North Korean Economy Watch

According to the Washington Post:

Hoping to better predict when North Korea might collapse, South Korea is spending $1.6 million to come up with a formula that measures the stability of the world’s hardest-to-measure country.

The formula will take into account political loyalty in the military, recent economic output, even the ups and downs of leader Kim Jong Il’s health – all despite a lack of verifiable information on any of those factors.

“The major problem with this is the lack of data,” said one senior government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the project, known as the North Korea Situation Index, is underway.

When the Unification Ministry finalizes the index within the next month or so, its assessment – probably expressed as a single number, the official said – will represent an attempt to introduce some certitude into the increasingly polarized debate about the North’s life expectancy.

Predicting the date of the reclusive state’s demise has long been a favorite parlor game among policymakers in Seoul and Washington, but a year of significant developments – with North Korea unleashing several military provocations, drawing closer to China and all but formalizing a hereditary power transfer – has somehow bolstered two opposing views. Where some see evidence of a nation in disarray, others see a nation stronger than it has been in years.

“Unification is drawing nearer,” South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said last week of the state of affairs on the peninsula, adding that North Korea’s control of its people is unsustainable.

“That’s either wishful thinking or irresponsible,” said former foreign minister and opposition member Song Min-soon. “There are no grounds to say that. Even in the drastic case, like Kim Jong Il dying tomorrow, the succession has been paved, and I do not think the regime will collapse.”

Veteran analysts often describe North Korea as a paradox – and a poor target for statistical analysis. Just enough information trickles out that experts and officials can form whatever opinions they please. A year ago, for instance, Pyongyang authorized a drastic currency revaluation that wiped out many citizens’ savings. Some experts now say that mistake fomented still-bubbling dissent. Others, noting that it did not cause an uprising, say it merely demonstrated the extent of Pyongyang’s social control.

A year ago, the North had no anointed heir set to take over should Kim die. Now it does – except that Kim Jong Eun is 27 or 28 and might not be ready.

And unlike a year ago, U.S. visitors to Pyongyang are coming away impressed, noting widespread electricity, bustling markets and busier-than-usual streets. North Korea might, however, be focusing its efforts on its capital as it prepares to celebrate the 100-year anniversary in 2012 of the birth of founder Kim Il Sung.

“North Korea is the land of contradicting pictures,” said Katy Oh Hassig, a North Korea specialist at the Institute for Defense Analyses, which conducts research for the Pentagon. “It’s both stable and instable. It is stable in the sense that with the military, the elites, there’s still an imposed level of control. But it’s unstable because of the level of frustration among ordinary people – not spoken or expressed, but it’s brewing beneath the surface.”

Even those working to develop the Situation Index admit that measuring North Korea’s stability involves more guesswork than science. According to the senior official, much of the input comes from non-quantitative sources, such as interviews with recent defectors or anecdotal accounts of North Korean political dissent.

Then there is the challenge of determining the state of Kim Jong Il’s health, among the biggest variables in assessing the North’s stability. Diplomatic cables released in recent weeks by the WikiLeaks Web site describe the 68-year-old as a chain smoker and a recreational drug user. The senior official said that in an effort to measure Kim’s health, South Korea keeps track of his field trips to factories and military bases. This year, he has made 153 on-the-spot visits – a supposed sign of stable health.

The South also analyzes photos and video of Kim, such as those taken during an Oct. 10 parade to mark the 65th anniversary of the Workers’ Party, sometimes submitting the footage to its own team of doctors. During the parade, Kim was seen limping on his left leg, evidence of an August 2008 stroke. But he was also seen standing – and he had been out late at a public festival the night before.

North Korea has long outlasted predictions of its demise. After Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994, South Korean diplomats told the United States that North Korea would collapse within two years. A year later, Washington-based expert Nicholas Eberstadt, voicing a widespread opinion, wrote, “There is no reason at present to expect a reign by Kim Jong Il to be either stable or long.”

“The whole question about predicting or foreseeing revolutions or regime changes is, at best, an art – and never has been a science,” Eberstadt now says. “But there’s always a desire on the part of policymakers to know the unknowable, and sometimes they’ll pay big bucks to learn the unknowable.”

Collecting and verifying information from within North Korea is exceptionally complicated.  Fortunately today we have more sources of information than ever.  Not only are there the DPRK’s offical and quasi-official news outlets, we also have significant satellite imagery, 20,000 defectors in the ROK, and multiple organizations that specialize in getting information: Daily NK,  Rimjingang, Good Friends, PSCORE, Open Radio, North Korea Intellectual Solidarity, etc.

Here is a great paper on the complexities of obtaining and analyzing information from the DPRK.

Read the full story here:
Seoul undertakes effort to measure North Korea’s longevity
Washington Post
Chico Harlan
12/19/2010

According to the Daily NK:

Even though some of North Korea’s farmland including much around Shinuiju was flooded this year, in other provinces food production has been greater than in previous years, according to sources.

One source from South Pyongyang Province told The Daily NK yesterday, “There have been heavy rains and rivers overflowing in some places this year, but the rice crop is better than last year’s. It seems to be thanks to imported fertilizer from China.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Program (WFP) also reported last month that North Korea’s grains yields had increased by 3 percent over last year, to 4.48 million tons in total.

The source explained, “In April and May this year fertilizer came just in time, so it helped with the farming. Since the situation in that period decides the number of ears of grain, if you don’t provide fertilizer production can be halved.”

Another source from Yangkang Province agreed, saying, “This year in the jangmadang in Hyesan, 50 kilos of fertilizer was selling for 220 Yuan. The price was quite expensive, but people used it even on their private fields because it was so beneficial for production.”

However, the source said angrily, “Even though farming was better than last year, the year’s distribution for farmers was a mere 30kg of rice and 50kg of corn, 20kg of rice and 30kg of corn short of last year’s distribution. So farmers complained about it but the only answer was ‘more food should go to the military’. They were lost for words.”

The source said, “The authorities keep reiterating that thanks to the Youth Captain we will live better in the future, but then give us less distribution; who would believe this? Does this not mean that the Youth Captain will also try only to feed the military?”

He added, “In the end, the vicious circle where farmers on collective farms steal rice from the farm continues. Farm cadres have already siphoned off what they want, and then farmers also do that in groups.”

The source explained, “Due to the lack of electricity and frequent machinery failures, the threshing is still going on now. Military trucks are always waiting by the threshing location, and as soon as it is done, the rice goes to military bases.”

Furthermore, he added, “Rice provided for the military is also stolen by high officials, so normal soldiers are provided only with corn.”

Previous stories about the DPRK’s food and agricultural production can be found here and here.

Stories about the UN World Food Program and FAO can be found here and here.

Read the full story here:
Higher Yields and Lower Distribution
Daily NK
Shin Joo Hyun and Kang Mi Jin
12/17/2010

Forgotten People:  The Koreans of the Sakhalin Island in 1945-1991
Download here (PDF)
Andrei Lankov
December 2010

North Korea: Migration Patterns and Prospects
Download here (PDF)
Courtland Robinson, Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
August, 2010

North Korea’s 2009 Nuclear Test: Containment, Monitoring, Implications
Download here (PDF)
Jonathan Medalia, Congressional Research Service
November 24, 2010

North Korea: US Relations, Nuclear Diplomacy, and Internal Situation
Download here (PDF)
Emma Chanlett-Avery, Congressional Research Service
Mi Ae-Taylor, Congressional Research Service
November 10, 2010

‘Mostly Propaganda in Nature:’ Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and the Second Korean War
Download here (PDF)
Wilson Center NKIDP
Mitchell Lerner

Drug Trafficking from North Korea: Implications for Chinese Policy
Read here at the Brookings Institution web page
Yong-an Zhang, Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies
December 3, 2010

Additional DPRK-focused CRS reports can be found here.

The Wilson Center’s previous NKIDP Working Papers found here.

I also have many papers and publications on my DPRK Economic Statistics Page.

According to JoongAng Daily:

Kim Jong-un’s status as successor to his father, Kim Jong-il, may not be totally secure if evidence from North Korean calendars for 2011 is to be believed.

Two calendars obtained by the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday marked Jan. 8, Kim Jong-un’s birthday, in black. In contrast, Feb. 16, his father’s birthday, is printed in red. The calendars, different in design but both bearing the name of a Pyongyang publishing company, were obtained from Japan.

As in South Korea, calendars in North Korea mark holidays in red. South Korean intelligence officials have determined that Jong-un, the third son of Kim Jong-il, was born on Jan. 8, 1984.

“Kim Jong-un was publicly named successor to his father with his promotion to vice chairman of the Central Military Commission on Sept. 28, but North Korea’s attempt to build a cult of personality around him appears not yet to have been put into full swing,” said a Seoul official.

The official said the North may not have finished all its preparations for Kim Jong-un’s personality cult, citing Pyongyang’s recent adjustment of the son’s official birth year to 1982 so it would echo the birth years of his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, who was born in 1912, and his father, who was born in 1941 but whose official birth year is 1942.

Kim Jong-il’s birthday was designated as an interim holiday in 1975, a year after he was named his father’s successor at the age of 32.

It became an official holiday in 1976 and was promoted to “public holiday,” or a holiday requiring nationwide celebration, in 1983 when he turned 40. It was designated the country’s most important holiday in 1995, the year after Kim Il Sung died.

Kim Il Sung’s birthday had been designated the nation’s most important holiday in 1974, after Jong-il was named his successor.

Jung Chang-hyeon, North Korean studies professor at Kookmin University, predicted that Jong-un’s birthday would become a holiday in the future. “The North’s leadership appears to believe it’s too early to do so,” he said.

Jin Hi-gwan, professor at Busan’s Inje University, said the North could designate Jong-un’s birthday a holiday right before it takes place next month.

Read the full story here:
Birthday of Jong-un isn’t cause to celebrate
JoongAng Daily
Jeong Yong-soo, Moon Gwang-lip
12/16/2010

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 10-12-13
12/13/2010

According to a report on Kim Jong Il”s on-site inspections and guidance, the leader of the North made 148 trips throughout the country between the beginning of the year and December 6, most of which were to sites related to economic activities. The South Korean Ministry of Unification revealed that, of Kim”s visits, 33 were to military sites, 58 to sites related to the economy, and 11 visits related to foreign affairs. These numbers are similar to those seen in 2009 (i.e., 148 visits: 43 military sites; 58 economy; 13 foreign relations). It was also reported that Kim Jong Un accompanied his father on 28 of those trips in 2010. The North Korean official media has continued, even after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, to report on Kim”s on-site guidance, and the visits appear to focus on production facilities related to the people”s livelihoods.

One recent report revealed that Kim visited a cigarette factory, food processing facility, and traditional medicine producer in Hyeryong, while another report noted Kim”s visits to mining facilities and a food processing plant in Musan, as well as magnesia factory, mining equipment factory, and port facilities under construction in Danchun.

Kim Jong Il has made 12 site visits since the Yeonpyeong Island incident on November 23, seven of which were to sites important to the economy. While Kim has focused on visits to South Hamgyong Province in the past, he has recently shown more interest in North Hamgyong, as well.

On December 3, Korea Central Broadcasting reported on Kim Jong Il”s visit to the Musan food processing plant, attributing him with having “expressed great pleasure” that the plant was turning out flawless food items that would “significantly add” to the lives of the people. He also explained to the workers that it was their duty to help improve the lives of the people of the town.

Kim Jong Il also visited the Kim Chaek Ironworks and stressed the importance of Juche-driven self-reliant production and an independent economy. On December 6, the KCNA released a 7-page account of Kim”s visits, which observers believe could have significant meaning.

The Woodrow Wilson Center’s North Korea International Documentation Project has launched a working paper series which draws from their unique archives of diplomatic papers from formerly socialist countries.  The second working paper in the series has just been released, you may download them both from the links below:

1. Charles Armstrong, “Juche And North Korea’s Global Aspirations,” Spetember 2009

2. Bernd Schaefer, “Overconfidence Shattered: North Korean Unification Policy, 1971 -1975,” December 2010

According to the Wilson Center’s web page, they also just received over 2,000 pages of Romanian documents:

NKIDP would like to thank Eliza Gheorghe, a PhD student in History at Oxford University, for obtaining on behalf of NKIDP over 2,000 pages of newly declassified Romanian archival documents on relations with North Korea in the late 1960s and 1970s. The collection brings together minutes of conversations between North Korean leaders and Romanian officials with daily communications from the Romanian embassy in Pyongyang between the critical period 1966-1968. Other documents report on the inner-workings and foreign relations of North Korea from 1970-1979.

According to the Daily NK:

In yet another hint as to Kim Jong Eun’s true status, Secretary of the International Department of the Chosun Workers’ Party Kim Young Il pointed to the beginning of the leadership of the successor at a recent conference in Cambodia.

Alongside politicians from 31 Asian states including South Korea, Kim was attending the 6th International Conference of Asian Political Parties in Phnom Penh on December 2nd as the head of the Chosun Workers’ Party delegation. There, according to Rodong Shinmun, Kim used his speech to explain, “At the Workers’ Party Delegates Conference, we appointed respected Comrade General Kim Jong Eun to Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Party.”

Kim also made several further mentions of the results of the Delegates’ Conference. Speaking of Kim Jong Il, he said “Our great leader, Comrade Kim Jong Il continues as General Secretary of the Chosun Workers’ Party…”, but by using the most honorary of terms like “respected”, he appeared also to emphasize the fact that the era of Kim Jong Eun has begun.

Chosun Central News Agency also reported the details of Kim’s speech on December 4th, emphasizing the words, “Every member of the Party and the people, with the great pride and self-respect of having a man of unsurpassed greatness at the highest level of the revolution, celebrated the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Chosun Workers’ Party splendidly last October; a great political festival to be spoken of as a special event in our people’s history.”

Given the context of the Korean used, it appears that the “man of unsurpassed greatness” refers to Kim Jong Eun.

Also, Kim reportedly added, “The nation’s economic power is being strengthened by the creation of Chosun-style iron, textiles and fertilizer, while we have seized control of the foundations of CNC technology; the most advanced CNC-equipped factories are being built constantly.”

Synthesizing these reports coming from Rodong Shinmun and Chosun Central News Agency and based on the fact that a major Party figure participating in an international conference should talk of Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Eun in the same breath suggests the formalization of the Kim Jong Eun succession to power

Especially, Kim Young Il mentioning CNC, which the North Korean authorities are promoting as an amorphous “achievement” of the successor is seen in some quarters as tantamount to an announcement that Kim Jong Eun’s leadership has began. Recently, North Korea has allegedly been encouraging the expansion of CNC technology into most industrial fields.

Kim Yeon Su, a professor at National Defense University in Seoul, explained to The Daily NK, “This is to proclaim to the outside world that Kim Jong Eun has advanced to the successor’s position and that he has begun to lead.”

Professor Kim commented, “During the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises in the West Sea (November 30th~December 1st), Kim Jong Il went on an on-site inspection without Kim Jong Eun. This is a very exceptional incident and an expression of trust in Kim Jong Eun and confidence, suggesting that the Kim Jong Eun succession leadership system is ready.”

Meanwhile, also during his speech, Kim Young Il repeated existing arguments that the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island was based on the right to self-defense, and asserted that responsibility for it lies with South Korea.

Read the full story here:
“A Man of Unsurpassed Greatness”
Daily NK
Kim So Yeol
12/6/2010

According to Yonhap:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il paid more visits to factories and other economy-related sites than to military units and other locations this year in a sign that the autocratic leader is trying to improve internal unity, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Monday.

Kim has made a total of 148 “field guidance” trips across the country this year, with 58 of them, or 40 percent, made to economic sites and 33 visits to military units, ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters.

In particular, Kim made 16 public appearances in November, and only one of them was a visit to the military while seven were to economic sites, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

“This is seen as an attempt to promote internal unity or to demonstrate he is in charge,” the official said.

Kim’s sister, Kim Kyong-hui, and his brother-in-law, Jang Song-thaek, accompanied Kim on most of the field trips in November, the official said.

Since the North’s deadly shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23, Kim has made a dozen public appearances, with seven of them to economic sites.

Kim’s heir-apparent and youngest son, Kim Jong-un, accompanied his father on 28 of the 148 field trips this year, according to the ministry.

Read the full story here:
Kim Jong-il focuses on economic sites for ‘field guidance’ trips this year
Yonhap
12/6/2010

Pictured above (Google Earth): Pochonbo Revolutionary Site (DPRK)

Andrei Lankov writes in the Korea Times:

On June 5, 1937, the Dong-A Ilbo, then as now one of the leading Korean dailies, recounted an incident that took place in the small township of Pochonbo on the Korean border with China. The newspaper reported that a band of Korean “communist bandits” from China attacked the Japanese police in this city, took it over, burned some Japanese agencies and then withdrew safely.

This was sensational: the years of guerrilla activities in Korea proper were long over, and since the early 1910s the Korean guerrillas only operated overseas. A daring raid of the “communist bandits” (whom many Koreans in those days considered “Korean freedom fighters”) came as a complete surprise. The raid was led by a young commander whose name – Kim Il -sung – thus became widely known across the country.

Kim Il-sung, then still known under his birth name of Kim Sǒng-ju, spent his childhood in China where his family moved in around 1920, fleeing both economic insecurity and political persecution. Kim Il-sung’s father, Kim Hyǒng-jik, a missionary-educated school teacher and herbalist, was a lifelong nationalist sympathizer, even though his political role was subsequently blown out of proportion completely by North Korean propaganda. Kim Il-sung was still a middle school student when he lost his father in 1926, not an unusual fate in the era when the average male life expectancy was less than 30. His mother did not live much longer.

When Kim Il-sung died in 1994, he was clearly a tyrant, in all probability, the worst tyrant in Korean history. Arguably, he and his henchmen killed more Koreans than any foreign invader. Hence, there is a great temptation to see him as evil incarnate. However, history is never that simple.

It is hard to find traces of an emerging tyrant in the Kim Il-sung of the 1920s and 1930s. As we have mentioned above, he was a high school graduate and, back in the Manchuria of 1930, this was a remarkably high level of educational achievement. In those days a high school graduate was roughly as common as a Ph.D. holder is nowadays. His education opened a way to earthly success for the young man, but he chose another path and joined a guerrilla band in the Chinese communist forces.

We’ll probably never know exactly the motivation behind this fateful decision, but one cannot doubt that these reasons must have been lofty and altruistic, based on a mixture of nationalist and communist idealism. There were many people like him, but he was lucky to survive and, later, was unlucky to be sucked ― almost against his own will ― into the brutal world of the violent Cold War politics. In this world he got absolute power, and this power corrupted him (as well many other survivors of the communist guerrilla resistance in Manchuria).

However, in the 1930s those young Korean communists, together with Korean nationalists and, of course, together with the Chinese of all political persuasions challenged the might of Imperial Japan which in 1931 stepped up its aggression against China.

In 1931 Japanese forces invaded and occupied the three north eastern provinces of China. They proclaimed this territory’s “independence” from China and established the puppet state of Manchuguo (literally, “the state of Manchuria”). The last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China from 1644-1911, became the titular monarch of this state, but all control over its activity remained in the hands of the Japanese military – sufficient to say that the commander Japanese forces in the area was by default an “ambassador” to the Manchuguo court and “adviser” to the puppet emperor.

This turn of events outraged everybody. Chinese nationalists could not stand the encroachment of Japan into Chinese lands. Korean nationalists were ready to fight the Japanese everywhere. The communists of both nations were eager to take a stand against the most aggressive imperialist power in the region. In the years 1931-1932, thousands of people of all nationalities and persuasions joined the guerrilla bands that appeared in the mountains in great numbers.

According to official North Korean propaganda, Kim Il -sung headed the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, which was said to have been created by him, from the beginning. Obviously, this version has nothing to do with reality. North Korean propaganda has always tried to present Kim Il-sung first of all as a national Korean leader and thus downplay his early contacts with China and the Soviet Union. Actually, no Korean People’s Revolutionary Army ever existed. Kim Il-sung was a soldier with the Chinese communist forces.

Around 1935, Kim Sông-ju adopted a nom-de-guerre that would resonate through history: he became Kim Il-sung. The young guerrilla showed himself to be a good, able, and brave soldier, so his career progressed fast. In 1936, the 24-year-old fighter was the commander of the Sixth Division, which included a few hundred fighters and operated in Manchuria near the Korean border. By that time he was probably the best known ethnic Korean commander operating in the area.

At dawn on June 4, 1937, Kim Il-sung led some 150-200 guerrillas to the city of Pochonbo. This small-scale but daring operation was the highest point in Kim’s decade-long career as a guerrilla commander.

In the late 1930s Japanese forces and their local collaborators prevailed, and the guerrilla resistance in Manchuria was gradually wiped out. In late 1940, the few survivors, including Kim Il-sung and his wife, found asylum across the border, in the USSR.

In the summer of 1942, the Soviet command decided to establish a special unit which would include these guerrillas. Most of them were Chinese, but Koreans constituted a significant minority among them. This unit was known as the 88th independent brigade, and its base was located in the village of Viatsk (Viatskoe) near Khabarovsk. This is where Kim Il-sung’s wife gave birth to a son who was given a Russian name, Yura, a vernacular form of Yuri (now he is better known under his Korean name of Kim Jong-il, which was then seldom used).

Korean guerrillas, many of whom had once fought under the command of Kim Il-sung, served in Kim’s first battalion, while three other battalions of the brigade consisted of ethnic Chinese.

It seems as if Kim Il-sung was satisfied with his new position. At least, his superiors had no complaints about him. During their sojourn in Viatsk, Kim Il Sung and his wife Kim Chông-suk had two more children: a son named Shura (short for Alexander) and a daughter. The children’s Russian names might indicate that at the time a return to Korea did not look very plausible for Kim. According to a fellow officer, Kim Il-sung saw his future quite clearly: service in the Red Army, study at a military academy, then the command of a regiment or, with a stroke of luck, even a division. One can easily imagine how Kim Il-sung, an old retired colonel or even major general of the Soviet Army, might have died somewhere in Moscow, while his son Yuri would have worked in some Moscow research centre and, quite possibly, in the late 1980s would have participated with gusto in the pro-democracy rallies…

However, history took another turn. When in 1945 the Soviets drove the Japanese away from northern Korea, they decided to create a pro-Soviet regime in this part of the country. Kim Il-sung, young, charismatic and seemingly loyal to the Soviet interests, but also known in Korea because of his earlier guerrilla exploits, was seen as the best candidate to head such a regime.

This decision started a chain of events which were mostly tragic and sometimes shameful. In order to justify his right to rule, Kim Il-sung had no choice but to remake his Manchurian struggle into a heroic myth of huge proportions. He had to portray himself as the sole leader of the entire resistance movement, and also present this resistance as a force which liberated the country almost single-handedly (the Russians ― let alone Americans ― were edited out of the official history completely).

Clearly, these are lies or, at least, gross exaggerations. However, we should not come to another extreme conclusion and deny any contributions of the Korean communist guerrillas in Manchuria. Yes, the survivors of this struggle eventually played a tragic role in Korean history. But this does not mean that they were not heroes back in the 1930s when they waged their desperate struggle against the mighty enemy. In history, the line between villains and heroes, so obvious and clear-cut in action movies, is far more difficult to draw in real life and real history.

Read the full story here:
Communist Kim Il-sung’s Manchurian struggle in 1930-40s
Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
12/5/2010

If you are not sure what CNC is, read my previous post here.

According to the Joongang Daily:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s youngest son is making unofficial rounds to munitions factories in the communist state, encouraging the modernization of technology in the manufacture of weapons and following his father’s footsteps in songun, or “military-first,” politics, according to U.S.-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Wednesday.

Kim Jong-un wants all factories to implement computer numerical control (CNC), which enables the automation of machines with computer-assisted technology. CNC has been connected to the young leader-to-be since last year when he was tapped for succession. South Korean government officials have said that the technical term is being used in connection with Kim Jong-un because the technology is new in North Korea – suggesting the rise of a young new leader intent on modernizing military production.

“With news that Kim Jong-un will visit a munitions factory in Chongjin, North Hamgyong, the factory has been busy with movement. He is coming to inspect the CNC of the factory’s production line,” said a well-informed source cited by RFA. The factory, which is in an area of northeastern North Korea located about 50 miles from the Chinese border, is known to produce shells for multiple-launch artillery pieces. It was also mentioned in a recent broadcast by the state’s official television network for its implementation of CNC technology along with other machinery factories, “standing at the cutting-edge of machinery development,” KCTV said.

According to the source, Kim Jong-un is visiting production lines in North Hamgyong and Jagang, and munitions factories were the first to receive orders to implement CNC to “set an example” for the entire country.

The new technology is utilized to develop more weapons, which could easily attack Seoul and the metropolitan area and could put more pressure on the South Korean government.

North Korea has been urging talks with Seoul to resume cross-border tourism while simultaneously trying to hint that it wants to return to the six-party talks on denuclearization.

Kim Jong-un was also reported to have shown a friendly side to those who have cooperated with his CNC implementation plan. Factories that he visited are reportedly being given incentives, such as cooking oil for workers’ families. Kim Jong-un’s visits mirror those of his father’s past field guidance trips to various places in the communist state and indicate he is well on his way to becoming the next North Korean leader. The field guidance trips are usually touted by the North’s official media without exact dates of when the visits actually happened.

Read the full story here:
Kim Jong-un pushing ‘military-first’
JoongAng Daily
Christine Kim
11/19/2010