunions, allowing a lucky few to see each other again – all-be-it for only a few days.

The reunions are always surrounded by intense emotion, not least because many of those desperate to be reunited with their relatives are becoming increasingly frail.

Thousands die every year before getting the chance to be reunited with loved ones.

Friday’s trip to North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort, included three South Koreans aged more than 100 years old.

Chun Eung-oh, 85, said she did not want to return to the South and leave her son, Park Un Jin, 65, in the North.

“When I return, I will be alone. I have no one in the South. Can I live with you?” she asked her son, who was unable to answer.

Both Koreas have agreed to set up a permanent family reunion centre, where separated relatives could meet more easily.

But tensions over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions have cast doubt over the proposals, and lessened the hopes of many thousands of families.

‘Grave threat’

More than a million people crowded Pyongyang’s streets for anti-American rallies on Wednesday, as part of the government commemorations marking the 53rd anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.

On Friday, the American ambassador to Japan, Howard Baker, said North Korea posed a “grave” threat to world peace.

“I hope they understand that time is not on their side,” he said, adding that “sooner or later, patience expires”.

He urged the Stalinist state to take steps to abandon its nuclear programme as soon as possible.

He also suggested that Washington was unlikely to continue with plans to construct nuclear power plants in North Korea, if Pyongyang did not put a stop to its weapons programme.

“My guess is that if… they do not decide to engage in dismantlement of their weapons programme, it is unlikely that the United States would support the completion of those reactors beyond the commitments that we’ve undertaken in the framework agreement,” Mr Baker said.

But Japan signalled on Friday that it was not yet ready to abandon the project.

“We are not presently thinking of putting an end to it,” said Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi.

The US$4.6bn construction project, backed by the US, the European Union, Japan and South Korea, has been in doubt since the US claimed last year that Pyongyang had admitted to a secret nuclear programme.

The project was designed to build two light-water reactors in North Korea, as part of a 1994 agreement to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

BBC
5/15/2003

The divided Korean peninsula is set to be brought together by a feature film set during unified Korea’s resistance to Japanese colonisation in the 1900s.

Arirang, a South Korean film, which opens simultaneously in the North and South next week, will be the first feature from Seoul to be shown on both sides of the Korean border, according to the South’s Korean Herald.

Since war separated the two neighbours in the 1950s, there has been little chance for Koreans from either side to watch productions by the other.

“It will be good for reconciliation if we can encourage more cultural exchanges like this,” said the film’s director Lee Doo-yong.

But Arirang may fare very differently in the two Koreas, when it opens on 23 May. The countries are reported to have deeply divergent tastes in films.

Arirang tells the story of a young Korean man who loses his sanity after being tortured by the Japanese.

The theme is likely to be popular in the North, whose founder and first president, Kim Il-sung, was the leader of pro-independence guerrillas.

His son, current leader Kim Jong-il, has also criticised Tokyo for its repressive regime during the Korean occupation.

Most North Korean films tell traditional folk stories or advertise the communist government’s regime, so Arirang may well prove a refreshing alternative for audiences in Pyongyang.

“The film shows the happiness and sadness of life,” Mr Lee told the Associated Press news agency. “North Koreans seemed to be very moved by it.”

But south of the border, audiences have a tendency to shun traditional movies, according to the Korean Herald.

The fact that the sequel to the Matrix opens on the same day as Arirang may also lower attendance figures in South Korea.

Past films made in the North have not fared well in Seoul.

In July 2000, a Northern film called Pulgasari – a version of Godzilla – was seen by an audience of less than 1,000 South Koreans, according to the Korean Herald.

Kidnapped director

Pulgasari was one of the many films produced by Shin Sang-ok, a South Korean film director who was kidnapped with his wife in the 1970s to produce films for the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il.

Mr Kim is a famed film enthusiast, and is said to have a library of 20,000 Hollywood movies.

He has even opened a film school in impoverished Pyongyang.

Arirang’s director, Mr Lee, said he was not too concerned about being kidnapped when he visited the North last year to gain approval for his film’s showing.

“But I must admit I was a little nervous when entering Pyongyang,” he told the Associated Press.

BBC
Caroline Gluck
2/11/2003

The Sunday service at Doorae church in southern Seoul is like many others across the country – except that the congregation includes about 20 North Korean defectors.

Many of them, like 28-year-old Kim Song Gun, turned to Christianity when they encountered missionaries helping North Koreans on the Chinese border.

Kim Song Gun left his home in the northern province of Chongjin six years ago, fearing he would die from starvation.

“I think it’s almost impossible to lead a normal Christian life in North Korea. I’ve heard rumours there are underground churches, but I haven’t seen anyone who has been there,” said Kim Song Gun.

“Mentally, Christianity helps a lot. When you are going through a lot of hardships, religion is the only thing you can rely on,” he said.

Perilous trip

Other members of the congregation agree.

During Sunday’s service, North Korean mother Park Young Ae and her 14-year-old son went to the altar to sing a song that has become popular with North Korean defectors – telling the story of a sparrow’s perilous journey.

After four years apart, they were only reunited a few days earlier.

Park Young Ae said she had been on a business trip to China – but had been unable to return to the North and her family for reasons she said were too complicated to go into.

“A lot of the time, I was trying to escape, and people were trying to capture me. At one point I was also jailed. I went through a lot of pain, but I finally made it to South Korea,” she said.

“When I received orientation in South Korea, I learnt about Christianity and spiritually I’m now very reliant on being a Christian. It gives me inner power.”

Spiritual help

After the service ends, Park Young Ae – who now runs a restaurant – is able to earn some extra money selling North Korean style sausages to members of the congregation.

The Church can help people like her – not only financially but more importantly by providing them with a sense of community.

“North Koreans are looked down upon and marginalised socially,” said Douglas Shin, a Korean-American missionary and activist working with North Korean immigrants.

“So when they need some kind of consolation, they turn to church,” he said.

But for 24-year-old Kim Kun Il, the Church is about to become his vocation.

Kim Kun Il, who left the North after his father died from hunger six years ago, is now studying to be a reverend at a missionary school.

He said he goes to church for the mental help, not the material help, the church groups give.

“Money and food has its limitations. Once you are back to a normal state, it doesn’t really help,” he said.

Douglas Shin agreed. “When you recover from malnutrition or absolute starvation, the human body adapts very quickly. So one or two meals in freedom will be enough to get you on your own feet,” he said.

“But it takes a long time and a lot of effort to be revived spiritually. They need some kind of comfort, mental and spiritual.”

“This is our role, the Christian role, to save the people from drowning. It’s almost like Noah’s Ark,” he said.

According to the BBC, the North Korean government is not happy with the country’s portrayal in the latest James Bond film, Die Another Day.  To begin with, the film portrays the country as “backward” (showing cows till fields).  In addition, Mr. Bond finds time for sex in a Buddhist temple.  Finally, and least subtly, the film begins with Mr. Bond being captured and tortured by the DPRK army.

According to the report,

“North Korea has called on the United States to stop showing Die Another Day saying it is “insulting the Korean nation”.   The film – starring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry – “clearly proves” the US is “the root cause of all disasters and misfortune of the Korean nation” and is “an empire of evil”, according to the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

The most interesting insight here is that they do not appear to understand that the US government does not have the power to “stop showing” the film.

Continue reading the whole Story here

From the BBC:
10/15/2002

Seven survivors of the North Korean World Cup team that beat Italy in 1966 have arrived in England to revisit the scene of their triumph.

Against all the odds, the North Koreans reached the quarter-finals having been adopted by the people of Middlesbrough where they played their group matches.

North Korea arrived in England unknown and unwanted.

In 1966 there was only one place in the finals for the whole of Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Africa boycotted the finals because there was no guaranteed place, leaving Australia and North Korea to contest the spot.

With no diplomatic ties, the qualifiers took place in Cambodia, with North Korea overwhelming Australia 6-1 and 3-1.

Horror then admiration

The British Government was aghast and even considered not issuing visas to the winners, but relented.

The Koreans lost their opening game 3-0 to a hard Russian side, but earned the love and respect of the people of Middlesbrough.

Those fans were even more delighted with a 1-1 draw against Chile.

The deciding match was against the might of Italy.

Five minutes before half-time, a ball headed out of defence found Pak Doo-ik, who took the ball off Giovanni Rivera and hit a powerful shot to beat the goalkeeper.

Sensational games

It was the biggest upset in 36 years of the World Cup.

More sensations followed when North Korea took a 3-0 lead against Portugal in the quarter-finals.

But in the end their naivety let them down, and Eusebio scored four in their 5-3 defeat.

North Korea went home as heroes, the Italians were pelted with rotten tomatoes, and the impact of that defeat still survives.
 

BBC
9/23/2002

A plane carrying 173 athletes and officials from North Korea has touched down in the South Korean city of Busan ahead of the Asian Games, due to begin on Sunday.

The group is the first part of the largest delegation ever sent by the Communist North to the South.

It is the first time that Northern athletes have attended an international sporting event in the South since the peninsula’s division in 1945.

In another first, the North Korean flag was publicly flown on Southern soil when it was hoisted at the Games village.

But the athletes and officials leaving the plane at the airport were met by the blue and white neutral flag of a united Korean peninsula.

“Thanks for welcoming us,” said one of the delegates as they headed off to the athletes’ village without giving a news conference.

Warming up

Altogether, nearly 700 northerners are due to arrive for the Games.

A second plane carrying 152 people is due to arrive on Friday while a ferry will bring 355 officials and supporters into the port city on Saturday.

Of the 419 gold medals up for grabs at the Games, the North is expected to bag about 10, having won seven at the last Asian Games, held in Thailand in 1998.

With the two Korean states still technically at war, the North has until now shunned all big sporting events hosted by its rival, including the 1986 Asian Games, the 1988 Olympic Games and the 2002 World Cup football finals.

But recent weeks have seen a flurry of both diplomatic and sporting activity as work on a cross-border railway began, families were reunited and the two states held a friendly football match in Seoul.

BBC
9/13/2002

There have been emotional scenes in North Korea as hundreds of relatives from South Korea were reunited with 100 long-lost relatives from the North.

Many of the participants, mostly aged in their 60s and 70s, were speechless as they embraced their brothers, sisters, parents and children for the first time in more than 50 years.

The group of 455 South Koreans arrived by ship for the three-day reunion, which is taking place at the picturesque Kumgang Mountain (Diamond Mountain) resort on the northern side of the border.

This is the fifth reunion to take place since the meetings were agreed upon at an historic inter-Korean summit in 2000.

Millions of Koreans were separated after the 1950-1953 Korean War. About eight million South Koreans have relatives living in the North.

Time running out

The two counties remain technically at war, and it is impossible for civilians to telephone or send a letter to relatives on the other side of their heavily-fortified border

The oldest participant in this latest wave of reunions is a 94-year-old man who is set to see his son for the first time in more than 50 years.

Many Koreans wept as they were introduced to relatives that they could barely recognise after so many years.

South Korean sisters Lee Jin-ock and Lee Jin-geum broke down when they saw their father, Lee Kyoo-yom, aged 82.

The sisters have held an annual memorial service for him for the past 30 years, having given him up for dead after he went out shopping and never returned on the outbreak of war in 1950.

Kim Kun-rye, a 67-year-old South Korean grandmother, was blind but could still recognise the voice of her 74-year-old brother after five decades.

“It’s him! I can’t see him, but he still has the same voice,” the blind sister said, hugging her brother and weeping.

Selection lottery

The reunions are an emotional issue for many Koreans as the divided family members are beginning to die of old age or illness.

Red Cross officials in Seoul said three family-reunion applicants had to abandon this trip because of health problems.

South Korea held a lottery among 120,000 candidates to select its family members. It is not known how the North selected its participants.

The reunions are strictly controlled and participants are not allowed to visit their home towns.

Last week Red Cross officials from both sides agreed to set up a permanent reunion centre at the mountain resort.

Another group of 100 South Koreans will leave for Mount Kumgang on Monday to meet relatives.

The latest flurry of reunions is part of a recent thawing of relations between the two countries as the impoverished North reaches out internationally for much needed aid.

BBC
9/5/2002

North Korea’s football team has arrived in South Korea for the first match between the two countries for nearly 10 years.

They will play on Saturday in Seoul’s main stadium – scene of South Korea’s unexpected success in the recent World Cup, when the team reached the semi-finals.

The two teams last met in 1993, when the South won 3-0. The new game comes at a time of tentative moves by the two countries to improve their relations.

In the past two weeks, North Korea has held talks at various levels with the South, Russia and Japan as Pyongyang makes new attempts to widen its links with the outside world.

Symbolic ceremonies

Hours before the North Koreans footballers arrived in the South, there were simultaneous torch-lighting ceremonies in the two countries.

These were held in a symbolic gesture of reconciliation marking North Korea’s participation in the Asian Games, to be held in the southern town of Busan later this month.

In South Korea, seven women dressed as angels lit a torch using sunlight reflected by a mirror at the summit of the country’s highest peak, Halla Mountain, on the southernmost island of Juju.

The North Koreans lit their torch on top of Mount Paekdu, the most sacred place of the country and the birthplace of their leader, Kim Jong-il.

The two torches will unite on the border on Saturday, and then a single torch will travel around South Korea to Busan.

Time
Donald MacIntyre
8/11/2002

Richard Savage kneels in the rich brown earth of a field on the outskirts of Pyongyang and reverentially spreads out the broad, green leaf of a young paulownia tree. The saplings have been in the ground for only a month but already they are a meter high; the first harvest could take place in just five years. Eyes shaded by his black cowboy hat, the Singaporean native gazes down the rows of juvenile trees, each worth thousands of dollars at maturity, with a satisfied grin. The experimental lumber crop has survived the harsh North Korean winter and is flourishing in the loamy soil. “The paulownia loves this,” he says. Glancing at another leafy plant, a new hybrid, he confides, “We’re going to let the Dear Leader name it.”

Hermit state, international pariah, charter member of the “axis of evil”?North Korea is hardly an obvious place for long-term investments like tree farms. The decrepit Stalinist economy depends on international handouts to prevent widespread starvation. The Dear Leader, strongman Kim Jong Il, runs the country like a medieval fief. But Savage is confident that his $23 million, 20,000 hectare Paulownia plantation south of Pyongyang will pay off. His Singapore-based company, Maxgro Holdings, is investing $5 million in North Korea this year, and he even has plans to build a resort there, complete with a 70-room hotel, horseback riding, trout fishing and all-terrain vehicles. “This is a mega-growth area,” he says. “If you don’t move now, you will have missed the boat.”

Whether Savage has boarded the Titanic remains to be seen, but there are increasing signs that North Korea at last may be opening its barbed-wire gates, economically and diplomatically. Last month, the authoritarian leadership increased food prices, set artificially low by the government, by as much as 50 fold, while increasing miners’ and scientists’ salaries by almost as much. Many observers say the reforms, including the elimination of some manufacturing subsidies, signal that Kim is edging toward a market economy instead of perpetuating a system in which North Koreans rely on virtually free handouts from the government.

Just as intriguing is the sudden burst of sunshine out of Pyongyang diplomats, the normally reclusive North Koreans are now clamoring to talk to Seoul, Tokyo and Washington all at once. Senior North Korean government officials are scheduled to travel to Seoul this week for ministerial-level talks, the first such tete-a-tete in nine months. Says Yim Sung Joon, a senior advisor to South Korea’s President Kim Dae Jung: “This is a very important moment for the two Koreas.”

On the agenda: everything from reunions of separated families to rebuilding a railway across the heavily mined dmz dividing North and South. In a surprise move, Pyongyang has already agreed to send athletes to the Pusan Asian Games next month, the first time North Koreans will take part in an international sporting event in the South. Japanese officials head to Pyongyang next week for talks that will include the awkward issue of Japanese nationals allegedly abducted in the 1970s and ’80s, Japan wants them back before the two countries can normalize relations. Meanwhile, North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell for a 15-minute chat on the sidelines of the asean meeting in Brunei two weeks ago, the highest level encounter between the two sides since George W. Bush became President.

Is this the same country whose navy six weeks ago shelled South Korean patrol boats off the west coast of the peninsula, killing five sailors? It is, say observers, who speculate that the naval battle may have been an accidental clash rather than a deliberate provocation. The country’s recent reforms and overtures are, in fact, in keeping with an agenda dating back to the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union unraveled and left its client state, North Korea, without a dependable source of oil and food. The conventional wisdom has been that Kim is too scared of losing control to risk reform. But a devastating famine in the mid-’90s made it clear the country could not go it alone–that it must, to some degree, join the international economic community.

Frequent business visitors to Pyongyang say the North Koreans have been overhauling their investment laws and welcoming international trade delegations in the hope of attracting foreign capital. Government connections are still essential, but there are fewer layers of bureaucracy than in China, say experts on North Korean business practices. Once a joint venture is signed, getting things done is no tougher than in other developing countries. “I find it very refreshing to be here,” says Savage. “The guys are very straight.”

But North Korea’s agricultural output has fallen dramatically and its infrastructure is crumbling. Most of its factories have shut down and its electric power system is in shambles. The country has one of the worst credit ratings in the world and its currency, the won, is not convertible. Building the basic services that might make North Korea alluring to more foreign investors will take billions of dollars in loans from international lenders like the World Bank.

Lending cannot take place without assent from the U.S., and Washington won’t approve until North Korea allows inspections of all its nuclear weapons facilities. The country froze its nuclear program under a 1994 agreement with the U.S., in return receiving oil imports and a commitment–backed by South Korea and Japan–to build two light-water nuclear power plants in North Korea. Ground has been broken for construction of one in the port city of Kumho. But under the agreement, North Korea must allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to assess whether Pyongyang is living up to its promise to come clean on all of its nuclear programs, a process that could take several years. The U.S. and its partners want to begin soon. So far, Kim has refused to allow inspections to resume, and the standoff goes on. Says a Western diplomat: “The North Koreans are going to have to be viewed as extremely clean.”

Nevertheless, a few brave pioneers have set up shop in North Korea in anticipation of better times. Swiss data-processing company Datactivity.com has run a joint-venture data-entry center in Pyongyang since 1997. Some South Korean companies have launched joint ventures in areas like animation and computer software. And Chinese traders do a booming business back and forth across the China-North Korea border. Robert Suter, who heads the Seoul office of Swiss power generation company ABB Ltd., says his firm is staking out a position in North Korea, “It is the same as it was in China years ago. You had to be there and you had to build trust.”

The question on many minds is whether Kim Jong Il, who has a history of trading friendly relations and empty promises for monetary assistance, is merely giving the world another head fake. His market reforms, according to skeptics, are designed not to liberalize the economy but to control the informal black markets that burgeoned during the famine, when the government could not feed everybody.

If North Korea is indeed serious about reform, it will begin by rebuilding its decimated manufacturing sector. The country needs to export goods if it is to earn hard currency to pay for the food and fertilizer it cannot produce itself. Cutting off subsidies to deadbeat factories is just a first step, and there is no evidence the government has a blueprint for moving further. “They aren’t scrapping the socialist system,” says Koh Hyun Wook, an expert on North Korea at Kyungnam University near Pusan. “These are makeshift moves to overcome the current economic crisis.”

Savage, the tree farmer, believes otherwise. He will be in North Korea with his Israeli irrigation engineers this week, setting up greenhouses and touching base with his North Korean partners. But he acknowledges his venture will require patience. The country “may be a bit backward,” he concedes, “but so what? If you are prepared to help, it will take off like a bloody bullet.” Or a paulownia tree.