North Korean Economy Watch

UPDATE: From the Institute for Far Eastern Studies:

The 12th election of representatives for the North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly, scheduled for March 8, and the opening of the session of the 12th SPA, expected to occur in late March or early April, will mark the launch of the third government under Kim Jong Il

Kim Jong Il was elected to his current position of NDC chairman by 10th SPA in 1998, and was reelected in 2003 by the 12th SPA. In those cases, as well, the Constituency No. 333 announced his nomination. It is expected that all other election constituencies across the country will begin holding celebratory events for Kim soon in order to disseminate propaganda portraying Kim as the representative for all the North Korean people.

Over at One Free Korea, Joshua points out KCNA’s gushing coverage of Kim Jong il’s nomination as a candidate in the upcoming elections for the Supreme People’s Assembly :

Pyongyang, February 4 (KCNA) — Upon hearing the news that General Secretary Kim Jong Il was nominated as a candidate for deputy to the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly at Constituency No. 333, the entire army and people are full of great happiness and pride of having the peerlessly great man as the leader of the nation.

Anti-Japanese revolutionary fighter Hwang Sun Hui said that the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters were very happy to hear the news. She went on:

A few days ago the officers and men of the People’s Army nominated Kim Jong Il as a candidate for deputy to the SPA with boundless reverence. This is the unanimous will and ardent desire of the entire people.

On receiving this happy news with the February 16, the greatest holiday of the nation, ahead, I can hardly repress the swelling emotion.

We anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters will uphold the leader’s plan of building a great, prosperous and powerful nation in the van of the people.

Vice-premier of the DPRK Cabinet Thae Jong Su, noting that having nominated Kim Jong Il as a candidate for deputy to the SPA this time again is the unanimous will of the entire army and people and a great auspicious event of the nation, said:

Kim Jong Il has been leading the Party and the revolution along one road of victory for scores of years, thus performing great feats which will remain immortal in the history of the country.

He is the peerlessly great man who has defended firmly and developed in depth President Kim Il Sung’s Juche-oriented idea and line on state building and demonstrated the dignity and might of the DPRK all over the world with his original Songun politics.

All the officers and men of the People’s Army and the people came to have as a firm faith through life that he is the destiny and future of our country and nation and the symbol of all the victories.

Needless to say, the coverage from Singapore is far more sober and satisfying:

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-Il was Sunday nominated to run in next month’s parliamentary elections, a requirement if he to stay on as supreme army commander, a South Korean official said.

Elections for the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly should have been held last year, but did not go ahead amid reports that the 66-year-old Mr Kim suffered a stroke in August. They are now set for March 8.

He is legally required to be a lawmaker in order to be eligible to serve as chairman of the powerful National Defence Commission, which runs North Korea’s 1.1-million-strong army. It is in this capacity that Kim rules the country.

South Korean unification ministry spokesman Kim Ho-Nyoun told AFP that the North’s state television reported that Kim had been nominated to run in the 333th district for the polls.

Candidates are picked by either the government or the ruling communist party, and it is common for only one candidate to run for each electoral seat.

In the last elections in 2003, the North Korean media boasted a 99.9-percent voter turnout and 100-percent support for every candidate.

A new assembly usually reaffirms his chairmanship of the National Defence Commission, and brings a reshuffle of the cabinet and military leadership, the officials say.

Some analysts in Seoul have forecast the elections also may bring changes to North Korea’s leadership, in preparation for a post-Kim era.

Read the full story here:
NKorea’s Kim to run in polls
AFP via Stratits Times
2/1/2009

By Michael Rank

LONDON – Britain is hosting the first ever delegation from the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) amid hopes that this will help to restart a dialogue between Pyongyang and the European Union on human rights, denuclearisation and other issues and lead to transfers of renewable energy technology to North Korea.

Labour Party member of the European Parliament (MEP) Glyn Ford, one of Europe’s top North Korea experts who has visited Pyongyang a dozen times, told NKEW that he was pressing the delegation to agree to reopen the dialogue that was broken off in 2005 after the EU sponsored a resolution at the United Nations in Geneva that was highly critical of North Korea’s human rights record.

He said it was hard to tell whether the four-member delegation would recommend reopening of the dialogue to decision-makers in Pyongyang. “It’s not the style of North Korea to make decisions on the spot,” Ford noted. He said he personally had opposed the resolution, which was supported by the US and Japan, because it was almost certain to result in suspension of the highly sensitive dialogue which had only just begun.

The four-man delegation is visiting Britain for a week and they are also going to Bristol and Cambridge. Ford accompanied the group to Bristol as this west of England city lies in his Euro-parliamentary constituency, and it is close to the possible site of a giant barrage across the river Severn which is currently being considered as a source of generating green electricity.

He said a deal on the nuclear issue and on reviving the human rights dialogue could result in the EU agreeing to provide wind, tidal and other renewable technology to North Korea, just as the EU has provided €500 million ($640 million) in humanitarian aid over the last eight years.

The delegation includes a scientist with a background in renewable energy, added Ford who has an MSc in marine earth science. He said the west coast of Korea has a tidal range of 11 metres (36 feet), which could make it highly suitable for an electricity-generating barrage. The Severn has a tidal range of 14 metres, the second highest in the world.

Tidal barrages are an attractive means of generating electricity because tides, unlike wind, are highly predictable, but the environmental cost of building a barrage over the Severn, up to 10 miles long, could be huge and there is considerable public opposition to the plan. But such factors are likely to loom less large in North Korea.

Ford said he had met three of the four-man delegation on previous visits to Pyongyang, and that he knew two of them fairly well. He is hoping to visit Pyongyang again with a European Socialist delegation at the end of March.

The group have already had a meeting with Foreign Office officials, who Ford said had presumably also pressed the North Koreans on human rights and the nuclear issue.

Apart from the North Korean visit to the UK, Britain’s Lord Alton, a veteran campaigner for human rights in North Korea, is due to visit Pyongyang early next month. Alton, a devout Catholic, is scheduled  to meet the chairman of Korean Religion Association and visit the Russian Orthodox church and the Jangchung Catholic church in Pyongyang. He will be one of the first Western visitors to the Russian Orthodox church, which opened in 2006 amid considerable official fanfare.

The WPK delegation’s visit to Britain has received little if any media attention so far. In fact hardly anyone would have known about it if the generally extraordinarily uninformative North Korean news agency KCNA had not announced on January 27 that “A delegation of the Workers’ Party of Korea led by Pak Kyong Son, vice department director of its Central Committee, left here today to visit the UK.”

Kim Jong Nam, Kim Jong il’s eldest son (and a “nice” guy I am told), has recently been fairly amenable to speaking to foreign journalists—in English—about developments in the DPRK.  He has largely avoided giving much away except that he is not interested in succeeding his father—who is healthy.

Here is a video interview of KJN at Beijing Capital Airport where he boarded another plane to Macau. (Is Air Koryo flying into Beijing’s new terminal?)

Bradley Martin, author of Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader, reports on KJN’s activities in Bloomberg:

Kim Jong Nam, who was wearing large sunglasses and a knit cap, said he was in Macau, Asia’s largest casino destination, for a “holiday trip.” “I never gamble out here,” he said before climbing into a taxi, with no sign of accompanying bodyguards.

At Beijing’s airport earlier in the day, Kim Jong Nam told Asahi Television that he had “no information” on whether Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national abducted by North Korean agents in 1977, might still be alive.

When asked whether he was interested in succeeding his father as North Korea’s leader, Kim said “I am not interested by the issue, sorry.”

Kim Jong Nam went to boarding school in Switzerland (as did his younger brother Kim Jong Chol).  Aside from English, Korean, and French, I would bet he also speaks some German, Mandarin, and Cantonese.  He was also rumored to be the target of an assassination plot in Austria in 2004.  Since my source with Austrian intelligence has gone dormant, I cannot confirm this. 

Read the full article here:
Kim Jong Il Seems Healthy, Eldest Son Tells Fuji News in Macau
Bloomberg
Bradley Martin and Taku Kato
1/27/2009

Council on Foreign Relations
1/28/2009

Download report here (PDF)

Continuing uncertainties about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and possible succession arrangements “warrant heightened attention and preparation” by U.S. policymakers, says a new Council on Foreign Relations report. “The risks are too great and the stakes too high” for U.S. policymakers “to rely on last-minute improvisation for a peaceful and stable outcome” in nuclear-armed North Korea, says the report sponsored by CFR’s Center for Preventive Action (CPA).

In preparing for sudden change, the report recommends that the United States “continue to promote behavioral change within the current regime rather than actively seek to overthrow it unless extreme circumstances dictate otherwise.” But it cautions that: “The United States should not support efforts to prop up the current regime beyond the point at which it has clearly ceased to govern effectively.”

The report also warns against “high-handed U.S. action,” advocating that the United States “defer to South Korean wishes and leadership in the management of change in North Korea,” except if “overriding national interests compel unilateral action.” The report was coauthored by CPA Director Paul B. Stares and Joel S. Wit of the Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University.

The report also stresses that the potential political, economic, security, and humanitarian challenges presented by instability in the Korean Peninsula as a result of sudden change demand U.S. cooperation with the region’s principal powers. “Failure to accommodate [these powers’] national interests… could have profoundly negative consequences for the evolution of Korea, the stability of northeast Asia, and U.S. relations with major allies and other countries in the region,” says the report.

The report, titled Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea, examines three potential succession scenarios, each of which poses its own set of challenges to U.S. policymakers:

1) Managed succession: the current regime, which has ruled North Korea since 1948, maintains power but under new leadership.

2) Contested succession: different factions vie for power in Pyongyang, resulting in regime change and a new policy direction. “How a power struggle would play out and who the eventual winner or winners might be is obviously impossible to predict, but a prolonged, divisive, and potentially even violent succession struggle is not out of the question,” says the report.

3) Failed succession: changes in North Korean leadership produce no clear and effective national leader, fatally weakening the state’s ability to function and leading to its eventual demise. In this scenario, North Korea’s “rapid absorption by South Korea is widely viewed as the inevitable next step.”

Regardless of how succession transpires, the report offers specific policy recommendations on how the United States can improve its ability to manage sudden change in the peninsula. These include:

1. Enhancing U.S. readiness: “The United States should upgrade its ability to discern and comprehend domestic political, economic, and other developments in North Korea.” For example, the report recommends enhancing U.S. intelligence to take advantage of a variety of new sources of information; establishing broader contacts with Pyongyang during ongoing denuclearization negotiations; and reestablishing the working relationship between the U.S. and North Korean militaries to recover the remains of American soldiers missing or killed in action during the Korean War.

2. Promoting allied coordination and preparedness: “The United States should work closely with South Korea and Japan to improve allied coordination and preparedness for contingencies in North Korea… The current joint military planning between the United States and South Korea needs to be augmented with a coordinated political, diplomatic, economic, and legal strategy to tackle the core issues likely to arise.”

3. Fostering regional transparency and capacity-building: “To reduce the risk of misunderstanding and friction in a crisis involving North Korea, the United States should pursue a quiet dialogue with the People’s Republic of China to discuss issues of mutual concern… The aim of such talks would be not only to raise potential concerns and discuss possible responses but also to minimize misunderstandings that might arise and seriously exacerbate a crisis.” The United States also should open discussions with South Korea and Japan, UN agencies, European counterparts, and nongovernmental organizations.

4. The report concludes: “Improving contingency planning, sharing the results of this planning, improving consultation on the future of the Korean peninsula, and taking concrete steps to build up generic, potentially useful capabilities—though certainly not sufficient in and of themselves to cope with these challenges—will establish a much firmer foundation for the future.”

The report is coauthored by Paul B. Stares, the General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Joel S. Wit, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Weatherhead East Asia Institute, Columbia University, and a Visiting Fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

Download report here (PDF)

UPDATE: Information from the Korea Times:

South Korea and the United States should maintain about 460,000 troops to deal with any unusual situation on the Korean Peninsula that results from internal instability in North Korea, says a new report published by a private U.S. foreign policy organization Wednesday.

The figure represents a three-fold increase in the number of U.S. troops currently deployed to Iraq.

The authors believe Pyongyang possesses six to eight nuclear weapons as well as several ballistic missiles and 4,000 tons of chemical weapons. China might also try to secure the North’s WMDs in the case of an emergency, they forecast.

The South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command drew up a conceptual action plan to respond to sudden changes in North Korea, codenamed CONPLAN 5029, in 1999.

The plan includes outlines for joint military responses by South Korean and U.S. troops to various levels of internal turmoil in North Korea, according to sources.

Contingencies include a mass inflow of North Korean refugees, a civil war provoked by a revolt or coup, South Korean hostages being held in the North, and natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.

The plan also includes measures to prevent Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction from being smuggled out of the country, if the regime was involved in a domestic crisis or suddenly collapses.

In 2005, the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which pursued a policy of greater independence from the United States, rejected a U.S. proposal to develop the conceptual plan to an operational plan involving more specific scenarios.

Read the full article here:
‘460,000 Troops Needed to Stabilize NK Collapse’
Korea Times
Jung Sung-ki
1/28/2009

UPDATE 3: February 26, 2009. According to Yonhap:

Prosecutors on Thursday questioned two activists who brought in North Korean bills for their leaflet campaign criticizing North Korea, allegedly in violation of South Korean law.

The South Korean government has not restricted the controversial leaflet campaign, which criticizes North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as “the most vicious dictator and murderer,” saying there was no law to stop it.

But the Unification Ministry requested a probe for the first time last week, after the activists attached North Korean banknotes to their flyers to encourage North Korean citizens to pick them up. 

Bringing North Korean money into South Korea is permitted only for trade purposes or for personal possession. Violations can result in up to three years in jail or 10 million won (US$6,562) in fines, according to the law on inter-Korean exchange and cooperation.

A North Korean defector, Park Sang-hak, and Choi Sung-yong whose fisherman father is allegedly being held in North Korea, flew scores of North Korean banknotes attached to some 20,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea via gas-filled balloons on Feb. 16, Kim’s birthday. Most of the flyers never reached the North, however, because of unfavorable winds.

Prosecutors said they questioned the activists about how the North Korean money was brought in. Other details were not available.

“They asked us how we acquired the North Korean bills and how much we have,” Park said. 

UPDATE 2: February 16, 2009.  Kim Jong Il’s official birthday.  The activists called Seoul’s bluff and sent the flyers across the DMZ with DPRK won in tow.  Nothing has happened. Pyongyang has not yet complained in the press (as of 2/24). 

UPDATE: South Korean government declares the use of DPRK won by groups is illegal:

“It is against the law for civic groups to bring in North Korean currency [into the ROK] without Unification Minister authorization and enclose it in leaflets,” ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said at a news briefing.

“It is the related ministries’ position that such a request for authorization, if it comes, is likely to harm the order of South-North cooperation and thus will not be granted.”

In other words: “You need permission to do this and we will not give it to you.” But according to Yonhap:

Defying the announcement, organizations of North Korean defectors and families of abducted South Koreans vowed to go ahead with a plan to fly a fresh batch of propaganda leaflets across the heavily fortified border in February. They said the new leaflets will be flown with North Korean bills attached to encourage people to pick them up.

If they go through with this plan, the stage will be set for what I assume will be a well-publicized showdown between the police and North Korean defector groups.

ORIGINAL POST:
South Korea-based human rights groups garnered headlines last year by sending hundreds of thousands of leaflets about Kim Jong il’s lifestyle into the DPRK attached to balloons.  (A copy of the leaflet and a rough English explication can be found here).  Not only did these leaflets promt repeated public complaints from Pyongyang, but they were also blamed for the North’s unilateral “renegotiation” of inter-Korean cooperation projects in Kaesong—which reduced cross border civilian traffic to 880—about 20% of the 4,200 licensed to enter the Kaesong Complex.  Of course closing down these projects was also a goal of the human rights groups, so in the end Pyongyang delivered its most vocal critics a double victory: South Korean subsidies to the North via Kaesong have been drastically curtailed and the balloons, which were temporarily suspended, have resumed. 

As an aside, there is evidence that the Kaesong projects were curtailed for other reasons, most notably internal political concerns and/or the politics of North-South relations.  No matter the true cause(s), Pyongyang publicly blamed the leaflets.

Although Pyongyang has discovered it had little political leverage over the supply side of the leaflet market, it retains significant leverage over the demand side.   Quoting from Yonhap:

North Korea is arresting citizens who possess U.S. one dollar bills as a way to crack down on packages of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent by South Korean activists that include the currency, an activist here said Wednesday.

The North’s spy agency, the State Security Agency, issued the directive in early November to stop citizens from collecting the leaflets that criticize leader Kim Jong-il and his communist regime, said Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and leader of Fighters For Free North Korea in Seoul. 

So now we move to round three.  How will the human rights groups respond?

South Korean activist groups will attach N. Korean currency to anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent into North Korea, replacing US$1 bills, following rumors that citizens found with the notes are punished, an activist said Thursday.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service confirmed that North Korean authorities arrest and interrogate those who possess U.S. dollars that allegedly came with the leaflets from South Korea. But the spy agency declined to comment on what kind of punishment they face.

To prevent further arrests, Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and head of Fighters for Free North Korea in Seoul, said his organization and another activist group will send 5,000 won North Korean notes — the highest denomination in the country — when they fly a fresh batch of balloons into North Korea next month.

The amount is just enough to purchase about 2kg of rice, officials and aid workers say, and is a little more than the average monthly salary for urban workers. A North Korean household needs at least 20,000 won a month to survive, they added.

This is an interesting move as it increases the demand for leaflets in the DPRK in two important ways.  The first, is that low-level workers and cadres will find it much easier to possess and spend DPRK won (compared to $US), particularly in the southern provinces.  Secondly, the DPRK-US$ exchange rate is about W3,000/$1, so the switch represents a 66% increase in purchasing power per collected note! 

Of course this raises the question of where they will get the DPRK won:

Park refused to elaborate on how he acquired the North Korean bills, except to say that they passed through China’s border region with North Korea.

South Koreans can bring North Korean money into the country only for trade purposes and must first receive government approval to do so. Failure to abide by these restrictions can result in three years in jail or a 20 million won (US$15,198) fine. The ministry is reviewing whether the activists’ possession of North Korean bills was legitimate.

But other than creating routine problems for North Korean state security, I am not sure what specific results human rights groups seek from these activities.  North Korea’s information blockade cracked over a decade ago—even in the southern provinces where the balloons drift.  Although people in these areas might possess little positive information about the outside world, they probably have a general sense that the state of global affairs is not as their leaders portray.  So, breaking the information blockade is a necessary but not sufficient condition for social change in the DPRK.  

Unfortunately, the information on the leaflets is predominately non-actionable.  Rather than condemning Kim Jong il’s lifestyle, the leaflets should provide instructions on accessing foreign radio and television broadcasts, tactics for clandestine organization, case studies in successful defection, business and smuggling opportunities, local prices, and even mundane news like sports scores, movie reviews, etc.  This would likely be much more valuable to the North Koreans than political propaganda. 

This is an interesting tactic, however, and I look forward to seeing what the next moves will be from players in both the North and South.

Read the full articles here:
N. Korea arresting carriers of $1 bills to stop anti-Pyongyang leaflets: activist
Yonhap
Kim Hyun
1/7/2009

Activists to send N. Korean currency with anti-Pyongyang leaflets
Yonhap
Kim Hyun
1/8/2009

North Korea cash sent with leaflets illegal: Seoul
Reuters
Jack Kim
1/27/2009

Seoul bars activists from bringing in N. Korean currency
Yonhap
1/28/2009

UPDATE 3: According to numerous media sources, Choe Sung Chol has been shot (h/t Marmot). Read more here: Bloomberg, Reuters, Korea Times.

UPDATE 2: According to the Joong Ang Daily:

North Korea’s point man on South Korea, who was earlier said to have been sacked for misjudgment, is said to be undergoing what sources called “severe” communist training at a chicken farm, sources here said yesterday.

Choe Sung-chol, once a vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, the North’s state organization handling inter-Korean affairs, was reported to have been dismissed in early 2008 for what sources called his lack of foresight on South Korea’s new conservative administration under President Lee Myung-bak.

Political dissidents in North Korea are said to often undergo training on the communist revolution. This includes hard labor in harsh environments, such as mines or in labor camps.

Choe, 52, became better known to South Korean officials and the public in 2007, when he escorted then-President Roh Moo-hyun throughout his visit to Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

He is also known to have played a key role in arranging the summit.

Officials in Seoul have acknowledged the dismissal of Choe, but could not confirm his whereabouts or why he was sacked.

“He has been undergoing training for about a year now, so it really is hard to tell whether he will be reinstated or not,” another source said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

(UPDATE 1) Shortly after the DPRK’s ministerial and leadership changes were dscovered, the DPRK announced the Supreme People’s Assembly will be recomposed in March.  According to Reuters:

The reclusive North’s official media said in a two-sentence dispatch the election for deputies to its Supreme People’s Assembly would be held on March 8, without offering details.

North Korea wants to promote economic elite to the assembly to help lay the groundwork for the next generation of its leadership, a think tank affiliated with the South’s intelligence service said in a report in December, Yonhap news agency said.

However, analysts cautioned against reading too much into the leadership changes, saying Kim Jong-il and his inner circle hold the real power while ministers and other government officials have almost no influence in forming policy.

The assembly session that typically meets in April each year is a highly choreographed affair focused on budget matters where legislation is traditionally passed with unanimous approval.

North Koreans can vote only for the candidates selected by supreme leaders who allocate assembly seats to promote rank-and-file officials and purge those no longer in favor.

“Even if we know that someone was replaced, everything related to it is pure speculation because we have no clue as to the individual inclinations of these people,” said Andrei Lankov, an expert on the North at the South’s Kookmin University. (Reuters)

The Joong Ang Ilbo provides some additional facts:

The election is also a mere formality in the North because the candidates are hand-picked by the Workers’ Party and then approved by North leader Kim Jong-il.

The five-year terms of the 687 representatives, selected in 2003, were supposed to end last September. North Korea watchers have speculated that Kim’s health was linked to the election delay. According to intelligence sources in Seoul, Kim suffered a stroke in August.

North Korea watchers said Kim’s appearance at a polling station will put an end to speculation about his health. Kim had cast ballots in the 1998 and 2003 elections, according to past North Korean media reports.

With the upcoming election, Kim’s regime will enter its third term. The newly formed legislature will, on paper, form a cabinet, devise a national budget plan and conduct foreign policy.

Following former leader Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994, the Supreme People’s Assembly did not meet for four years. At that meeting, it elected the younger Kim as the National Defense Commission chairman and officially launched his regime. At the time, the legislature also amended the Constitution and undertook a dramatic cabinet shakeup.

ORIGINAL POST
According to the Joong Ang Daily:

Yu Yong-sun, a 68-year-old Buddhist leader, has become North Korea’s senior South Korea policy maker, a top Seoul official told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday.

Choe Sung-chol, deputy director of the United Front Department of the North Korean Workers’ Party, was in charge of Pyongyang’s South Korean affairs until early last year. After he lost the job, Yu, head of the Korean Buddhists Federation, was appointed to the post, the source said.

“Yu succeeded Choe in March last year,” the source said. “Choe was once deeply trusted by [North Korean] leader Kim Jong-il, but he stepped down because he had failed to accurately assess the outcome of the 2007 presidential election in the South, the Lee Myung-bak administration’s North Korea policy and the outlook for inter-Korean relations.”

The source also said corruption scandals involving the overseas North Korean assistance committee under the United Front Department played a role in Choe’s sacking.

Choe played a crucial role in arranging the second inter-Korean summit between the president of South Korea at the time, Roh Moo-hyun, and Kim in 2007.

Yu, the successor, is not an entirely new face in inter-Korean affairs. Since 2000, he represented the North in several rounds of inter-Korean ministerial talks. He has led the Buddhist group since May 2006.

“We’ve also obtained intelligence that Kwon Ho-ung, who used to be the chief negotiator for the inter-Korean ministerial talks, stepped down from the post and has been put under house arrest,” the source said.

The North reshuffled its cabinet recently, according to the South’s Unification Ministry. Ho Thaek, vice minister of the electric power industry, was promoted to minister. Other minister-level promotions also took place at the Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Forestry and Ministry of Foreign Trade. (Jeong Yong-soo, JoongAng Ilbo)

The Choson Ilbo reports on some more ministerial changes:

North Korea has reshuffled two cabinet ministers and appointed a new man to a key post in the Workers’ Party. North Korean state media reported that Kim Tae-bong was appointed new metal industry minister and Hur Tack new power industry minister. They replace Kim Sung-hyun and Pak Nam-chil. Kim Kyong-ok as newly-named first deputy director of the ruling party’s Organization Guidance Department that controls the party, Army and administration and is headed by leader Kim Jong-il.

It is rare for reshuffles to be announced separately. The new economic appointments may be related to the emphasis on “economic recovery” in a New Year’s statement released in the state media last week that is the closest the North has to an annual message from Kim Jong-il, a government official here speculated. The statement described the metal industry as the “pillar of the independent economy of socialism” and said the electricity, coal and railroad sectors “should take the lead in the people’s economic development through reforms.” Hence replacement of the metal and power industry ministers, according to the official. He admitted little is known about the newly appointed ministers.

The Organization and Guidance Department’s new first deputy director Kim Kyong-ok is reportedly in charge of regional party organizations.

“If the power succession is to move smoothly, the economy must be revived and control of the party organization is essential,” an intelligence officer here said. He predicted noticeable changes in the North’s power structure this year. A researcher at the Korea Institute of National Unification said North Korea “is going to take various steps in a bid to prevent Kim Jong-il’s authority from weakening due to ill health.”

And from Yonhap:

North Korea promoted industrial veterans to top posts in its latest Cabinet reshuffle, signaling Pyongyang’s stepped-up drive to rebuild the country’s frail economy, Seoul officials and analysts said Tuesday.

A reshuffle in the communist state is usually inferred when new faces appear in its media, as the country does not publicize such moves.

Five new names were mentioned as the North’s ministers of railways, forestry, electricity, agriculture and metal industry in the North’s New Year message and reports in October, Seoul’s Unification Ministry Spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said.

“They are formerly vice ministers or those who climbed the ladder in each field. The reshuffle considered their on-spot experiences and expertise,” the spokesman said.

It was not clear when the reshuffle took place, he said.

North Korean media have been reporting a brisk campaign to rebuild the country’s ailing industrial infrastructure, following up on the New Year economic blueprint rolled out by leader Kim Jong-il. Kim called on citizens “to solve problems by our own efforts” and increase production in electricity, coal and daily equipment.

In the reshuffle, Jon Kil-su was named minister of railways; Kim Kwang-yong minister of forestry; Ho Taek minister of power industry; Kim Chang-sik minister of agriculture; Kim Tae-bong minister of metal industry.

Kim Kwang-yong and Kim Chang-sik were vice ministers and Jon held a senior post in their respective ministry. Ho was formerly a power plant chief, while little was known about Kim Tae-bong, Seoul officials said.

The shakeup was rumored to have affected more posts, but the Seoul spokesman could not officially confirm it.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea studies professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said the reshuffle is a sign that the North is shifting its focus to the economy from the military. In its New Year message, Pyongyang pledged to build a “prosperous and powerful nation” by 2012, the 100th anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung’s birth, he noted.

“The key word this year is the economy,” Koh said. “The reshuffle seems to suggest officials with technical expertise should take the initiative to develop the economy.”

Kim Young-yoon, a researcher with the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Pyongyang is turning to its natural resources amid suspension of South Korean aid. The Seoul government halted its customary aid of rice and fertilizer this past year as Pyongyang refused offers of dialogue.

“North Korea has no other way but turn to its own natural resources as long as inter-Korean relations and the nuclear issue are in limbo,” he said.

Read the full articles here:
Buddhist leader gets North’s South policy spot
JoongAng Daily
Jeong Yong-soo
1/5/2009

N.Korea Reshuffles Economic Posts
Choson Ilbo
1/5/2009

N. Korea promotes industry veterans in Cabinet reshuffle
Yonhap
Kim Hyun
1/6/2008

North Korea says to elect MPs in government shake-up
Reuters
1/6/2009

North to hold parliamentary election
Joong Ang Ilbo
Ser Myo-ja
1/8/2009

Top North official said to be getting re-educated
Joong Ang Daily
1/12/2009

North Korea’s “New Year’s Day Joint Editorial” lays out the government’s policy priorities for the year—similar to a US State of the Union address. In the editorial, which is quite long, the government committed to strengthening the military, ridding the peninsula of nuclear weapons, improving the economy (energy, agriculture, and transport) and improving the people’s quality of life.  Although the editorial is quite long, KCNA published a summary (KCNA link here, PDF here).

Today the Korean Worker’s Party threw itself a rally in Kim il Sung Square in support of the 2009 Joint Editorial. 

Here are some reactions in the press:
Jon Herskovitz in Reuters, Korea Times, AFP, Xinhua.

Daily NK
Lee Sung Jin
12/23/2008

North Korea, since December 3rd, has been holding a “Competition for Revolutionary Descendants” in each province, over two days. The competition is the third of its kind, following on from 1998 and 2002.

A source confirmed in a phone conversation with the Daily NK on the 21st, “In Hyesan, Yangkang Province, from December 3rd, there was a “Competition for Revolutionary Descendants.” This competition took place simultaneously in each province.”

Another source said, “There was a competition in Chongjin, North Hamkyung Province in early December and many gifts, including clothing, were given out to the participants.”

The competition was held to stabilize the volatile state of affairs, spurred by rumors of Kim Jong Il’s illness, issues of food shortages, and the distribution of flyers in North Korea, by intercepting in advance any possible unrest among the core class.

(* North Korea categorized the population into the “core class (3,915,000),” the “unstable class (3,150,000),” and the “hostile class (7,935,000)” in 1971)

The Yangkang-based source said, “The competition was held with participation from the Party Chief Secretary of the province, the key officials in the province, city and county and chairpersons of the Peoples’ Units, descendants of revolutionaries and war veterans were invited to the competition.”

He then said, “Rather than being a real competition, it was a gathering to provide meals and distribute gifts. On the morning of the third day, after a flower-basket presentation ceremony at the Kim Il Sung memorial at the Bocheonbo Combat Victory Monument, a meeting was held at the Kim Jong Suk Arts Theater.”

He further noted, “At the meeting, there was a political lecture given by the new Propaganda Secretary of the Party in the Province Kim Bong She, after the congratulatory address by the Chief Secretary of the Province. Kim closed the event with a speech urging emulation of the lofty example of the first generation of revolutionaries, who devoted everything to the General.”

According to the source, after the event wrapped up its main events on the afternoon of the 3rd, it continued until the evening on the 4th with a special performance by the Yangkang Provincial Performing Arts Troupe, a special banquet, a visit to the Yangkang Province Revolutionary Historical Site, and a ceremony for presenting gifts.

The source said, “The authorities put in a lot of preparation for the event. They even brought beer, luxury alcohol and cigarettes from Pyongyang for the competition participants. Also, there were special performances at the Yalu Restaurant, a famous restaurant in Hyesan, at the Hyesan Shopping Center restaurant, and at restaurants in various train stations.”

The source explained, “The officials went out of their way to shake hands with the competition participants and urged, ‘In such difficult times, we have to submit to the guidance of the General.”

He said, “At the competition, the issue of the Party’s active support for the children of deceased revolutionaries and needing to look after their needs was raised more than once. In particular, the provision for and subsistence of the descendants, due to difficult economic conditions, had been neglected, but the promise was made that, from now on, the Party in Yangkang Province would take an interest in and resolve the issue.”

Daily NK
Park Hyun Min
12/5/2008

The North Korean authorities have been expanding the construction of facilities that laud and idolize Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il throughout North Korea, in order to unite the people in spite of the severe economic crisis.

Up until the end of the 1990s, North Korea had been focusing on creating “revolutionary memorial halls” or ‘historic sites,’ or erecting statues in order to idolize the Kim family.

The main structure of idolatry, above all, is the Kim Il Sung statue. Among all the statues, the one in front of the Museum of Korean Revolution on the top of Mansudae hill in Pyongyang, erected in April 1972 to celebrate Kim Il Sung’s 60th birthday, is best-known. It is 23 meters (75.5 feet) high, including a 3 meter pedestal. The statue was once covered with gold, but it was removed.

Similar, less grandiose statues are located in all 70 major cities of North Korea. In total, there are 140,000 structures designed to idolize the Kim regime.

Especially after the death of Kim Il Sung, and the succession of Kim Jong Il three years later, in 1997, many mosaic murals were created throughout North Korea with the father and the son as the theme, and many of the revolutionary monuments were erected.

Mosaic murals mainly feature Kim Il Sung, the father with Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Il’s mother, Kim Jung Sook, made with glass or tiles of natural rocks baked at 1,200.

According to reports from the North Korean state-run media since 2000, one mural was made in 2000, four in 2002, then the number increased to 19 in 2003, 49 in 2004, and a sharp increase to 70 in 2005. Then in 2006, 55 murals were made while 67 were made last year. 88 murals have been made this year alone.

Furthermore, the size of the mosaic murals is growing. On average, the length and height of a mural is 5–10 meters. However, bigger murals with dimensions of 30 meters by 20 meters have been under construction.

The most well-known murals are located on Tongil (Unification) Street in Raknang district and on Kwangbok Street in Mankyungdae district in Pyongyang. The one on Kwangbok Street was made to celebrate Kim Sung Il’s 95th birthday in April, 2008, and goes by the name of “My great country, my nation, live forever.” The height and length of the murals are respectively 42 meters and 25 meters.

The other mural that was completed on Tongil Street the day before that was 33.7 meters long and 22 meters high.

Chosun Sinbo reported with great fanfare, “These murals are the biggest mosaic murals in the nation.”

Revolutionary monuments or historic memorials at places where Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il are known to have been, are being made constantly.

North Korea put up 31 revolutionary memorial slabs last year in places such as Pyongyang Music School or Pyongyang Shoe Factory, and 37 so far this year, in places like Suncheon First Middle School and Kangkye Pig Factory. Last year, revolutionary monuments were erected in five places, including the public building of the People’s Safety Agency in North Hamkyung Province and so far four monuments have been erected in places like Pyongyang 3.26 cable factory.

Jane Portal, the author of “Art under Control in North Korea” visited North Korea twice and assessed this idolatry as the world’s most intense, saying that Stalin and Mao Zedong’s idolatry cannot be compared with Kim Il Sung’s hunger for praise.

Additionally, North Korea is focusing on boosting people’s loyalty and revolutionary consciousness through collective visits to these historic sites, and by excavating or renovating them.

Chosun (North Korea) Central Broadcasting (the state-controlled radio station) last month hinted at the strengthened idolization process, saying that “Plans to revive historic sites in North Hamkyung province and the efforts of party members and laborers working on these projects are processing well.”

In a recent Korea Times article, Andrei Lankov (citing Brian Myers) highlights how the DPRK has changed the narrative of its raison d’être in response to the growing realization among its people that South Korea is not the poor, exploited US colony the propaganda portrays it to be. 

Quoting from the article:

Until some time a decade ago, the North Korean populace was expected and required to believe in a very simple world picture.

The North, led by the glorious dynasty of omniscient and benevolent rulers, was the best society on the face of the Earth, much envied and glorified by the less fortunate peoples of other countries.

The rest of the world was inferior, though people in the socialist countries admittedly fared better than the helpless inhabitants of the capitalist hell.

But worst of all was South Korea, the colony of the U.S. imperialists who exploited it with unparalleled brutality.

However, around 2000 the North Korean watchers (well, actually a handful of them with the time and ability to read the official press systematically) began to notice a new image of the South emerge.

Brian Myers, the ever observant reader of North Korean press and fiction first noticed the signs of this quiet transformation when it was only beginning.

Soon it became clear that he was right. A new propaganda line was being born. Interestingly, this time the new line was introduced not through newspapers, but in a more subtle way, through works of fiction, which also have to be approved by the supreme ideological authorities.

The new South Korea which emerged in these writings wasn’t so poor. Actually, it was not poor at all. The characters in recent North Korean novels, which deal with the imaginary life of the South, enjoy a lifestyle far superior to that of the average North Korean. They drive cars, dine out easily and live in expensive houses.

As Myers pointed out, the North Korean authors have poor ideas of how expensive Seoul real estate has become, so they sometimes overestimate South Korean’s income levels. In one novel, a young South Korean journalist buys a house in a very expensive neighborhood after merely a few years of work.

Does this mean that the new image of the South is positive? Of course not! South Korean society might be rich, the propaganda operators say, but it is still inferior to the North.

The South Koreans had to pay a terrible price for their success: they were deprived of their precious national identity.

The cultural uniqueness and racial purity of the great Korean nation has become endangered. Mixed marriages are mentioned frequently and in a way that makes readers believe they are between the same lusty Americans and young Korean women.

However, the propaganda insists, the South Koreans themselves are not happy about this situation. They dream about liberation and purification, and their hopes are pinned on Pyongyang and, above all, the Dear Leader himself. In recent years, North Korean propaganda has insisted that Kim Jong -il is worshipped in the South. Similar statements were made earlier as well.

According to this new logic, the North is a torchbearer, a proud protector of nationhood and racial purity. South Korean prosperity is tainted and hence should not be envied.

The North must fight for the ultimate salvation of the South, and such salvation can be achieved only through unification under the North Korean auspices, so all South Koreans will be able to enjoy the loving care of the Dear Leader. Only American troops and a handful of national traitors prevent this dream from coming true.

Lankov (and Myers) speculate that the North Korean government changed the narrative in response to unauthorized information permeating the country.  In a related note, the overt propaganda in many North Korean films has also been reduced in recent decades.

Most importantly, Lankov reminds us that nationalism is not a viable long-term political strategy—even in North Korea.  North Korean Juche was supposed to liberate the Korean people and deliver on material progress, but it has not succeeded.  From top to bottom, many North Koreans already know this.