North Korea: The next enigmatic 10
years By Yoel Sano
As North
Korea mourns its late "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, on the
10th anniversary of his death on July 8, 1994, two
things are surprising: First, the eldest son and chosen
heir, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il, has managed to hold on
to power for a full decade after his father's death. The
second surprise is that North Korea still exists as a
functioning, sovereign entity.
Both of these
realities seemed distant prospects when Kim Sr finally
passed from the scene as a result of a heart attack.
Although Kim Jong-il was groomed for the top
leadership position for more than 20 years, many Korea
watchers expected him to be quickly deposed by the 1.1
million-strong Korean People's Army (KPA), which was
said to dislike the younger Kim intensely.
At
the same time, because Kim Il-sung had dominated his
country like no other leader anywhere on Earth - he was
North Korea's sole ruler from its establishment in
September 1948 until his death, during which time he
created the world's most comprehensive personality cult
- many doubted that the nation could survive the loss of
its founder. For North Korea, losing Kim Il-sung was
like Americans losing George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, all in rolled into one
(this is not to suggest that Kim Sr was benevolent, like
these American statesmen; the comparison is for gauging
importance).
Predictions of North Korea's
imminent collapse were subsequently reinforced by the
fact that since 1994, and even before, the country has
experienced rapid economic decline, combined with flash
floods, heavy droughts, the starvation deaths of
anywhere from several hundred thousand to 3 million
people, the natural deaths of dozens of aging top
officials, at least two possible military coup attempts,
defections by the nation's top ideologue and the
ambassador to Egypt, an ex-wife and stepdaughter of Kim
Jong-il, and the ongoing nuclear crisis with the United
States. In fact, few countries have suffered so much in
peacetime - or even in wartime - as North Korea.
All this begs the question, how much longer can
the regime of Kim Jong-il, and indeed the very state of
North Korea, continue to exist? The answer would appear
to be - barring externally imposed regime change -
indefinitely. As Asia Times Online has reported, the
regime of Kim Jong-il - which consists of Kim's close
family circle, former classmates, top military leaders
and senior Korean Workers Party (KWP) officials, all
bound together in a web of vested interests - is secure.
There are no overt opposition forces, and even exiled
opponents of the regime have been unable to form a
cohesive anti-Pyongyang organization. Against this
backdrop, Kim Jong-il is believed to be preparing one of
his at least three sons eventually to succeed him.
Attention has in turn shifted from the eldest, Kim
Jong-nam, 33, to the middle, Kim Jong-chol, 23, and more
recently the youngest, Kim Jong-un, 21. Although no
official announcement has been made on the succession,
Kim Jong-il is counting on the hereditary process as the
surest way to preserve his legacy.
2005: A
pivotal year for the Korean Peninsula? Arguably
the most severe challenge to Kim Jong-il's continuation
in office comes from the United States, with whom North
Korea has been engaged in a dispute over Pyongyang's
nuclear-weapons program for more than a decade, on and
off. In this respect, the Iraq war of 2003-04 must have
been a sobering event for Kim. Washington demonstrated
that it could forcefully overthrow another dictator with
whom it had been at loggerheads over weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) programs.
For now, though, the
attention of the US is firmly focused on the ongoing
guerrilla war in Iraq and terror attacks in Saudi
Arabia. Also, US President George W Bush is
concentrating on getting himself re-elected in November.
That gives Kim some breathing space. Meanwhile,
Pyongyang appears to be hoping for a victory by
Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry,
apparently regarding him as more amenable to North
Korea's demands for direct bilateral negotiations on the
nukes issue, instead of the existing six-party talks
framework, hosted by Beijing. However, Kim may well be
underestimating Kerry.
Whoever wins the November
election, 2005 may well prove to be a year of living
dangerously for North Korea. The year 2005 is
symbolically important because it marks the 60th
anniversary of the dawn of the nuclear age, the 60th
anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula by
Soviet and US forces, both anniversaries in August, and
the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the ruling
KWP in October. Pyongyang traditionally likes
round-number anniversaries, having used the 50th
anniversary of the state's foundation in 1998 to
test-launch a long-range Taepodong missile, and it might
be tempted to force a solution to the seemingly
intractable standoff with Washington.
One
possible option, albeit an extreme one, would be to
conduct a nuclear test, and present this as a fait
accompli to the United States. On the other hand, such a
move would risk ending all "pretense" about North
Korea's innocence, and might jeopardize improving
relations with key neighbors South Korea and Japan.
Washington: To war or not to war
... Even if North Korea chooses not to escalate
the standoff, Washington might well turn up the pressure
on Pyongyang. The year 2005 is also important because by
the end of that year the US will have completed the
withdrawal of 12,500 of its 37,000 troops from South
Korea. The departing troops will vacate the area between
Seoul and the inter-Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ),
where they are currently vulnerable to North Korean
artillery fire. Although Pyongyang has long called for
the removal of US troops from the South, it now fears
that this US redeployment is intended to get the
Americans out of harm's way in preparation for a
preemptive US strike on the North.
A newly
re-elected George W Bush might reckon that with no more
electoral pressures ahead of him, he can afford to take
a hard line against Pyongyang, and might even risk
waging an unpopular war to reverse North Korea's de
facto membership in the nuclear club. Kerry might come
to the same conclusion. The last Democratic US
president, Bill Clinton, almost went to war with North
Korea in the summer of 1994 at the height of the first
nuclear crisis.
Whether either Bush or Kerry
actually decides to go to war with North Korea over the
nuclear issue will depend on how the situation in Iraq -
and possibly Saudi Arabia - plays out. In theory, the US
military is prepared for a "two war" scenario -
specifically simultaneous conflicts with Iraq and North
Korea. But with 130,000 US troops locked down in Iraq,
and Washington shifting those 12,500 troops out of South
Korea - officially part of a global redeployment, but in
reality undoubtedly related to Iraq - starting another
regional war would hardly be in Washington's interests.
Furthermore, should the pro-US royal family collapse in
Saudi Arabia, the need to safeguard the world's largest
single source of oil would likely take precedence over
North Korean nukes.
Surgical strike too
dangerous A lesser option for Washington than
all-out war with North Korea would be to carry out a
"surgical" strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities.
The trouble is, many of these targets are believed to be
deep underground, and Pyongyang's probable response
would be an all-out artillery attack on the South with
its approximately 13,000 artillery pieces. The US Air
Force (USAF) would first have to ensure that it destroys
these gun emplacements and missile launchers before any
strike. However, according to an analysis of US war
plans by Global Security.org, a Washington-based
think-tank, doing this would present "an additional
problem of creating a target list so large that it might
be just as simple for the United States to aim for the
liberation of North Korea rather than the more limited
strikes". As such, there may not be a halfway house in a
military solution. Although former US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) director R James Woolsey and
former USAF Lieutenant-General Thomas McInerney believe
that North Korea could be defeated in 30-60 days, such
claims need to treated with caution. The year-long
anti-US insurgency by ex-regime holdovers and Islamist
militants in Iraq has already claimed the lives of about
1,000 coalition troops, 90% of them Americans.
Even if the US were to roll into Pyongyang, and
even if the KPA were to melt away like the Iraqi army in
2003, North Korea possesses one of the world's largest
special forces, of about 100,000 men. Even if only a
small fraction of these were to fight on, they could
still wreak havoc on the US or South Korean occupational
forces. North Korean forces would most likely resist
occupation, if not out of devotion to Kim Jong-il, then
out of sheer patriotism honed by decades of anti-US
propaganda.
Eastern Europe experience not
viable for Pyongyang In the absence of war, is
there any realistic chance for a peaceful evolution of
Kim Jong-il's regime to a more democratic and benign
government? Let us consider the experience of other
communist regimes and one-party states in recent years.
Although communist regimes in Eastern Europe -
such as in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and
Poland - were for the most part peacefully overthrown in
1989, none of these countries offers a suitable model
for North Koreans because these nation-states were far
more open and connected to the outside world than North
Korea. Furthermore, those four Eastern European nations
all possessed well-developed civil societies and civic
organizations that banded together into opposition
movements - which were actually tolerated by the
governments. By contrast, North Korea tolerates no
opposition - not even token opposition parties or token
multi-party elections that exist or routinely take place
in some authoritarian regimes seeking a fig leaf of
democracy. North Korea does hold parliamentary elections
every five years, but they are of the kind in which 100%
of the population give 100% backing to the sole
candidates in each of the 687 districts.
Owing
to the similarity of its Cold War political division,
Germany has often been cited as a case study in
discussions about the reunification of North and South
Korea. But the fact is that East Germany and West
Germany were far more exposed to each other in terms of
communications, culture and transportation than the two
Koreas. Furthermore, the economic gap between the two
Germanys in 1989-90 was far less than that which exists
between the two Koreas today. The bottom line is that it
was easier for 62 million wealthy West Germans to absorb
17 million moderately poor East Germans than would it be
for 45 million moderately wealthy South Koreans to
absorb a nation of 23 million very poor North Koreans.
Indeed, the reunification bill for Seoul has been put at
anywhere between several hundred billion US dollars and
$2 trillion, the latter far in excess of the GDP of
South Korea.
Albanization of North
Korea? The Eastern European country that most
closely resembles contemporary North Korea is Albania,
which had long been regarded as the poorest country in
Europe, until it was recently overtaken by the former
Soviet republic of Moldova. Like North Korea, Albania
was a hardline communist state ruled by one man - Enver
Hoxha - for four decades between 1944 and 1985.
Originally a pro-Moscow regime, Tirana switched sides to
the People's Republic of China after the Sino-Soviet
split in the 1960s. It eventually abandoned ties with
Beijing after "paramount leader" Deng Xiaoping embarked
on his capitalist reforms in the late 1970s. Hoxha
regarded these reforms as heretical, and after moving
away from China, Albania found itself isolated from much
of the world. Hoxha's chosen successor, Ramiz Alia, who
had begun to exercise control of the country in the
early 1980s, managed to hold on to power for another
seven years, until 1992, when the regime was finally
overthrown. This happened after Alia made greater
allowances for political opposition and phased in
multi-party elections, in which the ruling Albanian
Party of Labor (PLA) was defeated. Alia was forced to
liberalize the political system after the wave of
democratic revolutions hit Eastern Europe.
After
Alia's overthrow, the new government's sudden
introduction of capitalism hit Albania hard, allowing it
to be transformed into a quasi-mafia state. Indeed, the
experience of many post-communist states has shown that
the more hardline and rigid the version of communism
practiced by the government, the greater the role played
by organized criminal groups in the post-communist era.
This disorderly situation in Albania was exacerbated by
the collapse in 1997 of several popular pyramid schemes
in which many lost their entire savings. This in turn
triggered violent anti-government demonstrations,
anarchy, and a near civil war.
If the Albanian
scenario of regime change were to play out in North
Korea, the country could quickly become a black hole of
organized crime in Northeast Asia. North Korea could
develop into the epicenter of the international trade of
weapons, drugs, counterfeit US dollar bills, slave
labor, and prostitution in the region and beyond. Many
international security analysts point out that North
Korea is already exporting these problems in order for
the regime to earn hard currency. Nonetheless, a
centralized authority in Pyongyang still acts as a
mechanism of restraint on what comes out of the country.
If central authority broke down, all such restraints
would be lifted, as KPA generals, colonels, majors and
intelligence officials drifted into a vast criminal
underground. There would be a possibility that chemical,
biological and even nuclear materials would proliferate
out of the country without impediment.
The above
scenario is by no means inevitable. Most likely, the US
and South Korean militaries would step in after a
collapse in Pyongyang to secure the country and prevent
it from slipping into anarchy. But such an occupation
would create enormous financial burdens on both
Washington and Seoul, and would in effect turn North
Korea into a colony of the South for many years.
The 'Taiwan option' Fortunately for
North Korea and the region, there are some political
models that Pyongyang might find more appealing in
ensuring a soft landing. In recent years, attention has
fallen on the Chinese model of economic liberalization,
combined with maintaining tight one-party (communist)
rule. Kim Jong-il has visited China three times in the
past four years, and the latter two of his visits have
included tours of China's economically advanced regions.
Nonetheless, it would appear that China's arch-rival
Taiwan offers North Korea a better model, not least
because Taiwan is richer than China and has actually
made a transition to democracy.
Taiwan, with a
population of 23 million, is roughly the same size as
North Korea, 24 million. Furthermore, just as North
Korea was dominated by one man for more than four
decades under a one-party military-dominated state in
which power passed from father to son, Taiwan was
dominated by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his
Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party (KMT) that ruled under
martial law for decades. Chiang led Taiwan from 1949
until his death in April 1975, when he was succeeded as
party leader by his son, General Chiang Ching-kuo.
Chiang Jr succeeded to the presidency in 1978, when the
interim figurehead president, Yen Chia-kan, retired.
Like Kim Jong-il, Chiang Ching-kuo had been groomed for
the highest office for many years, having served as head
of Taiwan's domestic security apparatus, then as defense
minister (1965-72) and later prime minister (1972-78).
Indeed, Kim Il-sung reportedly kept a close eye on the
Taiwanese succession saga in the early 1970s, regarding
it as a model for his own son's succession.
Despite his background and the repressive nature
of the KMT regime, Chiang Ching-kuo eventually proved
himself a reformer, lifting political restrictions and
paving the way for a more pluralistic political system.
Part of the reason for this was that the KMT was a
mainlander-dominated organization, and needed to gain
legitimacy from the majority "native" Taiwanese
population. Although he had several sons, Chiang
eschewed a second dynastic succession and tapped former
Taipei mayor Lee Teng-hui as his vice president. Lee
succeeded Chiang Ching-kuo on the latter's death in
January 1988 and later became Chinese civilization's
first elected president, in 1996. He served as president
until 2000, when the opposition Democratic Progressive
Party's Chen Shui-bian won the presidency. The KMT
meanwhile remained the largest political party until
legislative elections in December 2001. Despite its
repressive history, Taiwan is now considered a success
story in Asia. The fact that Taiwan has yet to "reunify"
with the mainland limits its suitability as a model for
Korean reunification, but it is unquestionably a
possible model for a stable transition from dictatorship
to democracy.
It's the economy,
stupid! Can Kim Jong-il follow in the footsteps
of Chiang Ching-kuo? For now, the signs are not good.
Even if Kim wanted to democratize his country - and
there is no evidence that he does - numerous studies
have shown that democracy only becomes self-sustainable
once a state has reached a level of economic development
where its per capita gross domestic product stands
at around US$3,000-6,000. North Korea's per capita GDP
in 2000, according to Southern estimates, was around
$800 - far below the "minimum" level required.
Furthermore, North Korea's economy remains far less
developed than that of Taiwan when Chiang Ching-kuo
started reforming the island state.
As such,
North Korea would have to reform its economy
significantly before democracy could take hold. There
have been tentative signs of capitalism seeping in, with
the regime in July 2002 having introduced basic
free-market principles to determine the cost of goods
and the setting of wages. Other signs of reform include
the evolution of military-dominated trading houses along
the lines of South Korea's chaebol conglomerates.
Crucially, this may give the military a financial stake
in reform, as has been the case for generals in China,
Indonesia and Thailand. The government has also
established the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region,
conceived as a mini-Hong Kong-style capitalist enclave,
and the 5,000-hectare Kaesong Industrial Park just north
of the inter-Korean border. The latter scheme is to be
developed in cooperation with South Korean firms. But
these projects will take years - possibly even a
generation - to bear fruit. Meanwhile, an improvement in
living conditions for North Koreans may actually speed
up the regime's downfall. Revolutions often take place
when things are getting better, and the people can see
"light at the end of the tunnel".
That day seems
a long way off. Commenting on the prospects for North
Korea's survival, Eason Jordan, president of CNN
International, having completed nine visits to the
country, told a lecture audience: "When you hear about
starvation in North Korea, a lot of very level-headed
people think, 'There is no way a country like that can
survive.' Well, I can guarantee you this: I'm here to
tell you with absolute certainty those guys will tough
it out for centuries just the way they are. Neither the
United States nor any other country is going to be able
to force a collapse of that government in North Korea"
(also quoted in Selig Harrison, Korean Endgame,
page 3).
That may be an exaggeration, but no one
should be surprised if Kim Jong-il and the Korean
Workers Party are still in power in Pyongyang in 10
years' time.
Yoel Sano is an expert in
Northeast Asian affairs, a writer and consultant for
various organizations and publications.
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