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Korea

Feb 17, 2005

Happy Birthday, Dear Leader, have a blast!
By Matthew Rusling

TOKYO - Kim Jong-il celebrated his birthday on Wednesday at a time of fevered speculation regarding the North Korean regime's stability. Given the increased tension on the Korean Peninsula following his announcement last week that Pyongyang has nuclear weapons, it would seem that his birthday wish is to remain in power.

Kim clearly feels targeted by statements made in US President George W Bush's State of the Union and inaugural addresses. While not naming North Korea, the Bush administration has outlined one of its second-term goals as being the spread of American-style democracy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called Pyongyang "an outpost of tyranny", and US hawks have called for regime change in Pyongyang. Definitely cause for alarm in North Korea.

In the run-up to Kim's birthday, observers were discussing the possibility - many said probability - of an imminent fall from grace and power. But when dealing with a country of almost zero-transparency, current and reliable information of the workings of Kim's impenetrable inner circle is rare.

Conspiracy theories abound concerning the future of the current government, from military coups to a spontaneous collapse leading to a power vacuum. Of late, rumors have been circulating that cliques of generals, party cadres or others within the government may be plotting to or may already have sidelined Kim.

"Conspiracy theories generally should not be taken at face value, nor should they be dismissed out of hand," Charles Armstrong, North Korea expert at Columbia University in New York, said in an e-mail to Asia Times Online.

Despite talk of coups and demise, the regime has endured and may well continue to do so. It's durability is reinforced by interlocking circles of relationships among the elite - family, government, the army - so that the leadership and the major players are dependent on Kim and his coterie staying in power. Without Kim Jong-il and his hierarchy, the good life goes, and everyone wants the good times to roll.

"North Korea does appear to be in a period of transition; there are signs that [Kim] is interested in grooming his own successor, the economic 'experiment' begun in July 2002 is still ongoing, there are an increasing number of ordinary and high-level defectors, and not least the US has given signs that it will be tougher on North Korea [regarding] human rights," said Armstrong. "It looks like something is going on within [North Korea]. But for 15 years there's been lots of speculation about regime change in Pyongyang that has been based more often on wishful thinking than evidence."

Observers will analyze what information is available on Kim's birthday celebrations and seek to discern whether they receive the normal, annual amount of fanfare. Some are saying that anything less than the extravagant norm would be a sign that Kim has fallen out of favor among his own clique, or evidence of a weakened position, or even of a military coup.

"We hear a lot of rumors [about regime collapse] but nobody knows exactly when or how or why," said Shioe Okamura, a core member of Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, a Japan-based non-governmental organization.

Observers have also said the tens of thousands of North Korean migrants in China are evidence of the regime's loosening grip on the lives of North Korean citizens, as well as a growing cynicism within the Hermit Kingdom.

On January 30, the Sunday Times of London ran a story predicting imminent regime change in North Korea. The article quoted Christian activist Douglas Shin, who said, "It's just like the Berlin Wall ...The slow-motion exodus is the beginning of the end."

"The idea that a mass exodus, which is not likely, would have an immediate effect on the regime is doubtful," said Erich Weingartner, a North Korea expert, formerly of York University in Toronto and currently a consultant for aid programs to North Korea. "An outflow of refugees would be a symptom that the system has already collapsed and is not a cause of collapse."

On New Year's Day, Kim made a speech saying that North Korea must focus its efforts this year on food production, which analysts in South Korea interpreted to mean that North Korea is almost out of food. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has issued a special appeal for more food. This focus on food was considered by many to be further evidence that Kim's days are numbered.

"One should not read to much into [Kim's] statement. North Korea's food situation has not been exactly rosy for some time, even after the worst of the crisis was alleviated by foreign aid," said Armstrong. "As I often say, and as Mark Twain once said of the rumors of his own demise, 'the collapse of North Korea has so far been greatly exaggerated'," Armstrong added.

North Korea has been a nation under economic strain for some time, but to what extent is unknown. Recent photos smuggled out of North Korea in September 2004 and published in the Joong Ang Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, depict homeless children begging for food or just sitting in the dirt streets. One picture shows an exhausted little girl, who appears to be about five or six years old, lying down on the railroad tracks.

But the food situation in North Korea is actually improving, according to some observers, adding that Kim's New Year's statement should not be given too much weight. Although North Korea cannot get much food assistance from the West, it has been able to get some of what it needs from China and South Korea. Whether the announcement about nukes and withdrawing indefinitely from Beijing-hosted disarmament talks will make China and South Korea less charitable remains to be seen.

This is a stark contrast to the situation in 1995, when South Korea was actively opposing food assistance. By any account, say experts, North Korea has quite a significant safety net.

China, however, has deep misgivings about the North and from time to time has made it clear that China's largesse in terms of food and fuel is not unlimited. It once halted oil deliveries for a painfully long period, saying the pipeline needed repair - a clear reminder of China's power and its dependence on its old ally.

To be sure, the Kim regime has survived much worse than any current food shortage. Accurate statistics from North Korea are hard to come by - some experts even say statistics from the UN are inaccurate - but estimates in the mid-1990s of the death toll due to opportunistic diseases caused by hunger dwarf those of today.

"One could argue that the leadership actually is more secure than it was several years ago; one would have expected a change in leadership in the difficult late 1990s rather than now," said Armstrong. "'Change' in North Korea is a fact. [Kim Jong-il's] imminent fall from power is something else ... for which there is yet to appear any convincing evidence, in my view," he added.

Fueling speculation, some of the ubiquitous portraits of the Dear Leader have gone missing in a few public places. Some suggested a fall from grace, others said that Kim wants to downplay his personality cult in places that foreigners would visit. One visitor told Asia Times Online that he had not noticed that any portraits were missing on a recent trip there.

China is also concerned with keeping its historical buffer intact, as the Korean Peninsula has been the historic gateway for incursions into Chinese territory. It was used by the Japanese to invade China in World War II, and the Americans got very close to the Chinese border during the Korean War.

Nor does China want to see a multitude of North Korean migrants spilling over its borders in the event of regime collapse. Observers have argued that a new US law could lead to such an outcome, albeit not overnight. The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 has earmarked $24 million annually to support human-rights groups in North Korea and to make North Koreans eligible for asylum in the United States.

It remains to be seen - or probably divined at some point - whether Kim's birthday celebrations will shed any light on the issue of the regime's durability. "I would never say definitively that the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] isn't going to collapse," said Armstrong. "A sudden, imminent collapse is certainly within the realm of possibility. I just haven't seen any convincing evidence that this is the case. Let's see what the regime's propagandists pull out on … Kim Jong-il's birthday."

Matthew Rusling is a freelance writer in Osaka. He can be reached at mjrjapan@yahoo.com.

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