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Perils in the Workers'
Paradise
By Bruce
Klingner
All is not well in the Workers'
Paradise. This has been said many times before
about North Korea, and the regime has endured, but
this time the problems may be getting dramatically
worse. Accounts say European policymakers are
preparing for abrupt change in the country.
Japanese intelligence sees growing signs of social
disorder and warns of feud or confrontation
arising from a succession struggle. Economic
reforms exacerbate divisions and nasty posters and
leaflets are increasingly appearing.
North
Korea, however, has weathered political cataclysms
before, and its neighbors want stability, not
chaos on the Korean Peninsula. To this end there
are reports, difficult to confirm, that Chinese
troops have moved to the border to prevent a
destabilizing exodus of refugees from North Korea
into China.
Political soothsayers are
debating whether 2005 will finally mark the
turning point for the North Korean regime as it is
faces a seemingly perfect storm of growing
political instability and concerted US efforts to
increase pressure on the government.
South
Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young
predicted that during the coming "crossroads"
year, "we can either find a breakthrough in
resolving the matter or we can face a crisis
situation". A confluence of reports suggesting
that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's grip on
power is weakening and, therefore, he may be more
vulnerable to outside pressure have raised the
fondest hopes and, concurrently, the worst
nightmares of policymakers, but these are more
likely projections of wishing thinking.
To
paraphrase Mark Twain, past reports of Kim's death
(or political demise) have often been greatly
exaggerated. Longtime Korea watchers will remember
a decade of cyclical predictions of impending
North Korean implosion due to similar reports of
senior-level purges, acts of disrespect to the
leadership, and attempted assassinations and
coups.
As for efforts to ratchet up
pressure on Pyongyang, Washington will face
significant obstacles from regional actors who are
wary of raising tension on the peninsula as long
as diplomatic efforts appear to provide a
potential resolution. The US would then face the
decision of whether to pursue unilateral
regime-change action, but it is likely be less
willing to do so in light of its current
difficulties in Iraq.
Indications of
instability, this time for real?
Recent
breathless reports on the removal of some of Kim
Jong-il's official portraits from alongside his
father's, North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, were
initially interpreted as harbingers of a loss of
power to rivals, or even manifestations of a
successful assassination. Subsequent commentaries
indicated that the portrait removals were merely
part of a campaign initiated by Kim in 2003 to
reduce the foreign perception of his excessive
personality cult. Kim's images were only removed
from venues for meetings with foreign delegations,
but not from their ubiquitous positions elsewhere
in the country.
Suggestions of an ongoing
dynastic power struggle among Kim's potential
heirs were prevalent in December. While traveling
in Austria, Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-il's eldest son
and potential heir, was rumored to be the target
of an assassination plot by supporters of Kim's
other sons, although local authorities denied
this. Kim Jong-nam has been considered a long shot
to succeed his father, since he was deported from
Japan in 2001 for attempting to enter the country
illegally on a false Dominican Republic passport.
Kim Jong-il is rumored to have been so angered by
the embarrassing fallout from the incident that he
banished Jong-nam from North Korea, and Kim
fils has been living in Beijing.
Another rumored attack occurred in
September on Kim Kyong-hee, Kim Jong-il's sister
and the wife of Chang Song-taek, who himself was
purged earlier in 2004 along with 80 other
officials. South Korean intelligence officials
testified that Chang was removed and possibly
placed under house arrest for attempting to create
an alternative faction within the military.
Chang's sin, however, may have been abusing his
power through excessive money-making endeavors, as
in July 1997 when he was investigated, falling
from Kim Jong-il's favor only to be subsequently
rehabilitated. Chang had been similarly demoted in
the late 1970s to become secretary of a steel
works in Nampo, but later returned to power.
The extent of the perceived instability in
the country has been exemplified by media accounts
that European policymakers have been advised to
prepare contingency plans for "sudden change" in
North Korea. the Japanese Public Security
Intelligence Agency has assessed growing signs of
"social disorder" in North Korea, due to
increasing access by the citizens to outside
information, as well as exacerbated class
divisions brought on by economic reforms. The
Japanese agency also warned of a potential "feud
or confrontation" arising from a succession
struggle.
Rounding out the rumors were
media stories of posters and leaflets critical of
the regime, 130 North Korean generals having
defected to China, and reports of Chinese troops
moving to the border in preparation for a
potential refugee exodus triggered by a regime
collapse, all of which also have been previously
reported in recent years.
Denials from
both Koreas
The two Koreas reacted to the
rumors by appearing to be competing with each
other in more strongly denying the possibility of
instability in the North. Pyongyang's official
media apparently felt it necessary to respond by
asserting that the regime was "politically stable
and is as firm as a rock" and denouncing the
rumors as part of an "undisguised [US]
psychological operation aimed at a regime change".
Perhaps exploiting the rumors for
diplomatic leverage, the North's official Korean
Central News Agency (KCNA) warned that the country
was "compelled to seriously reconsider its
participation in the talks with the US", as a way
of attempting to blame Washington for the stalled
six-way talks aimed at defusing Pyongyang's
nuclear program.
South Korean President
Roh Moo-hyun repeatedly emphasized that "there's
almost no possibility of North Korea collapsing
[because] China supports North Korea and because
we [South Korea] don't want it to collapse". He
blamed the United States and other Western nations
for predicting collapse as a major reason for
Pyongyang feeling a "greater sense of insecurity
and crisis" - and thus prolonging the nuclear
impasse.
Unification Minister Chung
Dong-young declared early this month that South
Korea had "no hostile intention" toward the North
and promised that Seoul wouldn't allow future mass
defections of North Korean refugees, such as the
468 airlifted from Southeast Asia in July, since
Pyongyang might feel "threatened" by another such
incident.
Outside players have great
impact on Korea
A critical factor affecting
events in North Korea will be the future direction
taken by the administration of US President George
W Bush and the extent to which it pushes for
change in Pyongyang's behavior. US Ambassador to
Seoul Christopher Hill told reporters that the US
remains "100% behind the goal [of] a negotiated,
diplomatic solution" to the North Korean nuclear
issue; at the same time he warned that, "without
putting a deadline on it, I think it's fair to say
that time is not limitless". The ambassador
explained that the US sought "regime
transformation" in North Korea, defined as "a
sense of progression in the North's behavior",
such as the dismantling of its nuclear-weapons
programs.
South Korea, however, has made
clear its disapproval of even this moderated US
concept of regime transformation. Unification
Minister Chung highlighted the policy divergence
between the two allies, asserting that "external
pressures have no effect on North Korea's regime".
Chung articulated Seoul's advocacy of a
"spontaneous" transformation at a pace to be
determined by Pyongyang and asserted that Seoul
has "no leverage" over the North.
Another
factor impacting the peninsular situation will be
the growing exasperation of Mohamed ElBaradei,
head of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
with the United Nations Security Council's
timidity in addressing North Korea's continuing
non-compliance with Non-Proliferation Treaty
inspection requirements. He commented early this
month that the crisis caused by Pyongyang's
refusal to abandon its nuclear-weapons ambitions
is "getting worse". ElBaradei emphasized, "This
has been a pending issue for 12 years ... and we
need to address the whole question and bring it to
a resolution. I would certainly hope that by the
end of the year we should be there."
Iran's actions with regards to its
nuclear-weapons program will influence global
perceptions of the viability of negotiations to
constrain the behavior of rogue nations. Analysts
debate whether the Libyan model, in which Tripoli
voluntarily gave up its nascent nuclear program,
reflects the successful application of diplomacy
or of escalating pressure and threat of force.
Pyongyang has displayed remarkable
abilities to withstand international pressure over
the years and one could argue that it was the
United States that recently blinked first, having
diluted its previous insistence on "no
concessions" and "complete, verifiable,
irreversible dismantlement" by proposing a
three-month "preparatory period" for North Korea
to dismantle its nuclear programs, along with
proffered incentives.
Despite widespread
perceptions that the US will lose patience and
ratchet up tension on North Korea, with
potentially dire consequences, it is possible that
the political landscape at the end of 2005 will be
remarkably similar to the current state of
affairs, with analysts pondering how North Korea
miraculously muddled through yet another year in
the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
Bruce Klingner is director of
analysis for Intellibridge Corp in Washington, DC.
His areas of expertise are strategic national
security, political and military affairs in China,
Northeast Asia, Korea and Japan. He can be reached
at bklingner@intellibridge.com.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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