North Korean Economy Watch

Daily NK
Kang Jae Hyok
4/9/2007

Since the nuclear experiment last year trade between North Korea and China had dwindled. However, lately, business is prospering thanks to the friendly moods between the U.S. and North Korea. Nonetheless, the frequent change in customs officers and their unreasonable requests are disturbing the businessmen.

Some Chinese merchants travel into and out of North Korea everyday, or at the least every couple of days. One businessman, Han Chul Ryong (pseudonym, Korean-Chinese, 42) who had recently visited North Korea for business, expressed his feelings in a concerned voice in a telephone conversation with the DailyNK on the 6th.

Han currently lives in Jilian and has been trading goods with North Korea for 4 years now. With a 2.5 ton truck, he imports and sells North Korean seafood and herbal medicines in China.

Han said, “Nowadays, I don’t want to trade anymore because of the customs officers. They make our lives so difficult… It’s like they have some sort of steel plate over their faces or something. They have no dignity, nothing.”

He added, “Customs officers are so competitive and make so many demands that I cannot remember them all unless it is written down in a notebook. They request a variety of goods such as food, fruits, medicine and electronic goods. Alcohol and cigarettes are a must.”

Another tradesman, Kim Chan Joo (pseudonym) who was traveling with Han said, “Some customs officers go as far as demanding materials for home renovations such as cement, iron rods, window panes, windows, doors and nails.”

When asked what kind of privileges customs officers give after receiving bribes, Kim responded, “Of courses there are privileges… Sometimes they reduce taxes or place a blind eye to goods that should not pass through.”

He said, “There is a saying, ‘A cow fed also gives dung.’ A customs officer who has been fed bribes cannot possibly enforce strict control” and added, “Though customs officers have helped increase trade, as time goes by, the standard of their demands are also rising.”

“That’s not the only annoying problem. After going to all that trouble developing friendly relations with customs officers, they are replaced by new ones and hence there are many losses… It takes double time and money to acquire friendly relations with newly replaced customs officers,” Kim said.

Being a customs officer is considered one of the upper middle-class jobs in North Korea. Unlike an average office worker, customs officers are treated similar to the army. The National Safety Agency is even in charge of some of the customs officers.

Often these people are greedy to accumulate funds for retirement or for their children and as a result, try to gather as much as they can while in office. Even in a chaotic North Korea society, the position of customs officer is considered the yolk of an egg. Consequently, officers go to all means to confiscate as much money as they can from Chinese tradesmen and relatives visiting family.

North Korean authorities are strengthening control over customs officers, however it is difficult to obliterate the problem as it is so deeply rooted. Rather, than the situation dying out, it seems that their unreasonable attitude will increase.

If a customs officer makes receives too many anonymous complaints, he/she is given a warning or penalty. When the situation worsens, the customs officer is then demoted to a different office or in the worse case, dismissed from duty.

Recently, it seems that North Korean authorities have become more aware of the situation and are making efforts to enforce control. One method is removing the officers who are dependent on this corrupt system to different locations.

Han said, “If customs officers don’t do this, it is hard for them to eat and live… Though the demands by Chosun customs officers are increasing by the day, in order to trade there is no other way.”

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
4/8/2007

It is a sort of commonplace statement that the U.S. forces which landed in Korea in early September 1945 had almost no local knowledge and no plans of what they were going to do. But it is sometimes stated, that the Soviet forces which had arrived two weeks earlier had some plans. Such statements are especially common on the political right. This is understandable: Human beings tend to see themselves as disorganized and unprepared while believing that their opponents possess diabolic foresight and an uncanny ability to exercise the utmost control over events. Fortunately or not, such a perception, the basis of all conspiracy theories, is usually wrong.

So did the Soviets have a plan when their forces fought their way to Korea in mid-August 1945? Obviously, not. At least this is what I can say from my frequent talks with the participants of those events, and also from the papers which I have seen.

Actually, Korea did not feature prominently in Soviet international strategy before 1945. For decades, Moscow’s policy toward Korea was subordinated to what appeared to be much more important _ its relations with China and Japan. The Soviet Union secretly subsidized and supported the Communist movement in colonial Korea, but this was a relatively small-scale operation seen, first and foremost, as a part of the larger efforts to undermine the Japanese empire.

The situation was exacerbated by Stalin’s Great Purge of the late 1930s. Before that, the Soviet citizens of Korean extraction played a prominent role in formulating the Soviet policy toward the peninsula. However, in the great slaughter of the bureaucrats and military officers that took place in the late 1930s, ethnic Koreans enjoyed especially bad survival chances. Their ethnicity made them suspicious, and few of them survived the bloodbath of 1937-38. As a result, the Soviet Foreign ministry, intelligence agencies, and armed forces lost what little Korea-related expertise they had possessed in earlier days. Those people who were responsible for the Korean policy in the 1920s and early 1930s were mostly shot or had died in various prisons by 1940.

There was also another reason for the Soviet reluctance to draw up plans for the political future of Korea. Nobody expected that the victory over Japan would be that swift. The Soviet military remembered their protracted and bloody battles with the Japanese during the undeclared border wars of the late 1930s, and so they were prepared for a campaign that would drag for many months.

However, the Japanese military machine collapsed in a week. Western readers believe that the reason was the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki _ a claim that was never particularly popular in Russia. Irrespective of their contribution to the outcome of the war, the nuclear bombs hardly changed much in Manchuria and North Korea. The Russian forces had experienced engagement with the Nazis in Europe, while the Japanese troops in the area were weakened by frequent withdrawals of their best forces to the Pacific theater.

Thus, in late August 1945 the Soviet generals suddenly found themselves responsible for a large territory of which they knew almost nothing. The army had few Korean speaking interpreters, and virtually no local political intelligence. Not only was it the local army headquarters that was lacking in this regard, even Moscow itself had only vague ideas about the political forces active in Korea _ and even this inadequate knowledge was largely about Seoul, not the areas of the North.

In the greater context of the post-war world, the future of Korea remained undetermined. The Kremlin expected that its relations with the U.S. would deteriorate ? on the generally correct assumption that any major victory brings about a greater rivalry between the winners.

However, the shape and intensity of this confrontation remained to be seen. In those days, the Soviets also felt a profound insecurity about Japan: the rebirth of Japan as a great power was seen as a potential threat, so Stalin wanted to make sure that Japan would never be able to threaten the Russian Far East if it somehow regained its military and/or economic power in a distant future. Thus, uprooting the Japanese influence in Korea was a major task for the Soviet leaders.

Thus, in late August, the Soviet forces had quite nebulous tasks in front of them. They wanted to ensure law and order (incidentally, threatened first and foremost by their own soldiers), get rid of the Japanese influence, and lay the groundwork for a future friendly Korean government.

The first instructions arrived only in late September, when Stalin sent his famous secret cable to Korea. His cable envisioned a “bourgeois democratic government” for the Soviet zone of occupation, and explicitly warned against attempts to export Communism to Korea. The cable obviously talked about a government in the North, and this can be seen as the first sign of future division. Nonetheless, this was only the first step: Coherent ideas about Korea’s future developed in the Kremlin only in early 1946.

The “September cable” also implied that the Soviets would have to cooperate with the local Right _ and indeed they soon recruited Cho Man-sik, a prominent Christian nationalist _ to act as a leader of the local administration.

Joong Ang Daily
Lee Young-jong and Ser Myo-ja
4/5/2007

As relations between the two Koreas warm, North Korea filled a key post that had been empty since August with a veteran diplomat, intelligence sources in Seoul said yesterday.

Kim Yang-gon is now director of the unification front of the Worker’s Party, a position roughly equivalent to South Korea’s unification minister.

“Kim was appointed to the post last month, shortly after inter-Korean relations were restored [in February],” a senior intelligence official said. “We assessed that North Korea was realigning its South Korea policy makers.”

Kim, 69, had been the councilor of the National Defense Commission, headed by Kim Jong-il. The Workers’ Party had left the unification front director post empty since Rim Tong-ok died in August of last year.

Since the 1980s, Kim Yang-gon has served in various key foreign affairs posts, including vice director and director of the international department of the party. Sources said Kim Jong-il wanted someone with international affairs ability because inter-Korean relations depend upon the six-nation nuclear talks and U.S.-North Korea relations.

Kim Yang-gon is also one of Kim Jong-il’s closest aides. After Workers’ Party Secretary Hwang Jang-yop defected to the South in 1997, Hyon Jun-guk was fired as the party’s international department director. Kim Jong-il appointed Kim, and he has accompanied the North Korean leader on many important meetings with foreign visitors. Kim also accompanied Kim Jong-il during rare trips to China and Russia. “We will look forward to appointments to other empty posts, such as the secretary of the Unification Front for the party and the chairman of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland,” the intelligence source said.

The two posts to be filled were left vacant after Kim Yong-sun died in a 2003 traffic accident. They are both key North Korea organs that make policy with regard to South Korea.

Joong Ang Daily
Chang Se-jeong and Ser Myo-ja
4/4/2007

An order from Pyongyang directing North Korean diplomats in overseas posts to send their children back home has been met with defiance, sources in Beijing said yesterday. Pyongyang has extended the deadline for sending the children home until the end of this month in the face of the diplomats’ reluctance to obey.

On March 6, the JoongAng Ilbo reported that the communist Workers’ Party of North Korea had issued the order in February, but no explanation was provided. Under the order, children over the age of five were to go back to the North by the end of March.

A businessman in Beijing who has extensive contacts with North Korea said yesterday that the deadline has been extended because diplomats are demanding more time to complete paperwork for the forced homecomings.

In fact, they appear to be trying to resist. “Some are trying their best to make their kids an exception by using personal ties, and others are trying to delay the return as much as possible,” the businessman said.

Another source in Beijing said “diplomats were feeling insecure that their children may not be able to leave the country ever again after going back.”

About 3,000 children of North Korean diplomats in 50 countries are affected by the order.

Yonhap News Agency also reported the rare challenge by the diplomats to their dictatorial regime. “North Korea has reportedly dispatched Kim Chang-kyu, a vice foreign minister, to China, where such resistance has been most visible, to survey actual conditions and sentiments of its diplomats there,” Yonhap reported.

The report also quoted an anonymous source as saying that none of the North Korean diplomats in China have sent their kids back home.

While it was unclear why the North decided to place such strict controls on the diplomats’ children, sources in Beijing speculate that the reason could be related to fears that the children could become a destabilizing force due to their contact with the world beyond the reclusive communist country.

The North Korean leadership is concerned that these children may inform their North Korean friends and relatives about life in the outside world, said another businessman.

It is not the first time that the North has summoned its citizens home. After the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the North ordered all its overseas students to return home.

N Korea envoys ‘keeping children’
BBC
4/3/2007

North Korean diplomats stationed overseas are reportedly refusing an order to send their children home, according to South Korean media.

The order was issued earlier this year in an apparent attempt to stop defections from the hardline regime.

It said diplomats should send all but one of their children back to North Korea by the end of March.

But South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said diplomats were resisting the order, in an “unprecedented” move.

Yonhap quoted an unnamed source as saying the incident could trigger a “major political scandal”, given how unusual it is for North Korea’s ruling Communist Party to be disobeyed.

Old regulation

Diplomatic postings are highly sought-after jobs in North Korea, and are only given to the most loyal supporters of the regime.

But analysts say that once overseas, diplomats’ exposure to foreign thinking brings them under official suspicion in secretive North Korea.

Earlier this year the regime revived an old regulation which said that diplomats posted overseas could only take one child with them, Yonhap reported.

The regulation was suspended in 2002, allowing diplomats to take out many more children.

North Korea now wants the children sent home, and there are reports that hundreds of children could be affected.

Yonhap’s source said opposition to the move was particularly strong among North Koreans living in China, the North’s closest ally.

The reports said that diplomats in China had yet to send a single child back to North Korea, prompting the despatch of a senior official from Pyongyang to Beijing to investigate.

NKorea Orders Return of Diplomats’ Kids
Guardian
3/7/2007

North Korea has ordered its diplomats stationed overseas to send their children back to the communist nation in an apparent attempt to prevent the diplomats from defecting, a news report said Tuesday.

About 3,000 children aged 5 and older must return home within 30 days, according to the order issued last month by North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party. Younger children are exempt from the order, which was reported by South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.

The measure is believed to be aimed at preventing defections by diplomats and their families by raising the possibility that their children might be persecuted, the newspaper said.

Yonhap news agency carried a similar report, but said each diplomat would be allowed to bring one child to their overseas post. It cited an unidentified South Korean government official.

An official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, the main government agency dealing with North Korean affairs, said it was checking the reports. The reports did not say what prompted North Korea to take the measure. There have been no known defections by North Korean diplomats in recent months.

Urgent: How to Topple Kim Jong Il
Foreign Policy Magazine
March/April 2007, P.70-74
Andrei Lankov

From: Andrei Lankov
To: Condoleezza Rice
RE: Bringing Freedom to North Korea

When North Korea tested a nuclear weapon late last year, one thing became clear: The United States’ strategy for dealing with North Korea is failing. Your current policy is based on the assumption that pressuring the small and isolated state will force itto change course. That has not happened—and perhaps never will.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Il and his senior leaders understand that political or economic reforms will probably lead to the collapse of their regime. They face a challenge that their peers in China and Vietnam never did—a prosperous and free “other half” of the same nation. North Korea’s rulers believe that if they introduce reforms, their people will do what the East Germans did more than 15 years ago. So, from the perspective of North Korea’s elite, there are compelling reasons to resist all outside pressure. if anything, foreign pressure (particularly from Americans) fits very well into what Pyongyang wants to propagate— the image of a brave nation standing up to a hostile world dominated by the United States.

Yet, sadly, the burden of encouraging change in North Korea remains the United States’ alone. China and Russia, though not happy about a nuclear North Korea, are primarily concerned with reducing U.S. influence in East Asia. China is sending considerable aid to Pyongyang. You already know that South Korea, supposedly a U.S. ally, is even less willing to join your efforts. Seoul’s major worry is not a North Korean nuclear arsenal but the possibility of sudden regime collapse. A democratic revolution in the North, followed by a German-style unification, would deal a heavy blow to the South Korean economy. That’s why Seoul works to ensure that the regime in Pyongyang remains stable, while it enjoys newfound affluence and North Koreans quietly suffer.

Do not allow this status quo to persist. Lead the fight for change in North Korea. Here are some ideas to make it happen:

Realize a Quiet Revolution Is Already Under Way: For decades, the Hermit Kingdom was as close to an Orwellian nightmare as the world has ever come. But that’s simply not the case anymore. A dramatic transformation has taken place in North Korea in recent years that is chronically underestimated, particularly in Washington. This transformation has made Kim Jong Ii increasingly vulnerable to internal pressures. Yes, North Korea is still a brutal dictatorship. But compared to the 1970s or 1980s, its government has far less control over the daily lives of its people.

With the state-run economy in shambles, the government no longer has the resources to reward “correct” behavior or pay the hordes of lackeys who enforce the will of the Stalinist regime. Corruption runs rampant, and officials are always on the lookout for a bribe. Old regulations still remain on the books, but they are seldom enforced. North Koreans nowadays can travel outside their county of residence without getting permission from the authorities. Private markets, once prohibited, are flourishing. People can easily skip an indoctrination session or two, and minor ideological deviations often go unpunished. It’s a far cry from a free society, but these changes do constitute a considerable relaxation from the old days.

Deliver Information Inside: North Korea has maintained a self-imposed information blockade that is without parallel. Owning radios with free tuning is still technically illegal— a prohibition without precedent anywhere. This news blackout is supposed to keep North Koreans believing that their country is an earthly paradise. But, today, it is crumbling.

North Korea’s 880-mile border with China is notoriously porous. Smuggling and human trafficking across this remote landscape is rampant. Today, 50,000 to 100,000 North Koreans reside illegally inside China, working for a couple of dollars a day (a fortune, by North Korean standards). In the past 10 years, the number of North Koreans who have been to China and then returned home may be as large as 500,000. These people bring with them news about the outside world. They also bring back short-wave radios, which, though illegal, are easy to conceal. It is also becoming common to modify state-produced radios that have fixed tuning to the state’s propaganda channels. With a little rejiggering, North Koreans can listen to foreign news broadcasts.

But there are few broadcasts that North Koreans can hope to intercept. It was once assumed that South Korea would do the best job broadcasting news to its northern neighbor. And that was true until the late 1990s, when, as part of its “sunshine policy,” South Korea deliberately made these broadcasts “non-provocative.” There are only three other stations that target North Korea. But their airtime is short, largely due to a shortage of funds. Radio Free Asia and Voice of America each broadcast for roughly four hours per day, and Free North Korea (FNK), a small, South Korea-based station staffed by North Korean defectors, broadcasts for just one hour per day.

Being a former Soviet citizen, I know that shortwave radios could be the most important tool for loosening Pyongyang’s grip. That was the case in the Soviet Union. In the mid-1980s, some 25 percent of Russia’s adult population listened to foreign radio broadcasts at least once a week because they were one of the only reliable sources of news about the world and, more importantly, our own society A dramatic increase in funding for broadcasts by Voice Of America is necessary.  It is also important to support the defectors’ groups that do similar broadcasting themselves. These groups are regularly silenced by South Korean authorities, and they have to do everything on a shoestring. A journalist at the FNK gets paid the equivalent of a janitor’s salary in Seoul.  Even a small amount of money- less than U.S. military forces in Seoul spend on coffee-could expand their airtime greatly. With an annual budget of just $1 million, a refugee-staffed station could be on air for four hours a day, 365 days a year.

Leverage the Refugee Community in the South: There are some 10,000 North Korean defectors living in the South, and their numbers are growing fast. Unlike in earlier times, these defectors stay in touch with their families back home using smugglers’ networks and mobile phones. However, the defectors are not a prominent lobby in South Korea. In communist-dominated Eastern Europe, large and vibrant exile communities played a major role in promoting changes back home and, after the collapse of communism, helped ensure the transformation to democracy and a market economy. That is why the United States must help increase the influence of this community by making sure that a cadre of educated and gifted defectors emerges from their ranks.

Today, younger North Korean defectors are being admitted to South Korean colleges through simplified examinations (they have no chance of passing the standard tests), but a bachelor’s degree means little in modern South Korea. Defectors cannot afford the tuition for a postgraduate degree, which is the only path to a professional career. Thus, postgraduate scholarships and internship programs will be critical to their success. Without outside help, it is unlikely that a vocal and influential group of defectors will emerge. Seoul won’t fund these programs, so it will be up to foreign governments and non-governmental organizations to do so. Fortunately, these kinds of initiatives are cheap, easy to enact, and perfectly compatible with the views of almost every U.S. politician, from right to left.

Fund, Plan, and Carry out Cultural Exchanges: The Cold War was won not by mindless pressure alone, but by a combination of pressure and engagement. The same will be true with North Korea The United States must support, both officially and unofficially, all policies that promote North Korea’s Contacts with the outside world. These policies are likely to be relatively expensive, compared to the measures above, but cheap in comparison to a military showdown with a nuclear power.

It makes sense for the U.S. government to bring North Korean students to study overseas (paid for with U.S. tax dollars), to bring their dancers or singers to perform in the West, and to invite their officials to take “study tours.” Without question, North Korean officials are wary of these kinds of exchanges with the United States. However, they will be less unwilling to allow exchanges with countries seen as neutral, such as Australia and New Zealand. In the past, Pyongyang would never have allowed such exchanges to happen. But nowadays, because most of these programs will benefit elite, well- connected North Korean families, the temptation will be too great to resist. in-other words, a official in Pyongyang might understand perfectly well that sending his son to study market economics at the Australian National University is bad for the communist system, but as long as his son will benefit, he will probably support the project.

Convince Fellow Republicans That Subtle Measures Can Work: Some Republicans, particularly in the U.S. Congress, might object to any cultural exchanges that will benefit already-privileged North Koreans. And, for many, funding Voice of America isn’t as attractive as pounding a fist in Kim’s face. But these criticisms are probably shortsighted. As a student of Soviet history, you know that mild exposure to the world outside the Soviet Union had a great impact on many Soviet party officials. And information almost always filters downstream. A similar effect can be expected in North Korea. During the Cold War, official exchange programs nurtured three trends that eventually brought down the Soviet system: disappointment among the masses, discontent among the intellectuals, and a longing for reforms among bureaucrats. Money invested in subtle measures is not another way to feed the North Korean elite indirectly; it is an investment in the gradual disintegration of a dangerous and brutal regime.

North Korea has changed, and its changes should be boldly exploited. The communist countries of the 20th century were not conquered. Their collapse came from within, as their citizens finally realized the failures of the system that had been foisted on them. The simple steps outlined here will help many North Koreans arrive at the same conclusion. It may be the only realistic way to solve the North Korean problem, while also paving the way for the eventual transformation of the country into a free society. This fight will take time, but there is no reason to wait any longer.

United Press International
Marc S. Ellenbogen
4/2/2007

The most effective way to influence the future of North Korea is through economic development and incentives. The 500 million euro North Korea Investment Fund exists to economically engage the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. While the six-party talks continue — which they should and must — Global Panel and the Prague Society will continue to grow this fund.

At the 4th Session of the North Korea Initiative in Bratislava just weeks ago, there was a consensus that growing the NKIF is a good strategy for engaging the DPRK. The NKIF will be used for entrepreneurial ventures, to provide micro loans, for knowledge transfer, healthcare and for building, energy and infrastructural projects.

The biggest task facing Pyongyang is converting one of the worlds most centrally planned and isolated economies into something remotely resembling a free market. Industrial capital stock is nearly beyond repair as a result of years of underinvestment and shortages of spare parts. Industrial and power output has declined as well. The development of former East Germany cost 1.2 trillion euros. It is calculated that the redevelopment of the DPRK will cost 5 trillion euros. Pyongyang will only allow development if it can simultaneously protect its power position.

In the 1980s companies failed to predict the collapse of the centralized Soviet system. They were wholly unprepared and certainly had few dedicated funds in place (George Soros was an exception) when the changes in Central Europe came about. The NKIF seeks to remedy this mistake by having funds in place that can be used to aid a changing North Korea at the point change takes place. The NKIF targets investors who know a return of investment is years in the future but recognize the need for such a fund.

A prerequisite for the fund’s future success is confidence-building measures. General Dieter Stockmann, the former NATO deputy commander, made comparisons to China. As the head of the bilateral German-China security talks, he noted that “we need access to human resources.” He was quick to point out that the DPRK military will play an indispensable role in the DPRK’s economic future.

Paul Beijer, Sweden’s special representative on Korean peninsula issues, noted that the Australians have experience with micro-loan projects. Others observed that Sweden, Switzerland and the European Union have separately held conferences in Pyongyang focused on economic reform. There have been both government and private — through international foundations — conferences in the DPRK.

Poverty is out of control in the DPRK. The World Food Program and the Carter Center have calculated some 50 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Even the nascent micro-markets have virtually collapsed. The gap between the wealthiest and poorest is staggering — amongst the most dramatic on earth.

Previously, there had been a period when small and middle-sized entrepreneurs had done fairly well in North Korea. Tapping into these existing entrepreneurs must be a key goal of the NKIF. The NKIF must provide educational training for this entrepreneurial class and help it grow. Training, also of those doing the training, will be a specific area to add value.

The selection process will be difficult, and nearly impossible without a physical presence in the DPRK. North Korea is a huge market for the development of a financial infrastructure and financial services. Companies interested in participating in the future can aid in these trainings and seminars, which would give them a chance to get their foot in the door.

One expert commented that the DPRK government is highly compartmentalized and that it is extremely difficult to get the different agencies to sit together. It was suggested that a conference in Pyongyang focusing on a narrow topic — modern accounting, microfinance — might be of value. Eduard Kukan, until recently the long-serving Slovak foreign minister, cautioned that Pyongyang remains very weary of outsiders and that even good intentions could very likely be seen as interference.

Any investment must be linked to certain performance benchmarks. It must be linked to practical steps and an action plan. A critical component must be systems in place to monitor outcomes. At the moment, this is virtually impossible with the DPRK. Many who criticize the concept of engagement believe monitoring to be the weakest link. They argue one cannot make sure investments are being used solely for intended civilian economic and industrial purposes.

It is difficult to engage a country that is essentially disinterested in being engaged or only interested in doing so under very strict conditions.

Even the government in Pyongyang cannot ignore basic facts. It recognizes the problems that exist but fears losing its power base. Any solution must convince the current elite that the future is good for it. This, on the other hand, is a very difficult sell to many who wish to punish the current DPRK government.

Regardless, before the NKIF is put to use, a monitoring process should be in place. And this allows time for the fund to grow and to find its niche.

Reuters
Paul Eckert
3/23/2007

The diplomatic deal that promises to bring North Korea aid in exchange for scrapping its nuclear weapon programs might allow the government to resist meaningful economic changes, an expert on the secretive communist country’s economy said on Friday.

Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute, a Washington economic think tank, said research for his new book on North Korea’s deadly 1990s famine showed Pyongyang was “at best, ambivalent” about changing policies that led to that disaster.

“The great hope is that reassurances in terms of external security will give the North Korean regime the political room to engage in greater political and economic liberalization at home,” the economist told Reuters in an interview.

But the diplomacy playing out in Beijing could have the opposite effect, said Noland, co-author of “Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform” with Stephen Haggard of the University of California, San Diego.

“It could well be that a nuclear deal that resulted in greater amounts of aid would actually allow the North Korean government to intensify activities that are essentially reestablishing economic and political control over the population,” he said.

Negotiators from North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia were in Beijing this week, seeking to begin implementing a Feb. 13 deal that would give the North aid and security assurances in return for shutting down a nuclear reactor and preparing other disarmament steps.

Noland’s 368-page study of the famine that killed an estimated 1 million North Koreans in the late 1990s shows how the rigid central planners of Pyongyang were forced to allow markets to feed people and to give farmers some limited freedoms, but then pulled back when the disaster eased.

“When things look better … the North Korean government tries to pull back on this process of marketization and reform,” Noland said.

“One of the saddest things is that as food aid began arriving in North Korea, the regime systematically cut the amount of food it bought on commercial terms,” he said.

The author of three books on North Korea decries what he says are “truly reckless” food policies since the end of the famine. Pyongyang has banned trading in grain on markets that people rely upon for food, confiscated grain in rural areas and reneged on policy promises to farmers, he said.

“In a variety of ways, it seems to want to put the genie back in the bottle,” he said.

Dail y NK
Park Choel Yong
3/26/2007

Even in Pyongyang, entering into a top university is like picking a star from the sky. Not only must you be an A+ student, your family record must be clean.

Growing up in an ordinary family, I was luckily accepted into my preferred university based on my abilities. On receiving my results, I thought that I could achieve anything in the world. However, my sweet dream did not last long. Soon after beginning my tertiary studies, I felt as if I had gotten a big splash on the face. The reason being, marching parade training.

Three days into the semester, I was selected to participate in the marching parade, where the saying, tertiary students once “normal people become stupid” referring to post-training for the marching parade, became a reality. When people think of a marching parade, they think of school parades in South Korea. However, the marching parade in North Korea resembles a years worth of rigorous military training.

In North Korea, participants of the marching parade include students, workers, the military and average citizens who are trained for celebratory events such as Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s birthday, the anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Army and the Worker’s Party. The audience? Kim Jong Il. For the mere pleasure of one man, Kim Jong Il, hundreds and thousands of people must spend every day of the year working their bodies until exhaustion.

There is one criteria in which university students are selected for the marching parade and that is height. Students gather and their height examined. Compared to others, I was not short. I was also a freshman and so was instantly selected to participate in the marching parade. Occasionally I had seen the marching parade on television but was completely unaware of the intense and arduous training that awaited me.

Our university was assigned to one battalion. There are 12 lines in each battalion and 25 people in each line. The tallest person stands at the head of the line with the shortest at the end.

Elite officials excluded from training

A commander is responsible for each battalion, followed by the political commander and civilian commander. Next is the captain and political captain followed by the line leader, group leader and secretary. Each line is divided into 3 groups with the group leader in charge. This exclusive role normally goes to students in their 3rd, 4th year. Other students in the battalion who are not assigned to such jobs are mostly freshmen.

On the first day of training, many of the students gathered around laughing and talking, “Do you think the Great Leader will really come to see our parade?” However, the following day, a handful of people began to drop out.

At the time, we thought that these people had legitimate reasons for being unable to partake in the training. Only to soon discover that those people had been closely affiliated with elite officials who gave a common excuse that they were physically ill. Ultimately, the selection process which entailed measuring height ended with a group of freshmen and poor students living in the dorms from the country.

Each battalion is represented by one university. Students who are selected for the marching parade attend lectures in the morning and then training in the afternoon. After spending an afternoon training on a dirt field amidst dirt, your mouth practically becomes a small clusters of dirt itself by evening.

The first stage of training is warm-up and stretching. Every day, we had to replicate positions made by professional performers and showcase our days training. If we were unable to succeed in doing this, training continued.

During the first month, we trained on the university fields, but in the second month, we began training at the Juche Statue Education Square and here is where students began to show symptoms of arthritis. Unable to restrain myself from lack of sleep during class, I was frequently scolded by the lecturer and the number of patients increased. Regardless of how ill one was, strict punishment awaited those who missed training.

Wanting to smash the street lamp at Juche Statue

Every day, training began at 2PM and usually finished around 7PM. Once training was over, battalion commanders came and gave lectures. People who are late to training, people who participate in training disrespectfully and people pointed out throughout the training are severely criticized. Once the lecture is over, smaller, tutorials begin.

Naturally, tutorials aren’t any better. The tutor or divisional commander closes the lecture by stressing the importance of being on time and participating sincerely in the training. The lectures normally last an hour and half, but this does not mean that the day’s training is over.

The students criticized in the lectures must undergo re-training. There has never been a time where the street lamp at the Juche Statue has been more spiteful. The thought that training would end if only the lighting was lost would not escape my mind. Whether or not someone was looking we did not care. We only wanted to smash the street lamp.

When training is finished, exhausted students are finally dismissed and another 30~1 hour walk back to the dorms awaits them. There are no buses at that hour and so students do not have an option but to walk home. As for dinner, meals have long been served at the dormitories.

Choson Ilbo
Yun Duk-min
3/19/2007

It was set off by a nuclear test. The Bush administration, which insisted it could not reward a wrong and wouldn’t conduct bilateral negotiations with North Korea, made a U-turn and promised the North political and economic compensation in bilateral talks. North Korea’s response has been equally astonishing. North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-kwan recently had a long meeting with former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger. What he said sounds unbelievable. Expressing a deep interest in improving U.S.-China relations, he asked if the U.S. has “strategic interests” in North Korea and added, “The Korean Peninsula has been invaded by foreign powers like China and Japan. Strategic relations with the U.S. will be of help to North Korea and regional stability.”

The U.S.-China rapprochement early in the 1970s involved two factors. The U.S. wanted to use China’s strategic value to check the Soviet Union’s expansion, so it broke close relations with Taiwan in exchange for diplomatic relations with China. By the same token, it seems that North Korea is now willing to cooperate with the strategic U.S. interest of restraining China.

North Korea will inwardly have been concerned about its deepening economic reliance on China and increasing Chinese influence on its domestic affairs. In view of the rumors that China could be attempting a change in the North Korean leadership in the wake of the North’s nuclear test, the North may be trying to check the attempt by drawing in the U.S. As the U.S. abandoned Taiwan for the sake of diplomatic ties with China, North Korea may attempt to isolate and restrain South Korea through strategic relations with the U.S.

Kim Kye-gwan’s remarks suggest that the North intends to check South Korea and China by drawing in the U.S. Why does North Korea, after saying it only developed nuclear weapons because of the U.S., now embrace Washington to restrain the South and China? Having introduced a capitalist system in the 1970s, China is emerging as a serious threat to the North Korean regime. What’s more, Beijing in the wake of the collapse of the Berlin Wall forsook Pyongyang and established diplomatic ties with Seoul. South Korea’s rapid economic growth and democratization posed a threat of unification by absorption. In order to avoid either absorption by the South or becoming a Chinese satellite, Pyongyang needed two approaches; nuclear armament and establishment of strategic relations with Washington.

A close review of the 17-year process of negotiations on the North’s nuclear weapons development program clearly reveals North Korea’s intent. The only counterpart in negotiations was the U.S. But unlike the Clinton administration, which negotiated with North Korea directly, the Bush administration, with its top priority on the creation of a new order in the Middle East, had practically left the issue to China. Two aircraft carrier fleets are deployed in seas near Iran, but none came anywhere near the Korean Peninsula when North Korea test-fired missiles and tested a nuclear device. Thanks to its nuclear test, North Korea has now managed to bypass China and secure direct negotiations with the U.S.

Secondly, the North pledges to pose no threat to the U.S. if the latter tacitly approves its limited nuclear armament. It can relinquish long-range missiles capable of attacking America and will never transfer nuclear weapons or materials to third parties or terrorists, the North says. Thirdly, Pyongyang says it can recognize the U.S. forces on Korea. Already in 1991, the senior North Korean leader Kim Yong-sun, deceased in 2003, told high-ranking U.S. officials that North Korea could be a U.S. ally and recognize the USFK. Pyongyang has now only added its willingness to cooperate with Washington’s China strategy.

North Korea’s attempts failed so far because the North wanted both — strategic relations with the U.S. and nuclear armament. Without the premise of resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis, the U.S. could hardly accommodate that. But North Korea’s willingness to cooperate in restraining China must be a very interesting development for the U.S. Rumors are afoot that the U.S. may give tacit consent to the North’s nuclear armament. If the nuclear problem is shelved, it is possible for the U.S. to accommodate North Korea’s demands.

We are at a crucial juncture with denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. While the North endeavors to build a survival framework through nuclear armament and the help of foreign powers, we are bogged down in domestic bickering as to who will benefit more from a possible inter-Korean summit and a peace agreement. We must recognize that our principle of not tolerating any nuclear weapons on the peninsula could prevent a U.S.-North Korea compromise that would be unfavorable to us. North Korea, too, should realize quickly that the survival of its regime and the happiness of its people depend on its relations not with the U.S. but with South Korea, which accounts for two-thirds of the peninsula’s population and 99 percent of its economic strength. 

Daily NK
Park Choel Yong
3/18/2007

Rigorous Military Training is Killing North Korean Students
Buying food from outside the camps is, however, the privilege only for the wealthy students. Students who came from privileged families often are excluded from the military trainings for one or two months. The training is notorious for hardness, and hence students from the high authorities offer bribes with money or goods to military officers in return for taking rests at home.

For instance, if one ton of coals were offered to a training camp, a student can rest for a month; a box of cigarette, the “Cat” which costs 1,500 won (approx. US$4.8), is worth a day’s break.

With wealthy students out of training, the rest of students suffer from more than double the hardness. Often, poor students end up patrolling for 8 to 10 hours during national holidays and New Year’s Day.

Girl students in the training have their hair cut shortly and cannot keep private things; even cosmetics are not allowed. Therefore, wealthy girl students take their time at home with bribery.

Even during the training period, the students must take lectures. The basic subjects taught during the training are “The Unification History of the Fatherland” and “History of the Invasion of Japanese Imperialism,” and also includes a few majors.

The lectures, however, are often cut off to make room for the farm supporting activity and national performances.

According to the educational schedules, the college lasts four years, not including the training period; however, the time for lectures generally take only two of those years.

In spring and fall, students take part in the farm supporting activity to transplant rice for 40 days in spring and to harvest for 30 to 40 days during fall. Additionally, students from nationally renowned universities are often brought to various national performances. For six to eight months, students do not take lectures in order to practice military parades for Kim Jong Il’s birthday on the 16th of February and Kim Il Sung’s birthday on the 15th of April.

For torchlight processions, students take practices for two to three months. The torchlight processions are held usually in the Foundation Day of the State and the North Korean Workers’ Party, with more than ten thousand university students participating in the event. Students also practice dancing for another two to three months for students’ dancing party at the Kim Il Sung Plaza, which is held during the Chinese New Years’ Day.

That is not all, however. Working in the subsidiary farms that belong to the universities takes students a few months. Students who make the survey on the revolutionary historic spots and the Korean War landmarks are also exempt from the lectures for a few months.

In the end of a semester, reducing the day for lectures is not a special thing. The students do take lectures more intensively and even on Sundays to remedy this as necessary.