Looks like the North Koreans will resume shelling in the West Sea.
I sure hope they’re having fun.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
The traitorous fish of the imposter regime will feel the righteous fury!
bad link?
Huge North Korea news today — Markets defeat Kim Jong Il! Bans on the free markets are being lifted, apparently the regime could see trouble in the recent (if barely noticed or even outright denied at ye Hole or other places) waves of unrest, inflation and riots after the flat-footed currency reforms (not to mention that people were beginning to starve). This could have tremendous ramifications, including more pro-market reforms, more border crossings and so on. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end (sounds bold now; might sound obvious later).
Main article:
http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=5977
Regime creates a scapegoat for the failed reforms:
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/02/03/2010020300585.html
Turmoil follows currency reform:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04korea.html?ref=global-home
Robin,
It’s just that we are jaded. We’ve seen the North Korean population endure so many things… but even as Karl Marx once said (paraphrase), “Currency debasement is the greatest threat to social stability.”
… and, “if a prince takes into his head to debase the currency, it is he who loses.”
- Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy
Now i realise it…Maestro Alan found new meaningful employment in the lush land of 조선민주주의인민공화국
The regime is doomed
This guy named Pak Nam-gi, now the former chief of the finance and planning department of the ruling Workers’ Party, is being conveniently scapegoated by Kim Jong-il as the cause of the currency mess. I think at some point he will expire from a brain hemorrhage… one with a 9mm hole in the head.
Wish the same fate was awaiting some guy known as Chopper Benny
Pak Nam-gi is a close member of KJI’s entourage. Really very high up there, like maybe in the top 3?
Note also the currency mess/attack on the markets was originally called the genius program of KJI’s supposed successor Kim Jong-su. Not very auspicious for the “Morningstar General.” I continue to hold that Kim Jong-su will not rule North Korea.
Ah, good point Robin. Now you can see why I don’t post or comment about North Korea so much.
Kim Jong-su may indeed rule North Korea, for three or four months, until things fray enough that he is deposed by the generals.
WangKon I do understand, and understand that North Korea seems so frozen in time that it seems foolish to say “this time it’s different.” But this time it’s different. I’m not saying Pyongyang falls tomorrow afternoon, but these events have almost certainly caused large structural shifts in the North Korean calculus of power and in its social psychology (to sound hi-falutin about it…). Mark Nolan has pointed out that with the ban on hard currency the regime risked knocking up against one of largest holders of FX — the Army.
According to Donald Kagan (you can see watch his course at oyc.yale.edu) tyrants in Ancient Greece only lasted two generations. By the third generation the original excuse for and awe of the tyranny had waned enough for a change of regime. That’s happening in North Korea, in my view. KJI has suffered a stroke and the successor seems to have just shot himself in the foot. The people are rioting (exceptional in a totalitarian regime) and the excuses (ideology & propaganda) for the regime’s actions are wearing thin to say the least. That KJI had to jettison his #3 is saying something.
One excuse remains of course: the threat of outside enemies. What would happen if the US were to sign a peace treaty with North Korea? I think some of the best lessons on the DPRK come from George Orwell. In 1984 the totalitarian states needed the threat of war and an enemy to justify their rule. Thus, Hate Week and so on. And as you may know the DPRK has a Hate Week, an Army First policy and so on. Well, why not sign a peace treaty with North Korea and remove the excuse? But worth it or not a peace treaty is probably impossible. Imagine getting that one through the Senate. And it’s not like it would save money since ROK and US forces would have to remain vigilant (in fact maybe more vigilant than ever).
And yet KJI constantly asks for a peace treaty. He was probably ready to give up his nukes for one, before he had them and before 8 years of “benign neglect” under Dubya&Dick. Now that the DPRK has nukes, years after the US claimed they did in my opinion, they’re not giving them up.
My question: Why does Kim Jong-il want a peace treaty with the US when the US -as-enemy is a major excuse for his rule and its failures?
One possible answer: Because a peace treaty could help him reduce the Army’s political power. KJI knows clearly, I imagine, that his own army is a far greater threat to his regime than the 8th Airborne or any other division. And the mighty Army is unlikely to want to take orders from some little dauphin like Kim Jong-eun. What I’m getting at is the possible tension between the Party and the Army.
The Army is the biggest free trader of them all, by the way. See here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/02/AR2009110203603.html
Also, before the currency confiscations, currency bans and so on there were already high-level anti-corruption crusades from Pyongyang, especially investigating the KPA (Army)-owned trading companies, with unknown success.
So the recent events also reveal something of the power structure and potential struggle between the Party and the Army. The Party, by which I mean the part close to Kim Jong-il, may be trying to regain power from the Army and in so doing prepare for Kim Jong-un’s succession. But it’s not working.
The most obvious thing would be for the Army to take over in one way or another after Kim Jong Il dies. That could be a good thing.
D’oh… Brendon beat me to the punch (while I was busy bloviating).
Kim Jung Su? Um, I think ya’ll mean Kim Jung Un.
DLB
Yes Kim Jong-un (김정은). The Swiss-educated dauphin/shark bait. I made the typo first and Brendon followed.
Yes Kim Jong-un (김정은). The Swiss-educated dauphin/shark bait. I made the slip first and Brendon followed.
Yes Kim Jong-un (김정은). The Swiss-educated dauphin/shark bait. I made the slip first and Brendon followed.
Robin, I think you will find what Mr. Joo Seong-Ha wrote about half a year ago. (Don’t worry, I translated it.) Link
Basically, he pinpoints the exact same issue as you do.
You’re right, I was just following Robin Hedge’s comment. I don’t know who Kim Jong-su is. But I do know that the end is nigh.
… a year ago *interesting. Damn.
thekorean that’s a cool link and translation (and I like your blog btw) but I’m not sure I understand how our points are the same. It’s funny too, everyone seems to love Joo Seong-ha. I find his stuff OK I guess, what I’m able to read with my broken-down Korean… but somehow not so special. But may not be giving him a fair chance. I do like his points about the generational differences within the North Korean leadership.
Joo Seong-ha was dead wrong about the currency incidents, by the way. He said it was no biggie, that we just didn’t understand the North Korean central planning system which would simply replace the free trade and production, and this was pointed out to me on this very blog as I tried to get people to believe that the currency incident could be a big deal. Joo has already been proven wrong on that one.
Now I’m trying to figure out where the Army fits within the context of the currency incident and attack on trade. But however I look at it I’m seeing more and more that the Army is the most likely inheritor to the throne. So my next question becomes, who is the Korean People’s Army? How unified is it? I already have some small understanding, but not enough. How happy is the relationship between party and army? Would an Army-controlled ruler be likely to open the country economically? That’s becoming my primary question I guess.
Anyway korean thanks for the link.
Not exactly the same, but the same point about how external threat serves North Korea well. (Of course, your main point is a step further than that.)
He said it was no biggie, but not because the regime would replace free market — he said it was no biggie because the currency reform was not enough to change the status quo at that time. And I think he turned out to be exactly right. The status quo at that time was a lot of free market in North Korea. The regime tried to change it, but eventually the free market won out.
(And I was the main proselytizer of Joo’s message here, so if there is any miscommunication of Joo’s original point, the fault is all mine.)
Of course, like you suggest, currency reform could be the first step toward destabilization of KJI regime, even though the status quo may have been restored for now. Then the argument that Joo was wrong would have some merit.
I see. I still think he was wrong, but I should re-read Joo’s article. The status quo has indeed changed: one of the top officials has been sacked, there have been previously unthinkable riots, *hyperinflation,* there’s still no official price for most goods, people are more open about their frustrations with the regime, and most important the regime has been observed trying but failing to implement major policy. They have created enemies but because the jangmadang are coming back and presumably cross-border trade will continue or expand, those enemies may reestablish themselves. To me it’s anything but the status quo.
Still, looking over a few translations of yours (other articles) I do see some points of Joo’s that I like, for example his notion that KJI is in love with the USA (I think that seems very plausible in certain ways and have had the same suspicions) but can’t align with it because even to take down the gulags would seriously threaten his regime (I’ve believed this for a long time now; it’s the DPRK Catch-22). I’ll try and re-read his takes on the currency incident, through your translations and my own reading despite my handicapped Korean vocabulary (and the way journalog.net makes it impossible to copy text and therefore impossible to use Google translate/dictionaries with any ease and of course doesn’t have foreigners as members unless they have a special ROK ID number… makes a little white boy want to cry… frustrating how the Korean Internet is so cluelessly closed-off to “foreigners” which means of course the whole world…).
And to not get blinded by one-track-mind thinking, here’s something from the front page of today’s FT Companies & Markets section highlighting the regime’s attempts to grow not stultify the economy:
N Korea [cellular] operator looks to millions of 3G users
…says its subsidiary in North Korea, Koryolink, has acquired 100,000…network from there, Mr Bichara said North Korea was laying fibre-optic cables in the…technologically advanced 3G network in North Korea, he said. …
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bdf6f660-1062-11df-a8e8-00144feab49a.html
Looks like North Korea will get what it wanted:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hiHcEuIDuEBSqIvDjoAozRO9lh7A
Yes, the North Korean government is that pathetic.
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