Stories of famine and starvation in North
Korea are making their way across world newspapers
as the release of the United Nations' "Overview of
Needs and Assistance" report in May coincided with
new accounts of devastation in the country's
grain-basket provinces. One thing is clear: North
Korea is not once again falling into a food crisis
- because that would imply that the country had
evaded food shortage at some point in the past two
decades.
Based on the best estimates, the
system appears to be perpetually suffering
shortfalls and frequently dipping into a major
humanitarian crisis whenever it is brushed by the
slightest external pressure: last time it was
flooding, this time drought. While the acquisition
of food itself remains the key effort in allaying
the issue, additional problems exist that
significantly
further or act as the
outright cause of the crisis. Without taking a
more holistic approach to this ongoing problem,
the situation on the ground will not improve.
According to the UN, its agencies need
US$198 million for their activities in North Korea
this year but have only managed to acquire 40% of
the requested funds. This too is normal;
humanitarian agencies have operated underfunded
for years, attempting to curb malnutrition that
has reportedly stunted one out of three children
in the country. Despite these conditions, the UN
had managed to make significant strides in the
past few years to secure the survivability of the
people: promotion of safe management of human
excrement, gravity-fed water systems, immunization
coverage, etc. [1] These are areas that do not
receive a lot of attention from the international
community as the spotlight is usually centered on
monitoring aid and food acquisition; nonetheless,
the investment and efforts made by the UN
highlight the importance of overcoming non-food
obstacles that hinder the intake of nutrition by
the North Korean people.
Infrastructure is
the first major obstacle that requires significant
attention. Food security is more than just
producing enough food for the people; the true
challenge is delivering foodstuffs to the people
who need them. Marcus Noland of the Peterson
Institute compared the famines in North Korea to
those of 19th-century Ireland, pointing out that
the poor internal network of roads during the
Potato Famine hindered internal trade and
disrupted the delivery of food even when
foodstuffs were available in Ireland. [2]
Likewise, North Korea's transit system is unable
to distribute goods effectively to every corner of
the country.
It is not not just the roads;
since losing the supply of subsidized fuel from
the Soviet Union, North Korea has had an energy
shortage that significantly diminished the state's
capacity to provide basic services. Accounts from
humanitarian organizations suggest that certain
areas have resorted to using bicycles to deliver
food, which, while innovative, cannot substitute
in terms of quantity and speed for the trucks that
used to carry the vital goods.
Currently,
Pyongyang is heavily dependent on fuel aid from
China, but North Korea's access to energy could
increase as Russia opens and develops its
far-eastern provinces. Increasing fuel import
remains a critical issue for North Korea's food
security. Without properly addressing the delivery
mechanism, bad roads and lack of vehicles will not
only interfere with the aid process, but also
obstruct distribution in the future even if food
acquisition somehow reaches higher levels.
Inflation and the price of food constitute
another major challenge. The current crisis in the
provinces of Pyongan and Hwanghae probably started
because of over-requisition by the state and was
worsened by the lack of rainfall, but the more
prevalent long-term problem is the erratic
fluctuation of grain prices, caused not only by
general scarcity but also Pyongyang's
irresponsible monetary policies.
The
currency reform in the winter of 2009-10
arbitrarily devalued the North Korean won by a
factor of 100 and seriously undermined the trust
the country's people had in their currency. In a
haphazard attempt to curb burgeoning market
activities, Pyongyang in effect obliterated the
means with which everyday people supplemented
their meager rations from the government. (Read
more about the process in the January 5 article A
legacy of death and inflation.) The subsequent
disruption of the private food market persuaded
Pyongyang to change its banking regulations,
allowing people more easy access to deposits
without being taxed or be subject to arbitrary
confiscation. Despite these measures, the price of
rice continued to climb in 2011, reaching its peak
in early December.
The price of rice has
continued to fluctuate in 2012, falling to a low
in April before making a steady climb in May and
June. [3] The instability in food prices has made
life difficult and rendered basic goods too
expensive for average citizens. If people are
unable to rely on their currency to purchase basic
commodities tomorrow at relatively the same price
as today, then the resulting insecurity will harm
the prospects of establishing a functioning food
market.
This brings the discussion to the
whole system. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton recently stated that "eventually North
Korea will change because at some point people
cannot live under such oppressive conditions".
Clinton's implication that the state system is at
the root of the people's suffering is in essence
correct. The example of its monetary policy is
just one small case. The paranoid, zealously
defense-oriented, corrupt, often arbitrary and
irreversibly broken system is certainly conducive
to catastrophic mismanagement.
Nobel
laureate economist Amartya Sen prolifically wrote
about the relationship between liberty and food.
Noting that "the rapid expansion of agricultural
output in China under the economic reforms carried
out from 1979 onward has, with much justice, been
seen to be closely related to the freeing of
markets and the unleashing of productive
opportunities connected with profit incentives ...
[at the same time,] public policy to combat hunger
and starvation - including rapid intervention
against threatening famines - may depend on the
existence and efficiency of political pressure
groups to induce governments to act". [4]
North Korea's political system obviously
stands nearly antithetical to the democratic
system that Sen believes insures people from
famines.
Reviewing the situation in North
Korea, Georgetown University Professor Victor Cha
boldly speculated that an Arab Spring-like
uprising against the Kim Jong-eun regime would
erupt in the near future. He suggested that
today's starvation and post-Kim Jong-il
insecurities are radically different from what
occurred after the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994
because of the advent of markets, which, according
to Cha, fundamentally changed the dynamic of power
relations in North Korean society.
But
Clinton and Cha are both mistaken in presuming
that the people will refuse a repressive system
because they have been briefly introduced to a
less coercive socioeconomic system. In particular,
the poorer the system, the more robustly the
regime is able to control its population by
restricting and delegating the flow of resources.
In addition, there is not a single historical
instance of a modern totalitarian state being
overthrown by domestic opposition when the general
population suffers from food insecurity; Pol Pot's
Khmer Rouge was overthrown not by its own people
but by Vietnamese intervention, and Ukraine simply
suffered through Josef Stalin's famines.
The system is inherently and unfavorably
tilted toward deprivation and suffering. Even if
North Korea produced more food, the country's
broken infrastructure, failed economic policies
and repressive political system would prevent the
people from enjoying the fruit of success.
Yet the situation is not entirely
hopeless. Although the country's new leader still
upholds the military-first policy handed down from
his predecessors, Kim Jong-eun has shown signs
that he may engage in economic reforms. He has so
far called on officials to have "enterprising
spirit and thinking, scientific calculation and
correct methodology and creative manner" and to
"get better acquainted with reality". This has led
James Church of 38 North to suggest that some in
North Korea may see the new leader's rhetoric as
indicators of "creeping Deng-ism". [5] And perhaps
they are - Kim Jong-eun did emphasize that his
people should not be subject to past levels of
economic sacrifice.
The problems in North
Korea are not easy fixes; they require major
overhauls. The future direction of the country
remains uncertain, but if the state and the
international community do not step up to uphold
the well-being of 25 million people in the near
future, too many will be lost.
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