In Newsweek, Andrei Lankov puts forward a good argument for active engagement with North Korea as a means of hastening its collapse:
The best way to speed things up is for Washington and its allies to push for active engagement with the North in the form of development aid, scholarships for North Korean students and support for all sorts of activities that bring the world to North Korea or take North Koreans outside their cocoon. Such exchanges are often condemned as a way of appeasing dictators, but the experience of East Europe showed that an influx of uncensored information from the outside is deadly for a communist dictatorship.
Pyongyang understands the danger of such exchanges, but it needs money and technology badly enough that it might allow them nonetheless—so long as they fill its coffers and don’t look too dangerous. This is even more the case when exchanges ostensibly benefit members of the elite. For example, a scholarship program to study overseas would go mostly to students from top families. Yet this wouldn’t limit its impact: experience of the outside world will change these young people and turn some of them into importers of dangerous information. A similarly small step helped to unravel the Soviet Union: the first group of students allowed to study in the U.S., in 1957, numbered just four and were carefully selected. Yet two grew up to become leading reformers, and one of them—Alexander Yakovlev—is often credited as having been the real mastermind behind perestroika.
My fear is that the North Korean already know this, so any such engagement program would become just another extortion racket, but I’m not one to argue with Dr. Lankov, one of the very few people I actually listen to when he talks about North Korea.
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
My fear is, the S Korean government has absolutely no intention of implementing any of these policies. For example, one of the proposals that Lankov has suggested is — the government should not sit on its ass while n korean refugees get discriminated against and suffer indignity. We should provide them with more resources — which obviously would not be too expensive, I don’t think — and yet I hear stories about these refugees being dissatisfied with their life in the south, and one would think that’s hard to do considering how bad they had it in the north.
If s korean gov’t is not willing to do this very simple thing, doesn’t it pretty much spell out their intentions? And if s korean gov’t isn’t willing to move, why doesn’t the US encourage them to move? It all seems pretty hopeless.
Sorry if I’m just spewing ignorance. I’ll be the first to admit that I have alot to learn about n korea policy.
“If North Korea started reforming, it would be flooded with information about South Korea’s prosperity. This would make North Koreans less fearful of the authorities and more likely to push for unification with their far richer cousins, just as the East Germans pushed to rejoin the West.”
1)Since 2000 the North Korean propaganda apparatus has not only admitted that South Korea is more affluent, but even gone so far as to exaggerate the extent of that affluence in order to inoculate the masses against further revelations. See for example the novel Mannam (2001), which tells North Korean readers that a fledgling South Korean journalist can buy a house in downtown Seoul after a few months on the job. Or propaganda paintings of lavishly equipped South Korean university classrooms (more lavishly equipped than the one I teach in!) in which well-dressed, lissome co-eds gaze lovingly at a projected image of Kim Jong Il’s signature, etc.
In the North Korean media, the message, week in, week out, is that although the South Koreans are richer, the North Koreans are prouder, more respected, etc, and also envied by their brethren in the South. It is also asserted that these brethren would still do anything to live under Kim Jong Il’s rule.
I do wish, then, that people would stop acting as if Pyongyang is afraid that its people will find out about the South’s wealth.
2) Happiness, as recent psychological studies have made clear, is largely a matter of being better off than others, not of wealth in absolute terms. I’m not sure the majority of North Korean people – especially the men! – are that eager to live on the very bottom rung of a unified Korean society that will regard them as pariahs. This would certainly explain why the number of North Korean refugees is so low despite the porous border, and includes so few people from the upper or even the middle classes.
3) The “it’s the military, stupid!” message of North Korean propaganda, the readiness to admit food shortages, even to boast of deprivation, is irreconcilable with the notion of North Korea as a communist state with a Stalinist economy. It is also completely unlike the East Bloc countries whose history the Newsweek article extrapolates from. Surely a command economy is only a Stalinist one if the ideological justification for it is also Stalinist, i.e. Marxist-Leninist. The North’s justification is more in line with imperial Japan’s justification for its (and colonial Korea’s) command economy, i.e.: this will make us militarily stronger so that we can better defeat the race enemy. At the same time, remember, the North now encourages its people to engage in their own backyard or cottage industries, raising rabbits, goats etc, to support the war effort. Also very un-communist!
4) A country that preaches the inherent moral virtue of its people, the inherent evil of an enemy race, that talks of an impending “holy war” to bring the pure race to “its rightful position on the world stage”, that forces abortions on women who have committed miscegenation, a “crime against the race” (a bete noire of the regime since the 1950s), etc etc is a far right regime and not a left wing one. And far right regimes are much, much less vulnerable to contact with and cultural infiltration from successful capitalist democracies than Marxist-Leninist ones. (I might add, to show the imperviousness of nationalism to such trivial threats, that despite much greater press freedom and world travel South Koreans are no less nationalistic than they were 20 years ago; in my opinion they are more nationalistic now.)
5) The gradual liberalization of the North Korean economy, the creeping de-ideologization of the whole economic sphere (a popular slogan among traders: “to get rich is patriotic”) is generally seen by the West as a good thing. But in fact it is the very reason for the North’s growing belligerence, because it now has only military triumphs with which to justify its existence as a separate state. This puts the North on a collision course with the outside world. I see this ending very badly for the North, so perhaps Andrei and I aren’t so far apart after all. But I don’t see how it’s going to go peacefully like the East Bloc did; certainly not in Kim’s lifetime.
I’d be careful with that line. Stalinism and militarism are, if not brothers, then best friends.
The left-right spectrum is best understood in purely economic and political terms. Racism does not equal right-wing, especially in Asia. A quick look at South Korea in the last 10 years ir so reveals openly racist attitudes bandied about much more frequently (but not exclusively) on the left. Racism is a very poor justification for labeling North Korea as far-right.
I do agree that the whole “cultural exhange kills dictatorship” thing is a canard. Just because something worked one time in a few countries in Eastern Europe, which was one big system, does not mean it will work elsewhere. It has not worked in China or Cuba, for example.
It’s Stalinist to claim that a strong military is necessary to ensure and protect a certain economic order. It’s not Stalinist to claim that a certain economic order is necessary to bring about military strength.
If propagating race theory in order to justify totalitarian rule by a military dictatorship does not qualify a country as far right, I’d like to know what does.
Which is what North Korea does. Their strong military is necessary (they say) to protect everything about their way of life: their pure blood, their national pride, economic system, etc.
No. But almost all militarily strong nations claim their economic system as a major reason for their military strength.
How about corporatism? Instead of the government nationalizing or destroying major corporations, the interests of corporations and the governments merge until they become indistinguishable. The corporations are the government and the government is the corporations. If you want to talk about far-right totalitarianism, that’s what it looks like. Racism is not leftist or rightist. It’s an option that can be added on to any ideology. There are racist fascists, racist communists, and racist democrats (note the small ‘d’!).
Prof Myers, if I may ask a question
Do you think the S Korean and U.S. gov’t agrees with the point you made in 5)? And if they do, that would naturally mean that they would be *against* implementing cultural exchange programs, is that correct?
colontos: You evidently believe that the North Korean economic order is Stalinist, ie. Marxist-Leninist. This seems to be where we disagree. I would put it to you that things like renting out North Korean workers to South Korean capitalists, the sale of mining rights to Chinese corporations, free trade zones (however sporadically supported) etc, the separate military economy, etc are not mere quirky variations on Stalinism but completely irreconcilable with a Marxist-Leninist mindset.
JW: No, the South Korean and US government do not agree with that point. The South Koreans misperceive North Korea as a Juche state, i.e. one which can justify its existence on the basis of a distinct Juche ideology. (That no one can give a coherent explanation of Juche – least of all the North Koreans themselves – nor explain how it influences North Korean policy making does not seem to bother anyone.) The Americans persist in misperceiving North Korea as a hardline Stalinist state. Both sides thus think that Pyongyang must want the relaxation of tension, better relations with the outside world, etc, so that it can return to its real Juche or Stalinist mission. In fact there is no Juche or Stalinist mission; military development is the mission, and the tension the justification for it.
Hooo, boy. When I read 5), I got a little nervous pretty fast, and I live half a world away.
But one more question professor. Assuming you are right on 5), is it in KJI’s interest to *not* communicate his real intentions to the relevant outside players? That seems to be what you are saying..if I’m interpreting you correctly. Otherwise, I don’t see how S korea and the U.S. could be so off in their understanding.
In fact there is no Juche or Stalinist mission; military development is the mission, and the tension the justification for it.
True. Though it’s important to remember that even Stalin was an opportunist who used the image of Lenin to solidify his rule at home and the ideological power of Marx to convince sympathizers abroad. Stalin did not believe in the principles of Marxism or Leninism, he (and his apprentice-rival Mao) used them to maintain his own power over the Soviet Union (which is why he rendered the International vestigial and undermined those who favored a “global revolution”). Stalin was an autocrat, not an ideologue. Even Lenin on his deathbed realized this and tried to have Stalin removed.
So in that sense Kim Jong-il is a classic Stalinist, inventing or appropriating whatever ideology will keep his people isolated and himself in power.
My problem with comparisons between the Eastern bloc and the North is geographical. The Iron Curtain was simply much longer and more porous than the North’s borders are now. It’s completely cut off to the south and increasingly so to the north. That’s why it’s going to take patient and dogged government support of exchange programs on our side to open up the country. Which as others have mentioned is not a good prospect right now.
it would be good to list the honest objectives (warts and all) of what we, as each group of people, want to see happen with North Korea, and see if we can reach more of a consensus (and i don’t mean a “we are all very angry” letter.)
for example, if i could have my own way, i am certain that it would be different from the girl sitting next to me, let alone the US, Japan, China, Russia and the rest of the world.
For the moment, the NK’s erratic behavior is nothing more than playing on the division it sees, sorry for the supernanny analogy, the parents cannot divide the more tantrum the kid throws.
Sagwamun: Kim Jong-il is a classic Stalinist, inventing or appropriating whatever ideology will keep his people isolated and himself in power.
It seems from some of these postings that Stalinism can be defined as broadly as people want – put it in your ear, it’s an earring, in your nose, it’s a nose-ring, as the Koreans say – while the term far right cannot be used unless a regime is flying the swastika! To say that Stalinism means using any ideology a dictator wants is to render the term useless (or to make it a synonym for sultan-state-ism). In any case, Kim Jong Il has not changed or invented much; the official worldview is the same as it was in 1945, albeit minus the lip service to M-L internationalism that Kim Senior paid to keep the Soviet and Chinese aid flowing during the Cold War.
JW: Is it in KJI’s interest to *not* communicate his real intentions to the relevant outside players?
Certainly. This is why there is such a disparity between the regime’s external-oriented propaganda (which changes tone and content according to the needs of the day) and what it tells its own people (which has remained largely constant). A rule of thumb: the higher the quality of the paper the propaganda is printed on, the less representative it is of the ruling worldview.
Some examples:
External-oriented propaganda/diplomacy: “(North) Korea joined the NPT in good faith.”
Domestic propaganda: “(North) Korea joined the NPT to use it for its own ends, then ignored/scorned (무시했다) its stipulations.”
External-oriented propaganda/diplomacy: “(North) Korea is negotiating for its own security, like any small country in the face of a bullying superpower.”
Domestic propaganda: “America is afraid of (North) Korea. America’s requests for negotiations constitute a surrender in the face of our resolve.”
(Let me forestall a predictable question – “who’s to say that the external propaganda doesn’t reflect the regime’s real mindset?” – by asking which of the two types of propaganda jibes more with North Korea’s behavior over the decades!)
Variations include Pyongyang’s clever dissemination (usually via the same American visitor, who shall remain nameless) of the notion that hawks and doves are contending for power inside the regime, for which reason the US must help the doves by making concessions, etc. (This was admittedly an old Soviet ruse too.) Whereas domestic propaganda praises the regime for nothing so much as its complete ideological unity.
Most importantly, the race theory is kept almost completely secret from the non-Korean speaking world. Or to be more exact: the North Koreans are rightly confident that the Americans will not go to the effort needed to read their Korean-language domestic propaganda, but will instead content themselves with the KCNA’s English language reports.
How about the BBC sending over a team to help Nork television launch a “North Korea’s Got Talent ” show? The first 100 performances will feature the Dear Leader and tributes to ho by mass displays, culminating in an emaciated skeleton guy from Yeodok holiday camp singing praises to the Dear Leader. It should be a great hit leading to a Korean Tidal Wave across Asia and the Middle East.
If not, they will declare war on the UK….
while the term far right cannot be used unless a regime is flying the swastika!
The totalitarian left is very similar to the totalitarian right. But they’re distinct in their ideological goals/terminology (“spreading the revolution” vs. “preserving the old ways”). In a sense all totalitarians are conservative in that they want to maintain the status quo. The positions on the the right-left spectrum are not as simple as they appear, or as far apart.
To say that Stalinism means using any ideology a dictator wants is to render the term useless (or to make it a synonym for sultan-state-ism).
I would argue that Stalinism is a particular brand of totalitarianism based on periodic political purges to maintain power, a cycle of domestic terror, economic autarky, and institutionalized worship of a (preferably deceased) ideal leader — this is why Stalin built up Lenin as a near-god and had his body perpetually preserved.
My point was that none of these tenets has anything to do with a particular political ideology. They are a means to an end — the continued concentration of political power in the hands of the autocrat.
And it seems to me that the North has met all these criteria to varying degrees, though its economy now depends on terrorizing the rest of the world for aid.
I have to be brief, a lot of things to do tonight and tomorrow… So, I can write only a very brief reply to Prof. Myers’ critique.
Prof. Myers is completely right: the NK propaganda is changing, largely because its old lies have become unsustainable. However, unlike him, I do not believe that the new racist/nationalist line will be able to withstand the pressure of such a huge difference in income. Has the North-South income ratio been 1:2 or 1:3, like it was the case in pre-unification Germany, the Kim Family Regime would stand some chances. With this ration being somewhere between 1:17 and 1:50, no amount of nationalism, no amount of pride in the alleged racial and cultural superiority of the Northern system will help. What I see is that, in spite of the new propaganda line, described by Prof. Myers, the NK authorities still do everything possible to isolate the populace from any exposure to the South. Even now an open statement about SK’s material superiority is sufficient to put you to a jail for a long time.
This is not to deny that some people might be influenced by the new propaganda line – especially members of the elite and sub-elite who have vested interests in keeping the system going. However, those people are a small minority (or so I believe).
But let’s assume that Prof. Myers is right (which is possible). Even in this case, the policy I suggested in my Newsweek column will work. How? If Prof. Myers’ estimates are correct, NK regime has another dirty secret to hide – the fact that the average Southerner does not envy the ‘pure’ North Koreans and does not admire their leader. In fact, s/he does not give a damn about the North. If Prof. Myers is right, this revelation is equally dangerous for the NK system . Actually, I suspect that we both might be right, to certain degree (‘to which degree?’ a good question). If so, exposure to the outside world and especially to the South will work in dual way. Those who have been won by the nationalist message will be shocked to learn that KJI is not an object of admiration but rather a buffoon. Those who remain more down-the-earth (a majority, I assume) will be just shocked by the South Korean prosperity and individual freedom (being habitually cynical, I do not think they will appreciate political freedoms as such).
I agree of course with that point. This (as I have been writing for the past few years in various publications) is the real truth that the North is powerless to put a spin on: that the South Koreans are happy with their state. But I still don’t fully understand the logic of the Newsweek article. Either the South Koreans play by the old Sunshine rules of North-South cooperation (deference + unilateral aid), thereby confirming the North’s view of a guilt-stricken South repaying the Leader’s beneficence, or they break the rules, saying things in the North that they shouldn’t, and either end up in custody themselves (like that poor Hyundai devil right now) or bring about the end of cooperation in general. One thing the North will not do is sit by and let the personality cult be undermined.
Obama’s already giving money to Castro via the relaxing of the Cuba Embargo. KJI should be next in line for U.S. gov’t cheese.
Obama give North Korea money if he cared about Korea more than the 57 United States, but he may get around to it at some point. The extortionists in the American Auto Workers’ Union need to be paid first.
I’m all for opening things up economically where it makes sense. But I’m unsure about the scholarship angle. History is littered with corrupt tyrants who studied in the west. Pol Pot got a scholarship to study in France. Estimates are he and the Khmer Rouge killed up to 2 million of their own people in Cambodia. Mugabe studied in Oxford. We all know what is going on in Zimbabwe now. The Prince in Nepal who studied in England and shot many members of the Royal family in the Palace. Probably a majority of the corrupt African tyrants who call themselves President of some African country. The list is long. Haven’t we learned yet? I know academia and intellectuals have an unwavering “faith” in themselves and their ability to change these individuals and their societies for the better but I see a lot of data not supporting that position of faith. I know a few bad apples don’t make the entire barrel bad but shouldn’t we at least look at this “faith” a bit more objectively.
Bingo. But plenty of anecdotal information does suggest that certain demographic groups inside North Korea are influenced by contact with Earth. Here’s one recent example.
One point I think we often overlook is that North Koreans’ lifestyles, political roles, and the messages they’re fed by the regime probably vary greatly by geography, occupation, and social status. For example, I would expect the people in Pyongyang and the border areas to be better informed about life on the outside, in ways more like what Prof. Myers has observed. Certainly the regime is sophisticated enough to tailor its message to them accordingly. I often suspect that people in more isolated, low status regions are fed a very different brand of propaganda, principally through the cable radio network that Andrei talked about in his book. I wonder if any outsider, including Professor Myers, has a very good idea of what’s broadcast on the cable radio. I’d be interested in Prof. Myers’s take on this question.
I agree with Andrei on the broader point that foreigners are capable of subverting the regime’s control through information alone, and apparently, the NK regime also agrees:
The key to successful engagement is, then, delivering it in such a way that it reaches ordinary North Koreans without the regime’s filter. History has conclusively proved that the regime’s filter beats the Sunshine approach at least 97 times out of 100, which is why the North Korean regime shut down Kaesong the minute Choco Pies from Kaesong became popular on the North Korean black market. It’s also why the direct distribution of food aid to North Koreans by foreign aid workers ought to be one of our primary policy goals.
The regime, of course, is absolutely determined to prevent as much of that contact as possible, even if another two million have to starve. Radio broadcasting is still in its infancy, but shows promise. But the collapse of border controls, the opening of markets, and the falling cost of electronic gadgets of all kinds means that possibilities abound if we’re creative.
So what should the message be? Andrei has some inspired ideas (which may go beyond what he’s printed publicly) about reaching North Koreans directly with counter-propaganda tailored to those ideas that refugees have told us were influential to them. Religion seems to be one of the most powerful of them. Another is the revelation the Leader’s bacchanalian lifestyle and the system’s corruption, which is a focus of the balloon messages (the authors themselves are North Koreans). I still believe that a large number of North Koreans would be influenced by knowing just how well people are eating in China or South Korea. In any event, we have enough North Koreans in the South today that it is possible to craft the right message to hasten the inevitable. The inevitable is going to a very bloody thing, but the longer it’s delayed, the bloodier it will be.
I think what we’ve established here, if nothing else, is the analytical worthlessness of the descriptors “left” and “right” as applied to totalitarian societies. Certainly Adolf Hitler wasn’t the first to inject racism into ideology. Goebbels was an especially eager borrower of Leninist class warfare and Stalinist purge tactics. Nor was Stalin himself above making crude appeals to racism. Finally, Juche itself has a high degree of similarity to furherprinzip, and Jasper Becker has suggested that this is no coincidence.
That said, it’s very rare that I disagree with Prof. Myers about anything, and I strongly agree with how he characterizes the North Korean regime’s ideology and psychology. To me, it resembles that of pre-war Japan more than any other regime, but at their roots, both regimes were really just anachronisms of traditional royal despotism with modern technology in Marxist or Fascist drag. (It’s a regrettable tendency of Asian societies to borrow the worst fads of western culture and politics with the most enthusiasm. Jackie Chan proves that point, as well as the converse.)
Prof. Myers, by the way, conclusively wins the argument about the persistence of Korean nationalism (and racism, if we’re honest) by pointing at modern South Korea. I don’t doubt that several elements of NK propaganda probably have a sincerely high domestic appeal. One is probably pride in the nation’s military strength, even if the cost of it is deeply unpopular. Another is anti-Americanism, which has great appeal to plenty of shallow and unintelligent faux intellectuals in open societies, especially South Korea. A third is the combination of racism and nationalism. I venture that when North Korea finally has its gotterdammerung, we’re going to find its society highly unappealing, inhospitable, prejudiced, and corrupt.
(Cough.)
Considering what chocopies are made of, the regime’s desire to keep them out of reach of North Korean kids is understandable even if shutting down Kaeseong was hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.
Lankov,
You are just a jerkoff, blowing hot air through your ass.
Wake up and smell the coffeee.
Scholarships to NK students? SK is all willing to do this, but would NK students come? Even if they come, they would concentrate their effort to topple SK government. They are religious fanatics like Arab terrorists.
You are talking about a country that prohibit mail exchange and family meetings.
Would they send the normal students or spies?
When your academic musings become so detached from reality, you are useless. And, I must suspect what you are.
Lankov,
One more thing to add.
It is your fucking country and China beggers who still keep Kim JongIl in power.
If your country and China fuckers tell Kim Jongil to go, he would be assassinated the very next day.
And, if your stinking country and China MoFos really want NK to change, which you fuckers officially say, then NK will change the very next day.
Open up borders and receiving the world’s food supplies, educators and industrialists.
It is you fuckers who like to see NKs starve.
You fuckers.
The situation is like what Woody Allen said in the movie, Manhattan.
“My brother thinks he is a chicken. We should take him to a doctor. But we don’t. We need eggs.”
China and Russia want, yes WANT, NK to stay the way it is.
It is you MoFos who want NK to starve.
You, including Lankov, MoFos want NK children to starve to death.
You MoFos.
Robert, May I suggest that Baduk’s level of discourse may be completely appropriate for your open threads — or a million threads you can read elsewhere if you have nothing better to do — but is about to quash an intelligent discussion between two recognized authorities on the subject matter? I’d really like to hear the rest of what the adults have to say.
Lankov,
Instead of spreading your nonsense to Korean youth, why don’t you go back to Russia and tell your countrymen to let NK go?
It is you fuckers who came in and set up Kim IlSung regime in NK.
Why don’t you take some responsibility as a grown man? Instead of telling what SK should do, why don’t you go to the center of the problem and the real solution!
Tell Chinese fuckers what to do on the way to Russia.
That is how NK will change. From pressures from China and Russia.
joshua, that’s why I wrote and update regularly my GreaseMonkey filters. To filter out some of the noise.
Joshua, do not worry, I know where Baduk and his best buddy Pawi the Nazi belong. It’s funny that Baduk does not even see North Koreans as humans and cannot see a difference between them and Kim’s tiny clique. We’ll have a tea with Brian soon, I hope. I do not agree with him, but I am not sure who of us is right.
“Joshua”, I hate to say this but “baduk’s” jibes are so off-the-wall that they are hysterically funny. It’s a bit like a goat-herder warning Moses to look out for the burning bush.
I also suspect that Dr. Lankov was snickering just a little . . .
My two cents — as we’ve genially argued on more than one occasion — is that Prof. Myers is correct that engaging North Korea through its government won’t work any better now than it has in the last ten years. Assuming that North Korea’s regime is interested in any kind of engagement today probably assumes too much, but it’s certainly wise to your strategy.
I suspect that you’re correct and inspired when you propose the delivery of carefully tailored, subversive messages to ordinary North Koreans to help hasten the regime’s demise. Professor Myers is right that the regime has acknowledged famine in the past and tried to make a virtue of monastic deprivation, but I’m not sure that the Rodong Sinmun message is the same message the regime is delivering to people in places like Hamhung, Pyongsong, and Kaechon.
Even if we assume that the regime’s propaganda message is consistent, that message almost certainly lacks the appeal it did ten years ago. For example, North Koreans who are willing to admit to their resentment of Kim Jong Il often still revere his father. I don’t think either you or Professor Myers would deny that the cult has begun to break down. When people are hungry and resentful, the virtue of misery only sells with certain political and personality demographics. Many other people no doubt just resent that they’re being deprived and oppressed by a corrupt system.
Is the ultimate goal regime change or an improvement in the quality of life for the North Korean people? Obviously the former would greatly facilitate the latter, but China has demonstrated over the last 25 years that some economic liberalization can raise living standards and allow more freedoms and choices without threatening the CCP’s hold on power.
Kim Jong-il seems to be the primary obstacle to Chinese-style economic reforms. As his health worsens, the Chinese government may find it easier to collaborate with pro-Chinese North Korean officials to institute economic reforms that will develop the North Korean economy and make it interdependent with China’s rather than South Korea’s and keep North Korea communist, independent of South Korea, and friendly to China.
In short, I don’t think regime change or a federation with the South is in the cards. The biggest obstacle isn’t the emaciated stroke victim with a lopsided mouth and a limp arm but the big government next door.
About five years ago, NK suddenly woke up and said they would set up Shinuijoo as the internation hub.
They got a Chinese millionaire to fund the project and announced to the whole world that they would start the project.
A few months later, the millionaire was arrested and Kim Jongil got a rude surprise when his train crossed back toward NK from the Chinese border.
The explosion was so hard that some elementary school children got blinded by the explosion.
The Chinese keep KJI in short leash.
And, Ruskie help them.
Six party talk? Only one who sway NK is China.
China can bring freedom to NK tomorrow if it wants to. Ruskie can help too.
But they won’t.
#21, Baduk if you read the piece then you would realize that the author never said that north Koreans should study in the south. His point was to take them out of the peninsula entirely so they can see that 99% of the world has no interest in Kim Il Sungism and or Juche.
[quote]Most importantly, the race theory is kept almost completely secret from the non-Korean speaking world. Or to be more exact: the North Koreans are rightly confident that the Americans will not go to the effort needed to read their Korean-language domestic propaganda, but will instead content themselves with the KCNA’s English language reports.[/quote]
Good point, however if Non Korean speakers could read the direct translations of what they are really saying when it comes to their unwarranted views of Korean racial superiority then the peninsula as a whole will become hated worldwide.
Please ignore Baduk.
Thanks.
I will win you over yet, Andrei! Though I have a feeling it may take more than one cup of tea.
It’s not that I don’t feel that engagement can break down some hostility with some North Koreans. But I’m guessing that only a few thousand North Koreans have enjoyed any ice-breaking dialogues with South Korean (or American) aid providers in the past ten years, with the remaining 99.9% of the population reading only about the missile launches and other inspiring military triumphs that have been financed by that aid. So I fail to see how aid does more to undermine the regime than to boost it.
Just like PRC, S Korea should start One Korea policy, forcing countries to discontinue relation with NK for trade with SK. China’s “One China” policy have been very successful with Taiwan. Look how many countries have diplomatic relation with Taiwan? UN should also kick NK out of membership.
http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/04/19/2009041900586.html
Hey regarding that last sentence about daepodong being made of 100% japanese materials…is that old news or something you guys weren’t aware of? I certainly had no idea…
So far, our disagreement with Prof.Myers is about the main message of the NK propaganda. He thinks that this propaganda now largely uses the notion of national/racial superiority, so they admit that South is rich, but insist that a) North is purer and hence superior in some nationalist-fundamentalist way; b) this belief is widely or even universally shared by the Southerners whose only dream is to be led by the Pure and Great National Leader. I agree that such message is indeed present since 2000 or so, but it coexists with an older of destitute and ravished South. I also believe that – in spite of the spread of information about the South in recent years – the average North Korean, while suspecting that Southerners are somewhat better off, does not realize how huge the gap is.
Additionally, I also believe (unlike Prof.Myers) that no amount of national pride will withstand the pressure of such a huge difference in the living standards. Some people in the North might reject the Southern prosperity if exposed to it on the ground of its ‘impurity’, but those will be few in numbers and will largely come from elite background. Meanwhile, a vast majority will embrace prosperity and individual freedoms with great enthusiasm, forgetting that they should be loyal soldiers of the Dear Leader and his Very Special Family.
However, Myers–Lankov disagreement is not so irreconcilable, since we both seem to agree that the North Korean regime’s survival is conditioned on a lie (well, actually two lies, we just cannot decide which one is more important). Therefore exposure to the truth is vital. If I am correct, the North Koreans will be impressed by the SK material affluence, technological sophistication and individual freedoms. If Prof.Myers is correct, they will be shocked to learn that no Southerner is eager to live under the wise leadership of Dear General (and, indeed, does not care much about the North at all). Any way, exposure is decisive
How can this exposure be achieved? I believe there are two avenues which should be pursued simultaneously.
CHANEL ONE. This is what I wrote about in Newsweek – official contacts and exchanges, with special emphasis on the inter-personal contacts. Ideally, such contacts should be between Southerners and Northerners, but this is difficult to arrange (North would not allow such contacts in most cases). Nonetheless, any outsiders would do. Scholarships, aid (not money to the regime, but sending specialists to the countryside to participate in various grassroots programs), artistic and scientific exchanges. There is no need to formulate the message or manipulate the exchanges: the exposure and information dissemination will happen itself.
CHANEL ONE, of which I did not write in Newsweek (but wrote a lot in other occasions) is the support for opposition and influencing the North Koreans’ minds in, I’d say, hostile manner (‘hostile’ from the regime’s perspective, of course). I mean broadcast and other methods of information dissemination, support for defection, support for defectors’ groups.
This is a long road, but what is the alternative? Invasion? Sanction which will kill many more Koreans without bringing any change? The mindless oscillation between empty threats and giveaways? I do not see any.
And, last but not least, these measure are cheap, and is compatible with more or less any of the ‘Grand Strategies’ people are so fond of.
Two questions for Dr. Lankov:
As more and more North Koreans realize the truth, what do you expect them to do? Push for reforms within the system or seek its destruction?
How does China factor into engagement with North Korea?
As more and more North Koreans realize the truth, what do you expect them to do? Push for reforms within the system or seek its destruction?
Both, and also look for individual escape (usually, in the most literal way). But if they try reforms, common people will become more aware of their backwardness, and hence more radicalized. so reforms are very likely to lead to a revolution.
How does China factor into engagement with North Korea?
I do not think they will mind. They might even intensify their own engagement which is also good (you know, NK students in Shenyang can surf the Net and learn a lot of things). Troubles with China will begin on the next stage when there is an acute crisis inside NK.
Happiness, as recent psychological studies have made clear, is largely a matter of being better off than others, not of wealth in absolute terms.
Well, “largely” is arguable. Wealth in absolute terms is very important.
OTOH, research shows that unhappiness is rampant in former communist countries. Presumably because the elderly are quite bitter b/c they have been cheated, so much of their accumulated work haven’t lead to accumulated wealth.
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