North Korean Economy Watch

Andrei Lankov writes in the Korea Times that South Korea’s threats to reduce tourism levels to Kaesong, as well as support for the Kaesong Industrial Zone, are misguided.  His reasoning is as follows:

North Korea is a very peculiar society, where the elite are almost entirely free from the pressures experienced by those below them. When sanctions are applied to such a regime, they seldom have a direct bearing on the elite and their lifestyle.

Sanctions usually work in an indirect way, by punishing the population which then might either rebel against the government or vote it out of power. Neither rebellion nor elections are possible in North Korea (well, elections are happening there, as everybody knows, with the approval rate of the government candidates standing at a world record high of 100 percent). As a result of sanctions the populace will die without protesting, while the elite will survive and stay in control, even if for a while they will have ride their beloved Mercedes limousines less frequently.

The only way to bring changes to North Korea is to create forces which will be able to challenge the government. This might lead to a revolution, but one cannot completely rule out that the regime will start giving in if sufficiently pressed from within.

In addition to Lankov’s point above, sanctions can perversely benefit those in power who control and profit from black market activity (at higher prices).   Additionally, politically sophisticated leaders exploit the consequences of foreign-imposed sanctions to restrict domestic freedoms and political opposition. 

Bossuyt (Adverse Consequences of Economic Sanctions) shows even the most optimistic accounts of sanctions point to only a third having partial success.  Others find a mere 2% success rate among authoritarian regimes.  So sanctions have a poor track record of inducing positive policy changes, particularly in North Korea. 

So why are the Kaesong and Kumgang projects worthwhile?  Though not all that economical, Lankov argues that these aid projects create alternate channels for information to permeate the hearts and minds of the isolated North Korean people, and that shattering the North’s monopoly on information is key to promoting change within the DPRK:

…in order to facilitate North Korea’s transformation, more truth about the outside world needs to be imported. The survival of the North Korean regime now critically depends on a few important myths, and each myth is patently false and hence very vulnerable.

When the North Korean propaganda-mongers are talking to the North Korean public, they have to hide how poor their country actually is, and they also have to lie about the great respect Kim and his regime enjoys worldwide, especially in South Korea. An increase in contact with the outside world is the best way to undermine these falsities.

…

The inconvenient truth regarding South Korea’s huge economic advantage will start to surface soon. It will probably take more time before it will dawn on the North Koreans that their Seoul guests are not exactly full of love and respect for the Pyongyang dynasty, either.

There is plenty of journalistic evidence that many North Koreans already know the South is “rich”—although they might not have any idea what that actually means. Still, of all the Hyundai projects in the DPRK, I believe the Kaesong Industrial Zone is probably the most helpful for the South in the long term.  None of Hyundai’s other projects do all that much to improve the human capital of the DPRK people, and when things eventually change, it is important for the RoK to have a population of constituents in the DPRK who have some job and management skills and familiarity with the South’s culture to ease the transition.

Comments welcome.

Read the full article here:
Sanctions Harden Lives of Ordinary North Koreans
Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
8/20/2008