That being said, it’s still true that Kaesong workers do better than other North Korean workers (as of last summer, 1/3 of North Koreans depended on international food aid to survive; the aid has since stopped). That said, you have to see the issue in the context of the greater issue of North Korean working and living condtions — to the extent we can even know what they are — to see what makes Kaesong different than, say, a Honduran sweatshop.

First, at Kaesong, there are no free labor markets — no semblance of a right to organize or bargain collectively and no choice to work somewhere else. Admittedly, those rights are probably restricted in plenty of other places with which we do business, but not to a remotely similar degree.

Second, consider how much worse off most North Korean workers are at places other than Kaesong, and ask yourself how Kaesong impacts that. If Kaesong were in fact likely to mean that in the long run, a labor market would develop to improve workers’ wages and working conditions, I might not object to it in principle. If Kaesong is really a harbinger of reform, even a small improvement in transparency could outweigh the disadvantage of giving the regime more money to buy arms and oppress its people. If not, Kaesong squanders international economic pressure that could be used to help ease the suffering of its people, get food into the bellies of the hungry, and get the artillery away from the DMZ.

Unfortunately, the consensus of the reports from the last group visit is that the regime remains determined to keep the information blockade in place at Kaesong and everywhere else. Minders were everywhere, no contact with the workers was permitted, and the South Korean managers were also kept at a distance from the workers. I’m not sure that isolation will necessarily prove effective in the long run, but if not, the regime will just clamp down. The North Koreans view Kaesong as a cash cow that they won’t permit to affect the greater system, other than to help preserve it. Reform? They see Nicky Ceausescu in their dreams. That’s also consistent recent reports that even the halting economic reforms North Korea announced in 2002 have been reversed.

One final thought — I think Robert correctly pegs one of South Korea’s hidden motives, which is the fear of excessive Chinese economic influence (another being a simple profit motive). But if South Korea were less deferential to China, it might simply state that obligations incurred by an illegitimate and oppressive regime will not be honored by a future government, per the doctrine of “odious debt.”

From what I can gather they are paid $57 a month for working 48 hours a week. Seoul has defended this pittance of a salary by saying it is better than“other socialist countries,”by which it must not mean Sweden. They have been balking at letting in an international group to investigate conditions in Kaesong, and are not inviting companies from other countries to set up there. It really looks like pigs at the trough and short-term exploitation by the South, given that its small revenue for the North.

I think Marnmot you’re right about S.K. “marking the territory” while China does the same, and at the same time at least trying to hold off the North’s collapse with Kaesong (and free rice and payoffs for the reunions, tourism, etc.).

S.K. has nowhere near the influence China has over N.K. and can’t offer the N.K. regime the protection the Chinese can, so without internationalizing Kaesong, getting other nations involved and running it in a transparent manner, China will win out in the end.

Kaesong = Barone Sanitation