North Korean Economy Watch

Yonhap
8/25/2007

North Korea has started building fences along its border with China in an apparent attempt to forestall defections of its hard-pressed citizens, local residents said Sunday.

The move comes amid growing international criticism of China which sends back home North Korean border trespassers under an agreement with Pyongyang.

Some human rights activists have been pressuring Beijing not to repatriate North Korean refugees, threatening to launch a campaign to boycott the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

About a month ago, North Korean workers were spotted erecting wire fences along a 10-kilometer area near a narrow tributary of the Yalu River, a major border-crossing point, local residents said.

China already built fences along its side of the border late last year.

“North Korea started building a dike early this year and building posts about a month ago,” one resident said.

An increasing number of North Koreans are fleeing their impoverished communist homeland, hoping to defect mostly to South Korea. Some of them travel as far as Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries via China for safe passage to South Korea.

More than 10,000 North Korean defectors have so far arrived in South Korea amid reports that up to 300,000 North Korean refugees are roaming in China on their way to South Korea and other countries away from their impoverished homeland.

Institute for Far Easter Studies
NK Brief No. 07-8-14-1

The second inter-Korean summit meeting is coming up soon, scheduled to open on August 28 in Pyongyang, and interest is building regarding discussion on economic cooperation. It is true that the North is prioritizing political and military issues in order to shore up its government by normalizing relations with the United States. However, considering its serious economic woes, the ability of South Korea to offer a ‘gift package’ can significantly influence the success or failure of this summit.

It is not yet clear how economic cooperation will fit into the agenda, but Seoul and Pyongyang have been constantly discussing this issue, so some insight has been given. In particular, the ‘consumer’ North has been referring to domestic and international cooperation, and through Pyongyang’s requests, some clarity has been added to what goals could unfold during the upcoming meeting.

Energy Sector

The North Korean economy is saddled with severe shortages of electricity and fuel oil, causing production to slow and therefore stagnating consumption, putting the country into an ongoing vicious circle of economic depression. North Korea possesses facilities to produce 7.7 million kW of steam- and hydro-electric power, but in reality is incapable of operating these facilities at more than 30%.

The opinion that expansion of North Korea’s electrical infrastructure is necessary, not only for the North, but also for South Korea, is gaining strength. South Korean projects to develop North Korean mines and import its coal have been delayed due to a lack of electrical power. In the future, enterprises looking to set up in North Korea will also require a steady supply of electricity.

In what way the two Koreas will cooperate on energy is not yet known, but North Korea is sticking to its demand for light-water nuclear reactors. If construction were restarted on the reactors begun by the now-defunct Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), North Korea could quickly have not only the energy production amount currently available, but an additional 2 million kW, as well.

North Korea’s power facilities are in a state of deterioration, but the number of facilities in the North are adequate for the current state of the economy, so a plan for the restoration of generation and transmission facilities, or the 2 million kW of electrical power offered by the South Korean government two years ago could be considered sufficient.

Natural Resource and Infrastructure Development

One other highly probable agenda item on inter-Korean economic cooperation will be development of natural resources. This is because a model in which North Korea’s relatively abundant underground natural resources are developed, and in which these resources being used by South Korean businesses, would create a ‘win-win’ result for both Seoul and Pyongyang.

According to a report given by the Korea Resources Corporation at a conference last year, North Korea possesses upward of forty different valuable minerals, including iron-ore. Analysis of these North Korean resources shows that a considerable amount of South Korea’s 40 trillion won (430 billion USD) worth of mineral imports per year could be brought in from North Korea instead.

As development projects in North Korea’s graphite mines are already underway, and the import of North Korean anthracite is being considered in order to meet quickly growing demand for charcoal in the South, cooperation in the natural resource sector appears to be one of the core points to inter-Korean economic cooperation.

As for North Korea’s railways, the heart of the country’s distribution infrastructure, completion of the section of track on the Kyungui Line between Kaesong Station and Moonsan Station, as well as the section of the East Sea Line between Mt. Kumgang Station and Jejin Station, means that the infrastructure for regular service between the two countries is now in place, although talks regarding the details of such regular service are not being held.

If regular service on these two lines between North and South Korea can be achieved, expensive transportation costs can be reduced, and of course, in the future, connection of the railway with continental rail networks such as the Trans-Siberian Rail and the Trans-China Rail would help to enable the Korean Peninsula to emerge as the hub of North East Asian distribution.

Furthermore, considering the fact that North Korea’s mining facilities and technology, as well as its ports, loading facilities, and other transportation infrastructure, are severely lacking, a plan linking development of natural resources to projects developing infrastructure also appears viable. It is also already known, to some extent, the nature of North Korean needs in its infrastructure sector, and if this upcoming summit closes successfully, it is expected that an inventory of these needs will become more concrete.

Vitalizing Kaesong Industrial Complex

The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) is also an important undertaking. At the moment, a problem has arisen concerning the construction of a second KIC, but even if only the originally planned 26.4 million square-meter complex is built, the fact is that currently the first 3.3 million square-meter stage is complete, and considering that it employs North Korean labor, this is no easy feat. Companies moving into the KIC are asking that easy communication with South Korea and simplified import procedures be prioritized.

South Korean Ministry of Unification
Serial No.851 (July 30 to August 05, 2007)

Internal Affairs

• According to the report by the Central Broadcasting Station on July 30, North Korea held the Election of Deputies to the Provincial (Municipality Directly under Central Authority), City (District) and County People’s Assemblies of the DPRK on July 29 and announced the result through the report by the Central Election Guidance Committee.
• According to the reports by the Central Broadcasting Station from August 1 to 4, Chairman Kim Jongil inspected a sub-unit of KPA Unit 4318, the Unit 136, and the Unit 273.
• The Central Broadcasting Station reported on August 2 that cooperative farms in Dahungdan-gun, Yanggang-do, are focusing on potato farming.

Inter-Korean Affairs

• According to the reports by the Central Broadcasting Station and Pyongyang Broadcasting Services on August 3, the spokesperson of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland announced a statement on August 2 to criticize the U.S.-ROK joint military exercise Ulchi Focus Lens from August 20 to 31.
• The Rodong Daily reported on August 4 that on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s work “Let Us Carry out the Great Leader Comrade Kim IL Sung’s Instructions for National Reunification,” North Korea held a Pyongyang city report session on August 3 and published a commemorative editorial on August 4 on the Rodong Daily.

Foreign Affairs

• The standing committee chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly Kim Young-nam made a formal visit to Algeria, Egypt, and Ethiopia from July 24 to 31.
• North Korean delegates led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Pak Ui-chun visited the Philippines to attend the ASEAN Regional Forum from July 28 to August 2.
• With the U.S. House’s adoption of the resolution on comfort women, North Korea is continuously criticizing Japan, maintaining Japan’s raising the abduction issue is causing trouble in the six party talks.
• North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Pak Ui-chun met South Korean counterpart Song Min-soon during the ASEAN Regional Forum and reaffirmed that the abolition of the U.S. hostile policy against North Korea should be the precondition of the implementation of the second step of February 13 Agreement. 

Korea Times
Ryu Jin
8/9/2007

South Korea is expected to propose a large-scale investment plan in social overhead capital (SOC) in North Korea in the inter-Korean summit late this month to help the impoverished state revive its economy, according to officials on Thursday.

Officials in Seoul said that the package proposal will likely include the provision of electricity, renovation of the Pyongyang-Gaeseong highway, improvement of facilities in Nampo port and establishment of a fertilizer factory.

President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il are set to meet in Pyongyang Aug. 28-30, seven years after Roh’s predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, met with the reclusive North Korean leader.

While the Roh administration finds itself in a difficult position to give direct assistance to the North, such as provisions of rice and fertilizer — not to mention cash — it appears to have opted for “indirect’’ SOC investment, according to the sources.

Former President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize for the first-ever summit in June 2000, but his achievement was partly tainted by later revelation that Seoul had secretly transferred $500 million to Pyongyang to foster the historic summit.

Roh, who has put more weight on transparency in North Korea affairs, often stressed the need to help North Korea repair its devastated economy with its own hand and get out of its economic slump.

In February, the Unification Ministry drew up a roadmap for a large-scale economic cooperation, focusing on “what the North really wants.’’ Seoul will likely make some offers to Pyongyang in the upcoming summit, according to government sources.

Dubbed “Roadmap to Hope,’’ the ministry plan includes as many as 16 items such as the provision of 2 million-kilowatt electricity, worth some $900 million every year, and renovation of the 170-kilometer Pyongyang-Gaeseong highway ($307.7 billion).

Other items include the improvement of facilities in Nampo port, the construction of a 330,000-ton fertilizer plant and installation of tree nurseries in Pyongyang, Gaeseong and Hamheung.

“We are sorting out items that could be offered,’’ a high-profile government official said on condition of anonymity. “I think our proposal for the SOC investment could be discussed in the working-level preparatory talks in Gaeseong next week.’’

Experts estimated that the aid package could reach 9 trillion won to 13 trillion won ($9.7 billion to $14 billion) in the coming several years, if major items such as the highway renovation are included on top of the ongoing supply of heavy fuel oil.

Seoul is expected to demand the establishment of liaison offices across the border and the regularization of military talks headed by the defense ministers from the two sides in return for the economic incentives, according to the sources.

But the large-scale economic assistance is expected to trigger fiery debate in the South, as conservatives, represented by the opposition Grand National Party (GNP), have often lashed out at the government’s “single-handed’’ assistance amid the nuclear standoff.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Kwon O-kyu, who is to accompany Roh to Pyongyang, stressed on Thursday that the aid package would be offered “transparently’’ in close coordination with the international community.

“South-North Cooperation Fund, operated under the endorsement of the National Assembly, could be used first,’’ he told reporters. “I think we should also try to create a favorable environment for the inter-Korean economic projects in close cooperation with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.’’

Yonhap
Kim Hyun
8/8/2007

North Korea’s agreement to hold a second inter-Korean summit is seen as an attempt to improve relations with the United States, and possibly normalize its diplomatic ties, experts said Wednesday.

The communist North could also want the summit to elicit more aid from South Korea and to influence the coming presidential elections in the South, they added.

“It seems North Korea has decided that its relations with the United States and its relations with the South could be in a win-win situation,” Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea specialist with Seoul’s Dongguk University, said.

“In the summit, North Korea may try to generate an agreement on peace on the peninsula, and through the agreement it will try to reach out to the United States and even Japan to establish diplomatic relations in the Bush administration’s term,” he said.

The Bush administration has gradually softened its hard-line policy on Pyongyang since the communist nation conducted its first-ever nuclear bomb test in October last year. Thereafter, multilateral negotiations to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have made major progress, with Pyongyang shutting down its operating nuclear reactor in Yongbyon last month.

Announcing the summit set for Aug. 28-30 in Pyongyang, North Korea said the historic meeting will help bring “a new phase of peace on the Korean Peninsula, co-prosperity of the nation and national reunification.”

“With the United States now moving in the direction of softening on North Korea, North Korea seems to understand that there will be more things to gain from the U.S. after the summit with the South,” Lee Soo-seok, a North Korea specialist with the Institute of Unification Policy affiliated with Seoul’s Hanyang University, said.

Before Bush leaves office, North Korea expects to be removed from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations and excluded from U.S-imposed trade sanctions, experts said, adding the North may hope the summit will serve as a stepping stone for those breakthroughs.

At the inter-Korean level, Pyongyang must have considered the coming presidential election, and calculated the summit would help rally South Korean liberal voters, who advocate detente with the North, experts said. President Roh Moo-hyun has been suffering from low public support and public surveys have indicated the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) would win the December presidential election. That prediction may have prompted Pyongyang to criticize the conservative GNP.

“The people of all classes in South Korea should achieve a grand alliance against the conservatives and gear up their struggle to bury the pro-American forces at the time of the presidential election,” North Korea said in a New Year editorial.

The GNP, meanwhile, said in a statement, “We oppose the South-North summit talks, whose timing, venue and procedures are all inappropriate.”

The summit also comes amid rumors that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has health problems. He reportedly underwent heart surgery in Germany and is supposed to be looking for an heir, South Korean media reports said.

“Above all other needs, to establish a stable structure for his successor, North Korea needs to keep its relations with outside regions on good terms,” a government official said, requesting anonymity.

New York Times
Normitsu Onishi
8/8/2007

The two Koreas announced Wednesday morning that they would hold a summit meeting later this month, the first since a groundbreaking meeting in 2000 began an ongoing reconciliation process on the Korean peninsula.

President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea will meet the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il, during a three-day meeting Aug. 28 to Aug. 30 in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, the two Korean governments said in coordinated announcements.

The North said the meeting will carry “weighty significance in opening a new phase of peace,” according to the government’s Korean Central News Agency. The South, using similar language, added that the meeting would “provide momentum to settle the North Korean nuclear problem.”

Neither side released details about the agenda, and it was not clear how much can realistically be accomplished because the deeply unpopular Mr. Roh has only a few months left in office.

The meeting, which had been rumored for months, was immediately criticized by South Korea’s political opposition as a ploy to influence the presidential election in December. The trip by Mr. Roh is widely expected to boost the popularity of liberal presidential candidates who share his engagement policy toward the North.

While the main opposition Grand National Party also favors engaging North Korea, its candidates call for tougher concessions from the North. Two Grand National Party candidates, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, lead in polls for the election.

“This summit is about politics between North and South Korea,” Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea expert at Korea University, said in a telephone interview from Seoul. “It is unlikely to solve the nuclear problem because North Korea has consistently argued that it is a problem between North Korea and the United States.”

Still, South Korea said the North had agreed to the meeting because of the recent progress in negotiations over the North’s nuclear program. The North shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon last month, and talks are continuing over its entire nuclear program.

In 2000, Kim Jong-il and the previous South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, met in Pyongyang in sessions that inaugurated a policy of reconciliation between the two cold war enemies, which remain technically at war. That meeting led to a profound change in relations between the two countries.

Joong Ang Daily
Gary Samore
8/6/2007

China’s biggest concern seems to be that the February agreement signals an American surrender to North Korean nuclear weapons.

On a recent trip to Beijing, I was able to meet with senior Chinese officials and experts to discuss recent developments on the Korean Peninsula since the Feb. 13, 2007 six-party nuclear agreement.

What I learned surprised me.

As I expected, the Chinese are genuinely pleased the Bush administration has shifted its policy toward North Korea, dropping demands for complete and immediate disarmament and retreating from confrontation and the goal of regime change. From Beijing’s standpoint, the February agreement averted a crisis on the Korean Peninsula and established a framework for negotiating additional disarmament steps through the six-party talks. Beyond the nuclear issue, the Chinese support the establishment of a regional peace and stability mechanism for Northeast Asia built around the six-party talks.

Aside from these expected positive views, however, I learned China also has some reservations and concerns about recent events on the peninsula.

Before the February agreement, China was the central player in the six-party nuclear negotiations. Much to Beijing’s anger, Pyongyang went ahead with its nuclear tests in the face of Chinese protests, undercutting the perception that China could control North Korea’s behavior. Now that the United States and North Korea have developed a direct line of communication, and the United States and South Korea have patched up their relations, China is no longer at the center of the action. Although Beijing will continue to host the talks, China is feeling sidelined.

As a result, my Chinese hosts emphasized the importance of China and the United States working together to guard against efforts by North Korea to play one big power against the other. For example, the Chinese suggested Washington and Beijing should engage in informal contingency planning to respond to possible political instability on the peninsula, although Chinese experts said they do not believe that the house of Kim Jong-il is in immediate danger of collapse.

Adding to Chinese unease is the reappearance of Russia on the scene. China preferred that the Banco Delta Asia issue be resolved by the U.S. Treasury reversing itself and giving the Macao bank a clean bill of health, which would allow it to survive and continue to service North Korea’s financial needs, as a number of other Chinese banks already do. Instead, the Russian government stepped in, making available a Russian bank to transfer the $25 million from a U.S. Federal Bank to North Korea. In Beijing’s view, Moscow’s willingness to broker the financial deal looks suspiciously like a broader Russian attempt to reassert influence in Northeast Asia. And ― Chinese experts were quick to point out ― Pyongyang would welcome an opportunity to give Russia a bigger role, reducing North Korea’s dependence on China.

Aside from these political maneuvers and machinations, China’s biggest concern seems to be that the February agreement signals an American surrender to North Korean nuclear weapons.

Having complained for years that the Bush administration was demanding too much, the Chinese now say they fear Washington is secretly prepared to accept North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state. Pointing to the example of India, one senior Chinese official complained that the U.S. nonproliferation policy is weak and inconsistent: “Washington strongly opposes proliferation before a nuclear test, but once a test has been conducted, the U.S. accepts the country as a nuclear power.”

Another Chinese official bitterly complained that Beijing committed to work with the United States after the 1998 Indian nuclear tests, but the United States betrayed China, recognizing India as a nuclear power and even encouraging India to develop its nuclear strike capabilities against China itself. If the United States recognizes and accepts North Korea as a nuclear power, the Chinese fear it will inevitably provide a pretext for Japan ― and then South Korea ― to go nuclear, creating additional nuclear-armed rivals on China’s borders. Additional proliferation in Northeast Asia might even extend to Taiwan, which could dramatically complicate Beijing’s hopes to achieve national unification.

In response to these Chinese concerns, I explained that India and North Korea are not comparable cases. India is a democracy, a major country and a rising economic power, that shares many interests with the United States. North Korea is none of these things. Moreover, the United States does not want to see Japan and South Korea develop nuclear weapons. America’s strategic presence in Asia is based in part on its role as a security guarantor, including its nuclear umbrella for Japan and South Korea. If Tokyo and Seoul decide to develop nuclear weapons, they would have less need of U.S. protection, and Washington’s influence in Asia would diminish.

Moreover, while Washington may benefit from political rivalries and suspicions among the Asian powers, it does not want to see a nuclear arms race that could destabilize the region and damage U.S. economic and political interests. Finally, if nuclear weapons spread in Asia, they would severely damage the international nonproliferation regime, perhaps leading to the collapse of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

For all these reasons, Chinese fears and suspicions that the United States is about to formally accept North Korean nuclear weapons are not accurate. Nonetheless, my Chinese hosts are right in one respect: The Bush administration’s policies have helped create a nuclear-armed North Korea, which cannot be easily undone. As one Chinese expert said, “Bush has let the nuclear tiger out of its cage.”

As much as we hope the six-party talks will make further progress toward disarmament, most experts think North Korea will be very reluctant to give up its nuclear weapons until it feels completely secure and free from the threat of U.S. hostility. This is not likely to happen anytime soon. Pyongyang has already indicated it will demand a treaty to end the Korean War, full normalization of diplomatic relations with Washington, the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions and substantial economic assistance ― including nuclear energy assistance ― before it gives up its nuclear deterrent.

So whether we like it or not, we probably have no choice but to manage the threat from a nuclear-armed North Korea for the time being. It may be years before disarmament can be achieved. In the meantime, we must work to reduce the risk that North Korea will use or transfer nuclear weapons or that additional countries in the region will feel compelled to develop their own nuclear weapons for defense.

While recognizing this reality, the United States and other countries must continue to insist on the ultimate objective of complete North Korean nuclear disarmament. We must resist North Korea’s demands that it be treated like India, as a nuclear power that receives full political and economic benefits from the international community. Eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons will be difficult, but we must be patient and persistent.

Daily NK
Kim Song A
8/19/2007

Last month, Oh Moon Hyuk, a North Korean executive leader making foreign currency in North Hamkyung who had secretly smuggled slogan trees into China was executed, reported Good friends, a North Korea support organization. The organization also informed that part of Oh’s offense was for leading an ‘extravagant lifestyle.’

Regarding the reason behind the public execution, Good Friends informed that Oh Moon Hyuk had “built a private villa with beautiful scenery in Yeonsan, North Hamkyung, drove a Mercedes Benz saying it was from the kindness of the general, enjoyed the pleasure of women at his villa every day and ensured that no security or safety agents ventured near his villa.”

“He cut down the tress ignoring the directions of authorities who ordered for the protection of the forests and sold the wood to China. He was caught after inspections were made and was sentenced to capital punishment” informed the organization.

On the 6th, a report was made by Yonhap news which gave an account of Oh Moon Hyuk’s public execution. He was reported as a merchant from Chosung Reungrah 888 Trading Company in North Hamkyung who had illegally traded 20,000㎥ worth of wood to China.

North Korean authorities regard the cutting down of slogan trees and trade by merchants as an extremely serious case and ensured that important elites, foreign merchants and persons in charge, all witnessed the execution, informed the report.

On the other hand, since the breakdown of the distribution system in the mid-90s, there have been an increase in the number of merchants trading between North Korea and China, and consequently a steady increase in the number of the newly-rich.

These people lead extravagant lifestyles, indulge in lavish goods and purchase expensive cars which undoubtedly cost hundreds and thousands of dollars. More recently, there are reports that authority officials and tradesmen are increasingly hiring housemaids in their homes.

North Korea executes “slogan tree” smuggler: report
AFP (Hat Tip DPRK Studies)
8/5/2007

North Korea has publicly executed a trade official for chopping down and smuggling cherished “slogan trees” on which founding leader Kim Il-Sung reputedly carved anti-Japanese messages, a report said Sunday.

Senior local timber trader Oh Mun-Hyok was shot dead and four accomplices sentenced to life imprisonment on July 23, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources.

Local government and trade officials were forced to watch Oh’s public execution at Yonsa in the northern province of North Hamkyong, it said.

The punishment was harsh because the timber smuggled to China included “slogan trees” on which Kim Il-Sung and his followers had allegedly carved messages against Japan’s colonial rule in 1920s or 1930s, it said.

Kim Il-Sung died in 1994 and his son Kim Jong-Il has since ruled the isolated state.

Pyongyang has protected such trees to highlight the Kim family’s track record of fighting for independence, building a personality cult around them.

Slogans included “General Kim Il-Sung is the nation’s sun!,” “Long live Kim Jong-Suk (Kim Il-Sung’s wife), an anti-Japanese woman commander!” or “Down with Japan’s imperialism” according to North Korean defectors.

Pyongyang media claim more than 1,000 such slogan-inscribed trees still exist across the country, and often report some soldiers or other people had died while trying to save the trees from a brush fire.

But critics in the South say it is a sheer fabrication.

Yonhap said the North’s leader had been outraged by the timber smuggling case involving the cherished trees.

“Some loyalists would sacrifice their lives in the fire to save the slogan trees. Who dares to chop down and trade the slogan trees for money?,” Kim Jong-Il was quoted by an unnamed source as saying, according to Yonhap.

Yonhap also said the North Korean authorities had also recently executed three trade officials for embezzling public funds in southeastern Kangwon province.

Daily NK
Kim Song A
8/2/2007

Kim Jong Il Enthralled by the Desire to Produce International Films

A memoir of late film director Shin Sang Ok titled, “I was a film” (Randomhouse) was published. Shin Sang Ok had lived quite the life having been kidnapped to North Korea with his wife Choi Eun Hee – the most famous South Korean actress of the 1970s – and later escaping.

As this book was written by Director Shin himself as an autobiography, he had finished writing in 2001 but the publication was delayed as he passed away due to the worsening of his illness. Only after a year had passed did his wife Choi Eun Hee organize the late director’s manuscript and laid it out for the world.

In the book remains the untouched film life of Director Shin that starts from his entrance into the film industry and glory days to his kidnapping and escape from North Korea and finally his advancement into Hollywood.

Shin captured the reader’s attention as he recounted various episodes of his times in North Korea after his kidnapping in 1978. He was captured this very year after inquiring about the whereabouts of his wife Choi Eun Hee who had been kidnapped to North Korea first.

One incident when he was shooting his second film, “Tale of an Escape” in North Korea. Director Shin needed a scene with a train explosion so he submitted a proposal to Kim Jong Il. He writes, “Thinking I had nothing to lose, I said I wanted to explode a real train to enhance the movie’s special effects. In response, the approval came immediately.” He recalls, “This is only possible in North Korea. It’s the first time I experienced a film shoot so spectacular.”

Such consideration was only possible because Kim Jong Il was a crazed movie fanatic. Shin claims he was quite surprised to see that there was about 15,000 films from around the world stored in a movie storage area that is pretty much Kim Jong Il’s personal property.

Shin said, “Kim Jong Il uses films for a political agenda but is also enthralled by the desire to veer off from conventional mannerisms to create a further international film of higher quality. One way to overcome such agony and dilemma was to kidnap us two.”

To Kim Jong Il, Shin even made quite dangerous remarks such as advising him to “Free oneself from worshiping individuals.” Shin claimed that the obstacle to advancing North Korean films was “Kim Il Sung instruction” and said “if [Kim Jong Il] rid the practice of worshiping individuals, the film industry will revive and the country itself will also advance.”

He also said that for the first time in a North Korean film, he inserted a caption to introduce the cast and staff and in place of the Kim Il Sung instruction, he inserted a passage from the introduction to “Les Miserables”. He claims he did not bind himself to the instruction of Kim Jong Il.

In 1983, Kim Jong Il established a film production company named “Shin Film” with Director Shin’s name. Shin says, “What if Kim Jong Il required me to make a political propaganda film for idolatry? What would I have done? In that sense, I have a unique sentiment towards Kim Jong Il.”

The book also mentions an episode about when Shin was in North Korea remembering a scene from a movie he directed while he was in South Korea. He thought that this scene was a sight for sore eyes as he secretly wrote to his brother in South Korea and asked him to burn the original copy.

In the preface he self evaluates himself saying, “With the tragic reality that not many veteran actors remain, I felt that someone needed to start archiving. Just like the title, the highs and lows of life started to cross and I lived a path that was even more dramatic than the movies I directed.”

UPDATE 1 (2007-8-2): I have just completed reading Andrei Lankov’s North of the DMZ.  One chapter discussed the history of preserving communist leaders in mausoleums so their remains can be venerated for years to come.  Quoting Lankov:

Kim Il Sung’s body has been embalmed and left on public display in a special glass-covered coffin. Actually, in this regard, Korea follows an established — if bizarre — Communist tradition. Like many other Communist traditions, this one originated from the USSR.

In 1924, the body of Vladimir Lenin, the founding father of the Soviet Union, was laid in a specially constructed mausoleum where it was kept in a glass-covered coffin. This mausoleum became a place of mass pilgrimage. Initially most visitors may have been driven by sincere devotion, but in later decades the major impulse bringing visitors was, more likely than not, just bizarre curiosity. Nonetheless, passions sometimes ran high. In the Soviet times, there were two known attempts to damage Lenin’s mummy in an act of symbolic resistance against the regime. On the other hand, the post—Communist Russian government has not dared to close the mausoleum, being aware that such an act is certain to spark large-scale protests and riots of the Russian Left.

In the Soviet times, a special and highly secretive research institute with a generous budget was responsible for the maintenance of Lenin’s body. Over the decades, its research staff gained unique expertise. In due time this expertise was in demand for new generations of the venerable dead.

In 1949, the Bulgarian Communist leader Dmitrov became the first person to be embalmed by the personnel of Lenin’s mausoleum. After Stalin’s death in 1953 the body of the Soviet dictator was also treated with this proven technique and put alongside Lenin’s mummy. However, in 1961 Stalin’s corpse was hastily removed from the mausoleum, to be buried below the Kremlin wall.

Meanwhile, Soviet experts were sent to take care of a number of politically important corpses across the world. They embalmed the bodies of a number of other Communist rulers: Choibalsan of Mongolia, Gottwald of Czechoslovakia, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Netto of Angola (Mao’s body was treated by the Chinese themselves).

Thus, when in 1994 Kim Il Sung died, few people doubted that his body would be put on display as well. The Russians confirmed that they had taken part in treating Kim Il Sung’s body. According to unconfirmed reports a group of Russian biologists and chemists worked in Pyongyang for almost a year.

In the l950s and 1960s Moscow did not charge its clients and allies for treating the bodies of their deceased rulers. But this is not the case any more. After the collapse of the Communist system in Russia, the research center has had to survive on a very tight budget, and it is not willing to provide its unique know-how for free. Incidentally, these laboratories’ major income source is now the bodies of Mafia bosses or new Russian capitalists (it was not really easy to distinguish between the former and the latter in the Russia of the 1990s).

The fees for treating the earthly remains of the Great Leader, the Sun of the Nation, were never disclosed, but the Russians reportedly charged North Korea one million dollars. Frankly, this was a steal: Kim Il Sung died at the time when the former USSR was in the middle of its severest crisis, and ex—Soviet scientists were ready to accept meager rewards for their work.

Nonetheless, this deal was made at the time when North Korea was on the eve of the worst famine in Korea’s history. The final result of the scientists’ efforts was the mummy of Kim Il Sung which, incidentally, cannot be referred to as a “mummy” but only “the eternal image of the Great Leader.”

However, the million-dollar fee is only a fraction of the ongoing cost of keeping Kim Il Sung’s body well preserved. A few years ago a high-level North Korean bureaucrat mentioned to visiting Indonesians that North Korea paid about 800,000 dollars annually for these expenses. On might surmise that at least a part of this money goes to the budget of the same Soviet research centre which once did the embalming.

In one respect the North Koreans did not emulate other Communist countries. The bodies of Lenin, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh were laid in mausoleums specially constructed for that purpose. The North Koreans did not erect a new structure but renovated a pre-existing building, the Kumsusan Palace. This large structure was erected on the outskirts of Pyongyang in the mid—1970s. In subsequent decades it served as the residence and office of Kim Il Sung. Now this building’s huge central hall became the Great Leader’s resting place.

Unlike the USSR, where visits to Lenin’s tomb are essentially voluntary acts, the North Koreans are picked by their party secretaries to visit the Kumsusan Palace. Most of them, admittedly, do not mind going—partially out of curiosity and partially out of sincere reverence to the deceased strong- man.

For the past few years, crowds of North Koreans have passed by the body of the Great Leader who, for better or worse, ran their country for almost half a century. The visitors are required to stop for a while and bow to the glass- covered coffin containing the embalmed body. The dim lights and quiet music emphasize the quasi-religious nature of the entire scene. The visitors pay their tribute to a person who once started the worst war in Korean history, killed at least a quarter of a million people in prisons and ran what even in the Communist world was seen as an exceptionally repressive state.

Indeed, many (I would say, most) North Koreans more or less believed in what the official propaganda told them about the Great Man. All Koreans younger than 70 have spent their entire life listening to stories about Kim Il Sung’s greatness. He is supposed to be the person who defeated the Japanese in 1945, then repelled U.S. aggression in 1950 and, by keeping the cunning imperialists at bay for decades, saved North Koreans from the sorry fate of their enslaved Southern brethren. Of course, outside the North it is common knowledge that Kim Il Sung did not fire a single shot during the liberation of Korea, that the Korean war was started by him and nearly lost due to his miscalculations, that South Korea had one of the fastest growing economies of the 20th century while the North became an international basket case. But these things remain largely or completely unknown inside the North, where many people still believe in the deceased Great Fatherly Leader.

And just where did the communists get the idea of preserving their leaders in perpetuity? One hypothesis can be found in Paul Froese’s, The plot to kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in secularization.  He claimed that many Soviet cultural practices were based on religious ones.

ORIGINAL POST (2007-6-10): My traveling comrade at Knife Tricks points to an interesting claim by an L.A. Times Journalist that the body of Kim il Sung on display in Kamsusan Memorial Palace is actually made of wax.

There are currently four communist leaders on display in this manner (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Ho Chi Minh, Chairman Mao Zedong, and President Kim il Sung), and claims that they are not the actual bodies have been part of travel folklore for some time.  Joseph Stalin’s body was on display next to Lenin, but was later removed.  Chairman Mao’s body is reportedly swapped out with a wax duplicate occasionally, and people in the former Soviet Union have all sorts of stories about individuals winning “Lenin look-a-like” competitions and then promptly disappearing.

I suspect that all four bodies are at least real bodies.  I have seen three of the four  myself, and the only reason that I am not four-for-four is because Ho Chi Minh was in Russia getting touched up when I visited Hanoi in 1996.  Several years later I had a conversation with an ABC reporter based in Asia who told me that there was in fact a secretive Russian firm that exclusively serviced these corpses. (If anyone knows anything about this firm, please let me know).  This seems like a lot of trouble to go through if all they were doing was re-sculpting wax.  If this was the case, then I doubt that they would go through all the risk and expense of shipping the bodies so frequently unless–as game theory teaches us–going through all the trouble makes their organic composition seem more likely.  Occam’s Razor applies unless someone can give me a reason to believe a more complex scenario.

I have read (although forgotten the cite–so disregard if necessary) that Kim il Sung was supposed to be buried in Kim il Sung Square in the pavilion that is now used for viewing parades and dancing.  After his death, plans were developed to construct what is now Kamsusan Mausoleum.  One other thing to note, which the LA Times and most other travel accounts fail to mention, is that the softball-sized tumor which grew on the left-hand side (facing him) of Kim il Sung’s neck (which is why official portraits are taken from a slight angle on the right side) was removed (or hidden by the pillow) so that it is not visible at all to the millions who have visited the presidential mausoleum.