Posts Tagged ‘2020 floods’

Asahi Shimbun: China provided North Korea with substantial amounts of food and fertilizer this year

Wednesday, November 4th, 2020

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

In a piece of news that should surprise no one, Asahi Shimbun reports that South Korean government sources say China provided North Korea with 5-600,000 tons of food aid and fertilizer this year. Although it wouldn’t entirely make up for the estimated shortfall, it is still a highly significant contribution:

But several South Korean government sources said China has provided North Korea with between 500,000 and 600,000 tons of food along with the fertilizer this year.

It also sent about 600,000 tons of corn and other types of grain between June and August, according to Chinese sources with inside knowledge of ties with North Korea.

Pyongyang requested more assistance in the aftermath of the summer typhoon damage and Beijing is considering sending an additional 200,000 tons of food, the sources said.

The South Korean sources focused on the volume of fertilizer shipped to North Korea as such assistance is considered highly unusual.

North Korean authorities equate one ton of fertilizer to 10 tons of food assistance, a former high-ranking North Korean government official said.

“Due to chronic shortages, fertilizer is highly prized in North Korea,” the official added. “The amount sent this year is equivalent to 5.5 million tons of food, which exceeds the yearly production of food. It was a very unusual level of assistance.”

Although North Korea is no longer in the grips of famine that raged in the late 1990s and claimed countless lives, the U.N. World Food Program has estimated that between 2018 and 2019 about 10 million North Koreans did not have enough to eat.

The situation is believed to be worse this year.

North Korea was plagued by flooding and other damage due to typhoons and torrential rain in summer after near-drought conditions in spring.

A source at a Chinese government-affiliated agency who is well-versed in issues involving North Korean agriculture said that the harvest estimate at planting time was between 3.5 million and 3.8 million tons for a shortfall of about 1.5 million tons.

Rice prices were kept stable through the release of grain stockpiled for emergencies, but the situation without China’s assistance was expected to be dire from next spring.

China’s decision to bail out its unpredictable neighbor may reflect a strategy to keep North Korea in its corner as Beijing’s confrontation with Washington worsens. In this regard, Beijing made a big fuss of its involvement in joining fighting in the Korean War on the 70th anniversary of China’s participation.

“China and North Korea have always shared interests in terms of their view of the United States, but that has strengthened recently,” said a North Korean source. “China is sending a message to the United States through its appeal of a honeymoon period with North Korea.”

With no signs of progress in denuclearization talks with the United States, the easing of economic sanctions against North Korea appears unlikely in the short term.

That suggests North Korea will continue to lean on China for support, analysts said.

“If North Korea receives support from abroad, it will no longer be able to say it is getting by with its own efforts,” said a South Korean expert on the North Korean economy. “But North Korea can continue to save face because China does not announce the assistance levels.”

(Article source: Takeshi Kamiya in Seoul and Yoshikazu Hirai in Shenyang, “China bailout to North Korea: massive food and fertilizer aid,” Asahi Shimbun, November 3rd, 2020.)

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North Korea’s disaster management: a comment about a comment

Wednesday, November 4th, 2020

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

It might seem a strange topic to post about on the day after the US elections, but perhaps some readers might like a break from the incessant commentary for something completely different.

If so, I highly recommend the article that former ambassador James Hoare published yesterday on 38 North, partially as a comment to my earlier article about North Korean disaster management. Ambassador Hoare gives a highly interesting historical perspective partially based on his own experiences in the country, noting that deforestation is a problem on the Korean peninsula much older than North Korea itself. He also notes that North Korea is far from the only country where homes constructed near riverbeds are regularly flooded, and argues that North Korea’s flooding problems are, after all, not so unusual in an international context.

I fully agree with all of these points, and the historical context is very valuable and crucial for understanding the current situation. If anything, there are perhaps two points of minor disagreement that I have with Hoare’s text.

First, the current North Korean situation is in large part a result of changes that could have been avoided. Deforestation was acutely exacerbated during the Arduous March, because people had few other alternatives than to cut down trees for firewood and to clear the ground for farming. Deforestation and flooding, therefore, are not phenomena entirely endemic or “natural” neither to the Korean peninsula nor to North Korea in particular, because things were not always this way. There is nothing natural or inherently necessary about North Korea’s economic system, as the many former communist states who have adopted programs of systemic overhaul have shown. Natural disasters may be natural, but each state has a choice in how to meet them.

Second, ambassador Hoare rightly points out that one should perhaps applaud the progress being made rather than to note that improvements have a long way to go. My article neither sought to decry nor applaud any improvements, but simply to show where things stand, based partially on conversations with several people who have themselves worked in natural disaster mitigation in the country.

And despite the improvements that have been made, there is a real and substantive risks that North Korea’s disaster management improvement plans and ambitions will stop at being just that. In this realm, there should be little doubt that the government’s ambitions are high and praiseworthy. The problem is that we have seen too many examples of ambitions without implementation to conclude that they will in fact be realized. Oftentimes, the policy process, opaque as it is, often appears to stall, and political interest and attention may wane. In this, too, North Korea is not alone in the world.

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How fast can you build 1,000 houses in North Korea?

Sunday, October 4th, 2020

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

A couple of days ago, KCNA followed Kim Jong-un to Kimhwa county (in Kangwon province) for a flooding damage reconstruction inspection visit. It’s a standard activity with fairly standard reporting, but what caught my eye was the timespan the article speaks of (my emphasis):

Vividly recalling the day in the mid-August when a helicopter was used to learn about the situation of the disaster after over 900 mm disastrous downpour cut off even the roads and when he was shocked to hear the horrifying report that more than 1 000 dwelling houses were destroyed, he said that they all seem to have happened just yesterday.

Hearing the report that about 88 percent of the total construction project has now been done for nearly 1 000 families- several-storey dwelling houses in township area and single-storey dwelling houses in the ri of the county, he said with great satisfaction that the People’s Army is making world-startling achievements under the energetic leadership and meticulous guidance of our Party.

(Source: “Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un Inspects Sites of Reconstruction in Kimhwa County,” KCNA, 2/10/2020.)

So — flooding in mid-August. 1,000 dwelling houses swept away. Fast forward to early October, about a month and a half later, and 88 percent of these houses are now reconstructed?

Something sounds quite odd here, because that’s an awful lot of houses in a very short period of time. For a comparison, the average construction house in the US takes 7.7 months from construction start to finish.

I am by no means knowledgeable in engineering or housing construction, so if any readers can think of how this can all be squared, do please send an email.

What is possible is that many new houses have been built, but with speed rather than quality being the number one priority. Such houses would likely have a hard time withstanding future flooding, which will occur, because it does almost every year. Aid workers I spoke to for this article pointed to poor housing construction as one of the main causes for the high rates of material destruction and fatalities in flooding in North Korea.

That’s the thing about politically motivated deadlines and speed pressures — something has to give in the process, and often, it’s quality.

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North Korea’s 2020 floods in perspective

Thursday, September 3rd, 2020

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

By all accounts, North Korea has been badly hit, with severe damage all over the country, from the typhoons sweeping the region over the past few weeks. Though Kim Jong-un reportedly concluded that the damage to crops was not as bad as feared – fantastic news if true. The situation is still developing, however, and today (Thursday September 3rd), typhoon Maysak was expected to hit the northeastern coast of the country around noon.

In other words, it is much to soon to draw any firm conclusions about the overall damage. Still, it is worth noting that at least so far, it appears to be smaller than only a few years ago. One person I spoke to, with direct experience of disaster relief management in North  Korea, partially attributed this to early warnings. North Korean TV has been reporting live about the floods, and Kim Jong-un convened emergency meetings to prepare for the oncoming floods. The extent of information from the government seems much wider now than in some past years.

Take, for example, the impact in the northeastern regions and Rason in particular. Countless buildings were razed to the ground and KCNA reported that 40 people died in Rason alone, though one Daily NK source dismissed that as unrealistically low. This year’s flooding seems to be much worse quantitatively speaking, and yet, so far, news media reported “only” 22 deaths. Each is of course tragic, but it is interesting that the death toll, at least so far (and I cannot caution this enough) seems to be lower even with the force of the typhoons being stronger. For reference, in Rason in 2015, rain levels reached 160mm, while now, Wonsan city has been submerged with 200mm.

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