Intruding on the Hermit : Glimpses of North Korea

EAST-WEST CENTER

EAST-WEST CENTER SPECIAL REPORTS

Number i

July 1993

INTRUDING

ON THE HERMIT:

GLIMPSES OF

NORTH KOREA BRADLEY K. MARTIN

Based on three visits to North Korea by an American journalist between 1979 and 1992, this report highlights changes from the 1970s, when the North had much to boast about in its com• parative level of economic development, to the 1990s when communism's failures at home and abroad have placed the regime in desperate straits.

East-West Center Special Reports are authored by scholars, journalists and other commentators and examine issues of importance to the Asia- Pacific region and the United States. EAST-WEST CENTER East-West Center East West Center Special Reports 1777 East-West Road present a thoughtful synthesis of The U.S. Congress established the Honolulu, Hawaii 96848 knowledge on issues of importance to East-West Center in 1960 to foster the Asia-Pacific region and the United Telephone: (808) 944-7197 mutual understanding and cooperation States. Special Reports are authored Facsimile: (808) 944-7376 among the governments and peoples by scholars, journalists and other of the Asia-Pacific region, including President commentators and are intended for the United States. Principal funding Michel Oksenberg those who make or influence policy for the Center comes from the U.S. decisions in the United States, Asia Vice President for Research and government, with additional support and the Pacific, including educators, Development provided by private agencies, individ• scholars, journalists, business people Bruce M. Koppel uals and corporations, and more than and individuals with a broad interest 20 Asian and Pacific governments. Director of Office of Public Programs in Asia or the Pacific. For additional The Center promotes responsible Webster Nolan copies or other information, please contact the series editor. development, long-term stability and Publications Manager human dignity for all people in the Elisa W Johnston The East-West Center solicits and region and helps prepare the United responds to the guidance of expert States for constructive involvement Series Editor, East-West Center Special Reports reviewers for manuscripts included in in Asia and the Pacific. this series. The interpretations and find• Anne Stewart ings expressed in this publication are, however, those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the East-West Center. EAST-WEST CENTER SPECIAL REPORTS

EAST-WEST CENTER Number i 1777 East-West Road July 1993

Honolulu, Hawaii 9684B

INTRUDING ON THE HERMIT:

GLIMPSES OF NORTH KOREA

BRADLEY K. MARTIN

CONTENTS Summary 2

A Brief History 3 The South Revs Up 4 The North Stalls 4

1979: To the City of the God-King 5 The Land that Juche Built 6 Masters of the Nation 9

1989: Stuck But Still Hoping 11 Economic Problems 12 Changing to Stay the Same 13 Pans Abroad 15

1992 and Beyond 16 An Economic Crisis 16 Join the World 17 Economic Apartheid 18 Fraternal Dealings 19 Nuclear Card 22 Revisionism in Pyongyang 25 Outside Influences 27

Looking Ahead 27

Endnotes 30

References 31 2

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Bradley K. Martin began work on this SUMMARY report while journalist- In the post-Korean War period, South Korea turned in a dismal economic per• in-residence at the East-West Center's formance while the North Koreans used the Stalinist model to lay an impres• Program on Commu• nications and Journal• sive base for economic development. Becoming all-powerful at home as he ism during 1991-92. eliminated his rivals, North Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung in 1958 even He has covered Asia for more than IS boasted that his country would catch up with Japan. In the 1960s, though, years, including serv• Pyongyang started to bump up against the limits of what could be achieved ing as Tokyo bureau chief for Newsweek, with a command economy. South Korean military rulers, meanwhile, finally The Asian Wall Street found the formula for export-led growth that would create the "Korean mira• Journal and The Balti• more Sun and as the cle." By 1972, when Northern delegates went to Seoul for talks on easing ten• Sun's Beijing and New sions, they could see that the South had positioned itself to overtake the Delhi bureau chief Martin began his in• North economically. Pyongyang then embarked on a two-decades-long series volvement with Asia of attempts to bring in from the West, Japan and even South Korea the money as a student of Chinese history at and technology needed to modernize production. Princeton and as a Peace Corps volunteer As the author found on his visits to the country in 1979, 1989 and 1992, teacher in Thailand. however, those efforts to modernize with outside help were doomed by the re• He is currently a Ful- bright research fellow gime's determination to keep out accompanying ideas and values that would based in Seoul and is threaten the rule of the deified Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il. Despite writing a book about divided Korea. reported shortages of food and consumer goods, the Kims relied on their to• talitarian control over the people to pull the country through without fun•

damental change. "Our country has no glasnost or perestroika" one North

Korean boasted in 1989. "Our policy is unchanged for 40 years. No one

wants to change." Now with the collapse of Soviet and Eastern European com•

munism and of the communist world's barter-trade bloc, North Korea's econ•

omy is shrinking and its people are reportedly growing restive. With the re•

gime under such pressure at home, there is a danger that Pyongyang may be

tempted to some drastic external action—of which its March 1993 announce•

ment that it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may

have been a precursor. 3

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West Center. Those three visits took me

eventually to almost every region of the country. This paper analyzes the North's approach to change from the 1970s,

when it had much to boast of in its

comparative level of economic develop• ment, to the 1990s, when communism's

failures at home and abroad have placed the regime in desperate straits.

A BRIEF HISTORY

The communist and pro-Western re•

gimes have struggled grimly for hege•

mony on the Korean peninsula for

more than 40 years through war and

an uneasy peace. Encouraged by Stalin,

North Korea's Kim Il-sung sent his

forces south across the 38th parallel

dividing line to launch the Korean War

in June 1950. After American-led forces

under the United Nations flag inter•

vened and chased the North Korean

People's Army to the Chinese border, China sent its soldiers, who pushed

the UN forces back. The seesawing bat• tles ended with the two sides arrayed against each other in the vicinity of the former border. An armistice took effect A half-century of ferocious competition with subsequent peaceful Korean unifi• in 1953, with U.S. forces remaining in between South Korea and North Korea cation, to economic, social and political South Korea to deter further hostilities. for survival and dominance has come breakdown on one or both sides of the In the post-Korean War period, the down to what in chess would be called Demilitarized Zone. There could even Syngman Rhee regime in Seoul faltered the "endgame," an analogy I borrow be another Korean war, this time com• politically and turned in a dismal eco• from Donald Gregg, former U.S. Am• plicated by North Korea's suspected nomic performance while the North bassador to South Korea. The South program to develop nuclear weapons. Koreans used the Stalinist model to lay can foresee victory but to checkmate I have been a first-hand observer of an impressive base for economic de• Pyongyang's ambitions must complete much of this struggle since 1977, when velopment. A recent study shows North a series of final moves without serious I began covering South Korea. Permis• and South neck and neck at the time of mistake or surprise. Just ahead is a sion to enter North Korea has been the 1953 armistice, with gross national time that has the potential for being given only rarely to American journal• product (GNP) per capita of $56 and the most dangerous or rewarding phase ists, but I am fortunate to have visited $55 respectively; by 1960 the South at of a rivalry that has raged since Japa• the "hermit kingdom" on three occa• $60 had barely advanced, while the nese rule ended in 1945. The possible sions: in 1979 as Tokyo bureau chief of North's per capita GNP had nearly outcomes range from a maturation of 1 The Baltimore Sun, in 1989 as News- quadrupled to S208. Even in 1965 the South Korean politics and a successful week's Tokyo bureau chief and in 1992 North's $292 was more than three times North Korean opening to the world, as journalist-in-residence at the East- the South's $88, according to this 4

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set of estimates.* Meanwhile, a Western According to Byoung-Lo Philo Kim, * Citing a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency report academic's 1965 article entitled "Korean "Central planning was highly effective among others, Byoung-Lo Philo Kim (1992:66) ob• Miracle" referred not to the South Ko• and capable of developing the North serves: "Although a GNP comparison is hard to draw because of the lack of reliable data and rean but to the North Korean economy.2 Korean economy at the beginning differences in measurement, several estimates agree stage—the first seven or fifteen years— Pyongyang's propaganda organs on the suggestion that the North had a higher per capitalized on this economic progress relying on mobilization measures. As capita output than the South at least until the to portray the North as an egalitarian the size of the economy grew, the com• mid-1970s." paradise. "The South was literally a plexity of planning and choice-making t "Unlike the Soviet Union and other East Euro• multiplied, making the central decision• desolate land," wrote an East German pean countries, which tended to decentralize busi• who visited North Korea in the early making process more inefficient and ness management gradually, North Korea adopted 1960s. "Only helmets of the American wasteful than in the formative and re• in 1961 a policy of further centralizing and tight• 3 soldiers were shining. But to the north construction period." Despite prob• ening up entrepreneurial control and manage• of the demarcation line as far as the lems, Kim Il-sung stubbornly hewed to ment" (Cha 1979:3).

eye can reach there were fields of gold• a policy of Stalinist centralism, t Mean• X Katsumi Sato, editor of Gendai Korea and a en grain."3 Premier Kim Il-sung in 1958 while, the cost of Pyongyang's obses• leading Japanese Korea-watcher, told me this story even boasted of "our ability to catch up sion with military superiority over the in a 1991 interview: Before the North and South with Japan in the machinery industry."4 far more populous South proved to be agreed on a joint declaration in July 1972 that was to be the beginning of a dialogue, North Becoming all-powerful at home as he a crushing burden. Korean Vice Premier Pak Son-chol secretly visited eliminated his rivals, Kim was held up According to one analysis, 1976 was the South. When he returned to Pyongyang, he as a beacon to the countries of the the first year that the South's per capita reported to Kim Il-sung that the South was not Third World and the Nonaligned GNP surpassed that of the North—but the backward, poverty-ridden country popularly Movement. the South's growth rate had outpaced portrayed in the North. Kim snapped: "You look the North's since 1966.6 By 1972, when at things that way because your ideology is The South Revs Up delegates from Pyongyang went to Seoul wrong." After that, Pak dropped out of sight for three or four months. Sato said he heard from for talks on easing tensions, it was be• The North-South contest entered a new more than two North Korean sources that the vice coming apparent that the South had phase after a student-led revolution in premier was sent to a Workers' (communist) Party positioned itself to overtake the North the South kicked Rhee out in 1960 school for ideological reeducation. If he hadn't economically. The duly impressed and, the following year, a group of been a relative of President Kim's, his punishment Northern delegates—to the extent they would have included loss of his job and authority. military officers led by General Park dared to be seen as bearers of bad Sato said: "The point is, everybody has seen this Chung-hee took power. The authoritar• tidings—took the news home to Kim son of thing happen, and therefore nobody work• ian regimes of Park and his successor, Il-sung and their elite colleagues.J ing for Kim and his son will tell them the truth." General Chun Doo-hwan, gave great scope to the efforts of often brilliant § "In a nutshell," Kim Il-sung said in a speech in the 1970s, juche means "having the attitude of economists and dynamic business lead• The North Stalls master toward revolution and construction in one's ers. They operated from the Japanese Modifying Kim Il-sung's policy of na• own country. This means . . . refraining from de• model of a market economy with close tional self-sufficiency or juchefi the pendence upon others and using your own brains, bureaucratic guidance, taking full ad• Pyongyang regime tried to change its believing your own strength and displaying the vantage of a low-cost, hard-working, luck by importing technology. In the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solv• ing your own problems for yourself on your own well-trained labor force. The formula early 1970s, North Korea borrowed responsibility under all circumstances- It means worked, producing in the South a rap• hundreds of millions of dollars to buy idly wealth-expanding, relatively free . . . applying the universal principles of Marxism- new factories from Japan and the West. Leninism and the experience of other countries to economy. The contradiction between The plan was to repay the debts with suit the historical conditions and national peculiar• growing prosperity and the repression the increased export income that the ities of your own country" (Scalapino and Lee needed to keep the military-backed dic• new technology would provide. But the 1972:660). tatorship in power contributed to fre• strategy failed, partly because of a quent political turmoil in the South. downturn in the world economy. Un• The North soon started to bump able to repay those debts, the regime be• up against the limits of what could be came known in international financial achieved with a command economy. circles as a bad credit risk. Pyongyang 5

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had botched the first of many attempts To North Koreans, Kim Il-sung was to take money and technology—but not more than just a leader, he was the ideas and values—from the West. center of a virtual religion. Kim show• Pyongyang's image was damaged fur• ered his people with fatherly love; ther in 1976 when ax-wielding North perhaps he was immortal. This realiza• Korean soldiers killed two American tion crystallized one evening as I officers who were supervising soldiers watched a performance of the opera trimming a tree in the Demilitarized "Song of Paradise," in which a chorus, Zone. overcome with joy at the wonders of Casting about for anything that socialist construction, unleashed a could arrest the negative trend in its mighty, soaring, swelling hymn worthy North Korea fortunes, Pyongyang noted the positive of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir: "With the Leader who unfolded this started to bump results of the "ping-pong diplomacy" that led to diplomatic relations between paradise, we shall live for generations up against the limits China and the United States. North to come." of what could be Korean officials figured reducing ten• A partial listing of Kim Il-sung's ta• achieved with a sions with Washington—preferably over lents made Thomas Jefferson and Leo• command economy the head of Seoul, which they still nardo da Vinci look like dropouts. Kim derided as a "puppet" regime—could was the country's leading novelist, phi• give them some room in which to ma• losopher, educator, designer, architect, neuver. Thus Pyongyang, hosting the industrial management specialist, gener• world table tennis tournament in April al, ping-pong trainer—and agriculture 1979, tried some ping-pong diplomacy experimenter. "Our great leader" said of its own. It received the first large my interpreter, "has a small plot at his contingent of Americans to visit the residence where he tests planting for a North since the Korean War. I was part year or two." Finding a promising of the accompanying press delegation. strain, "he gives it to the scientists." Reverence was the expected response to the leader's great love for his people. 1979: TO THE CITY OF THE In North Korea, nearly all the songs we GOD-KING heard were about Kim Il-sung. Usually they were sung tenderly, with the exqui• Reading about the Kim Il-sung perso• sitely agonizing but somehow exultant nality cult had not fully prepared me groping upward toward something pre• for Pyongyang. The appearance of the cious but lost, perhaps unknowable, city, the workings of the economy, the that characterizes much serious church diplomatic initiatives of the time—all music in the West. were mere details, secondary to the Television documentaries showed the astonishing all-pervasiveness of the Kim president out among the people, giving cult. "on-the-spot guidance" to farmers. Everyone I spoke with sprinkled his Sweet, sad instrumental music began or her speech with references to "our when his face became visible. A televi• respected and beloved leader" "our sion news program showed a foreign vi• great leader" "our fatherly leader." sitor picking up a book from a display. Everyone I saw wore Kim's unsmiling The camera moved in for a close-up of portrait on a gold-framed, enameled the volume, which was one of Kim's badge pinned to the left breast. Larger many works. Sweet, sad music played portraits and statues of the leader were as the image lingered on the screen. everywhere. People, at least those with whom 6

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foreign visitors got to talk, spoke about the best in the world. Of course, most much of that had been wiped out in the leader the same way they sang had little basis for comparison. Few the Korean War. Both restoring and about him—solemnly but lovingly. traveled outside the country, and those building anew, the North Koreans had Their eyes showed their sincerity, and who did were trusted cadres. Foreign achieved considerable industrialization. there was no outward sign of cynicism. news was carefully selected, with little At the same time they had irrigated, The educational system had trained from the industrialized West, and often fertilized and mechanized in their strug• youngsters to worship Kim. School- featured stories about foreigners gather• gle to squeeze from their largely moun• books portrayed him in heroic roles, ing to celebrate the brilliance of Kim II- tainous land enough food to sustain especially leading guerrilla forces prior sung's thought and its applicability to them. People seemed to be adequately to liberation from Japanese colonial rule the underdeveloped world.* housed and clothed. Although few in 1945. The stories were illustrated A party member, asked what would North Koreans were fat, I didn't notice with drawings similar to those of Sun• happen after Kim's death, replied: "If any obvious signs of malnutrition.t day school literature in the United he dies—I mean when he dies—we'll There was austerity, apparently rather States. Some pictures showed an adult find another leader." Kim Il-sung's evenly shared, but I did not see desti• Kim, sometimes surrounded by children choice for the job was his son, Kim tution. in tableaux reminiscent of pictures ac• Jong-il, then 37 and running the secre• Chaperoned journeys outside Pyong• companying Jesus's words, "Suffer the tariat of the Workers' Party. yang revealed neat rice paddies, vege• little children to come unto me." An The younger Kim had been largely table fields and orchards lined with aura, similar to a halo, was even af• out of the public view for several years. irrigation canals, trucks and tractors fixed to the great leader's head. A stu• There had been rumors that he was greatly outnumbering the bullock-pulled dent at Kim Il-sung University told me dead, or had been in an automobile carts and plows, and farmers housed in about how Kim 11-sung had sent a team collision and was a "vegetable." By apartment complexes or clusters of tile- of doctors and medicine "worth the 1979 it was known that he was alive roofed, masonry-walled houses. Here cost of a small factory" aboard one of and healthy, but he was hardly ever and there were towns and small cities, his planes when he heard that a resi• mentioned by name publicly. Rather, he each a miniature Pyongyang, the men dent of the mountains was critically ill. was referred to by the code term "the and women neatly dressed, the children Kim Il-sung clearly possesses con• party center" or "the glorious party siderable political genius. In his ability center." Many Pyongyang-watchers * I observed some of those gatherings in Tokyo. to make North Koreans feel personally thought this curious anonymity had to They were small sessions sponsored by the associ• indebted to him, he seemed to operate do with efforts to buy time in which to ation of pro-Pyongyang Korean residents and at• much like a successful old-time Ameri• pacify those who were not eager to see tended largely by figures from the Old Left and can big-city boss. Whatever anybody a hereditary succession. New Left. got in the way of goodies came in Still, by 1979 Kim Jong-iPs days in t Byoung-Lo Philo Kim (1992:66) estimates South Kim's name, as a "gift." Instead of the political wilderness appeared to be Korean per capita GNP of $518 versus $605 in North Korea in 1975, the last year he thinks the Christmas, North Koreans celebrated ending. His likeness had started to ap• South was behind. Kim's birthday—and the great leader pear alongside that of his father in a gave a present to each child, just like few of the portraits that decorated en• t Of course, what I did not see could have been a different matter. There may well have been va• Santa Claus. trances to buildings. lidity in South Korean reports such as this one: I wondered if the popular reverence "The claim of the Pyongyang regime to have at• was truly unanimous and asked the one tained the goal of 8 million-ton grain production The Land that Juche Built of my official escorts who had seemed is belied by the prevalence of pellagra victims the most forthright. "Of course we have Although statistics say that South Korea caused largely by malnutrition throughout north people who dissent," he replied. "That's had pulled ahead of the North in per Korea. A shortage of food grains that forces the north Korean population to eat large quantities of why we have police." But indoctrination capita GNP by 1979,t a first-time visi• maize with little intake of animal protein makes tor could still find himself favorably in the cult of Kim had steadily intensi• north Koreans vulnerable to the disease" (Lee fied over the years, and people under impressed by the economic and social 1979:7,9). Scholars from the area of Northeast 40 appeared more fanatical than their infrastructure of North Korea. Four de• China near the North Korean border also told me elders. These young people seemed to cades of Japanese rule had built up a in a 1992 interview that problems of insufficient believe that much of what they had was substantial infrastructure in Korea, but food had begun before my 1979 visit. 7

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walking to or from school in the uni• Reports of North Korea's economic forms of the youth corps. shambles, however exaggerated com• All this seemed at first glance to set pared with the real situation in 1979, North Korea apart from other develop• did have their basis in genuine difficul• ing nations—despite extremely negative ties. One was the country's failure to appraisals describing the country as an pay its foreign trade debts, estimated by economic basket case that had started 1979 to amount to more than $2 bil• to appear in Western studies and press lion. In addition, drought had affected reports. To ride for mile after mile harvests for several years. through broad streets lined with trees But officials' talk during my visit and neat, multistory apartment build• was upbeat. Rains in that spring of ings in the park-studded capital of 1979 had filled the reservoirs, and they Pyongyang was to find that apparent claimed the country would be able to reality contrasted sharply with such pay off its foreign debts by 1984, the outside views. end of the then current seven-year 8

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economic plan. The plan was ambi• took the opportunity to nap in their tious, calling for nearly doubled electri• own rooms. Once they were out of the cal power output and steel production. way, I went back downstairs and strode Many outsiders were skeptical about out the lobby door into the park. the chances of meeting the goals. But Spying a narrow footbridge, I already North Korea had a settled, crossed to the other side of the river built-up, well-tended look, as if the and into what I took to be something basic development had been completed approximating the real world of Pyong• and a stage of consolidation reached. yang: neat apartment buildings, grimy sheds and small industrial installations. An Unguided Tour Like many other vi• People looked at me suspiciously. I have sitors I could not help suspecting that no idea who was the first of them to the authorities had arranged for us to rush off and inform the authorities that see only showplaces built to disguise a lone foreigner was loose in the city, underlying poverty. The movements of but it was only a matter of minutes be• foreign visitors were minutely con• fore I turned around and saw a man trolled, apparently for fear that we tailing me. Still, he only followed me would learn something we should not, and didn't force me to turn back. So plus fear that we might spread alien for a couple of hours I enjoyed unac• knowledge and opinions that could un• customed freedom of movement. dermine North Koreans' confidence in The parts of Pyongyang I saw that Kim Il-sung's leadership. afternoon turned out to be much like I was assigned to stay in the Potong- the places on the official itinerary: There was no sign gang Hotel, isolated in a large park solidly built and clean, for the most of a real boom such that separated its guests from the daily part, with real people living in beige as South Korea had life of Pyongyang. I kept asking if I brick apartment buildings, shopping in could wander around by myself, but the stores and eating in restaurants. been experiencing this was politely forbidden. If I wanted My handlers, looking a little pan• for several years to go anywhere, my guide and inter• icked, were waiting for me outside the preter said, they would happily go with hotel when I returned. One of them an• me. They took turns covering the grily suggested that "special spy train• hotel's single exit. If I tried to leave, ing" had enabled me to give them the they would join me, escort me into the slip. I laughed and assured him that Volvo I had been assigned and give the anyone who had grown up watching driver directions. They explained this in cops-and-robbers shows on American terms of hospitality—I was a guest, new television was acquainted with the tech• to the country and needed guidance— niques for losing a tail. but occasionally someone would allude more or less gently to the fact that I Comparison with the South I took a came from a country that was officially trip by car on a recently completed an enemy of theirs. expressway across 100 miles of moun• I was determined to take at least one tainous terrain between Pyongyang unplanned look at Pyongyang. It ap• and the east coast port of Wonsan. peared North Koreans (like the Chinese) Although some construction was in observed the custom of the siesta. One progress, there was no sign of a real day after lunch I yawned conspicuously, boom such as capitalist South Korea said I'd like to have a rest and went up had been experiencing for several years. to my room. My guide and interpreter Missing were the streets and highways 9

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clogged with private cars and taxis, ginally sought to reduce dependence on new hotels opulent enough for Dallas Moscow, which preferred a colonial- or Palm Springs going up in the heart style arrangement of exchanging Soviet of the capital, a vibrant stock market finished products for North Korean fueled with cash from a new middle ores and other raw materials. class. But neither did one see in North Juche had led the North Koreans to Korea the slums, prostitution and street develop the ability to produce an im• waifs hawking chewing gum that were pressive array of goods. At the indus• easily found in the South of 1979. trial and agricultural exhibition in One did not, North and South Korea each Pyongyang were exhibited thousands of however, see in the claimed per capita GNP of more than products, from automated, close-toler• ance machine tools to locomotives and North the slums, $1,200. Western and South Korean esti• mates at the time placed the Northern excavation machinery to pharmaceuti• prostitution and figure at only about half that amount, cals to toys—all described as having street waifs easily giving the twice-as-populous South an been manufactured within North Korea, found in the South enormous advantage in the overall a country the size of Pennsylvania. weight of its economy. It was possible "Maybe the quality needs to be im• those estimates from sources unfriendly proved, by Western standards," the exhi• to the North had overstated the differ• bition director conceded, "but we're ence, and it was difficult to compare proud that we made it ourselves." the two quite different economic sys• North Korea bought what it must tems. Still, it seemed that there was a from other countries, substituting to gap in the South's favor and that it keep the need for imports to a mini• might well continue to widen—if the mum. The climate made cotton hard to vagaries of the international economy grow and there was little land to spare and then-rampant inflation did not take for sheep to graze, so the country relied too heavy a toll in the South. on Korean-developed processes for mak• North Korea claimed to be immune ing fibers from locally available materi• from such forces. With state-set prices, als. The most notable was vinalon, necessities were cheap. Rice, the basic made of anthracite and limestone—both dietary staple, went for the equivalent of which were "inexhaustible in our of two cents a pound at the official ex• country" the director explained. (He change rate. Anything deemed a luxury, added that when it came time to build on the other hand, was very expensive. the first vinalon factory, "the fatherly A black-and-white television cost the leader selected the site personally.") equivalent of $175—more than three Production had expanded to the point months' wages for the average worker. that the annual cloth allotment was The state provided housing, health care 35.2 meters per person—so the ques• and education without levying taxes. tion of clothing is completely solved." North Korea, however, lacked oil, Masters of the Nation which had to be imported from China, As for the ups and downs of the world the Soviet Union and the Middle East. economy, North Korea for more than The government required that workers two decades had been following Kim's live near their workplaces and use pub• philosophy of juche, which emphasized lic transit. Officials explained that this satisfying basic needs from local indus• policy reduced oil demand, and thus tries using locally available resources. dependence on outsiders. In the cities, That inward focus of the economy ori• trolley systems used power generated in to

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anthracite-fired or hydroelectric plants. one million.)7 Officials in Pyongyang The sparse traffic gave Pyongyang an denied that there were that many, but almost deserted look, prompting West• indirectly acknowledged that maintain• ern visitors to describe it as a ghost ing a huge and costly military force put city. a crimp in economic development. "It's The juche policy contrasted with difficult to do something with one hand South Korean development that was tied behind our backs," one said. based largely on pushing exports and Consumer goods were another prob• encouraging foreign investments, a pol• lem. Shortly after the Korean war, the icy which in North Korean eyes made regime resolved policy disputes in favor the South no better than a colony of of President Kim's formula of going all Japan and the United States. The dif• out to build heavy industry, putting off ference could be seen in South Korean until later an improvement in living estimates that North Korea's external standards beyond the spartan level. The trade in 1978 had amounted to only results could be seen by comparing $1.8 billion—about one-fifteenth the North Korea's serviceable machine tools volume of South Korea's international with its consumer goods: scarce, crude trade. and lacking in variety. Kim ll-sung Despite the settled look of North The country made basic appliances— seemed determined Korea, strains and pressures were electric rice cookers, washers, refrigera• to banish any evident. For one thing, manpower re• tors, televisions—but had yet to place sources were stretched almost to the them in all households. This would problems by breaking point. Pyongyang's deserted take "a few years," an official said. Fur• intensifying the look during most of the day and night niture looked as if it had been banged same old was not wholly a result of mass transit together by children in a shop class, approaches and housing policy; people simply had clothing was generally poorly tailored, little time to stroll on the streets. the radio-phonographs in hotel rooms The government claimed a maxi• did not work. "Improving the people's mum eight-hour workday rule was life" was a major goal of the then cur• enforced, with another eight hours rent seven-year economic plan, and offi• reserved for study and the remaining cials said the plan emphasized eight hours for rest, according to the improving the quality and variety of dictum of President Kim. But parks consumer goods. and housing complexes were almost de• Part of the quality problem was said void of people until late in the evening to result from the laziness of some work• and questions about actual work start• ers who lacked the communist attitude ing and quitting times elicited vague re• of "one for all, all for one," and who plies. Nurseries kept children until 8 were not behaving, in President Kim's p.m. or later while their mothers, if phrase, as "masters of the nation." In they were not working overtime at their jobs, attended group study sessions. * Women made up 45 percent of North Korea's Among young workers, one saw far labor force in 1981, according to the South's Na• more women than men. South Korean tional Unification Board. By 1989, according to Eberstadt and Banister (1990), the far greater par• figures said women made up nearly ticipation of women in the North's work force was half the labor force.* Foreign intelli• reflected in a total participation rate for both men gence agencies at that time estimated and women of 78.5 percent. This compares wiih that about 700,000 men (or one in ev• an official South Korean work force participation ery 24 North Koreans) were in military rate for the same year of 58.3 percent (Byoung-Lo' service. (The current estimate is almost Philo Kim 1992:92). EAST-WEST CENTER

that stage of development of North monuments and extravagant festivities, newfound status. Pyongyang tried to Korean society, officials admitted, it hoping to persuade its subjects that muscle in on Seoul's act, demanding to was necessary to employ a system of their sacrifices were worthwhile. But the co-host the Olympics. The South material incentives. Work teams got evident confusion and panic within the agreed to discuss the matter, but nego• extra money for exceeding not only Northern leadership increased as old al• tiations collapsed. North Korea's lead• quantitative quotas but also quality lies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet ers then decided to use their turn to standards, and they were supposed to Union cast off communism—and with host the World Festival of Youth and find their pay docked if their work fell it, their special relationships with Students—a sports-and-ideology bash off. Pyongyang. well known in countries with strong To make better consumer goods, One by one, countries that had fa• socialist movements but virtually North Korean leaders wanted to import vored North Korea or tried to maintain unknown in the United States—as a selected technology from advanced equal relationships with the two Koreas showcase of their own. Having kept countries—but they couldn't because of were wooing the South and ignoring Western journalists at a distance since Pyongyang's debt problem. Even so, it the North. North Korea had little to suffering unfavorable coverage of the seemed that the command economy offer. South Korea, in contrast, was a 1979 ping-pong tournament, Pyongyang had built itself an impressive founda• potential source of trade, investment, officials decided to admit a press con• tion. The magnitude of the achievement technology, advice and aid. The trend tingent. In the summer of 1989 I found could be judged by taking a train from was clear from the time Hungary and myself once again in Pyongyang. Pyongyang to Beijing. The vistas of South Korea set up trade offices in each Through an accident of timing, the neat, substantial farm houses, tractors other's capitals from late 1987. Other Pyongyang festival opened right after and rice-planting machines and well- East European countries followed Buda• the Tiananmen Square massacre in Chi• scrubbed, solidly built towns gave way pest's lead, and diplomatic recognition na. Not only journalists but even dele• at the Yalu River to China's squalid followed trade. gates from European countries with rural huts, urban slums, people and From early in the 1980s, the North's relatively moderate socialist movements draft animals engaged in backbreaking leaders had responded to the signs focused on the obvious similarities be• labor. The comparison was much more Pyongyang was losing the contest with tween the human rights situations in startling than any that could then be Seoul by resorting to terror. North China and North Korea. People attend• made between the economic develop• Korean agents assassinated four South ing the festival's opening ceremony ment levels of North and South Korea. Korean cabinet members and 13 other watched as Scandinavian and Italian officials visiting Rangoon, Burma, in delegates, marching around the stadi• 1983, and bombed a Korean Airlines um, briefly held up signs questioning 1969: STUCK BUT STILL HOPING passenger jet in 1987, killing all 115 human rights policies in North Korea people aboard. Maddeningly for Pyong• and in China. By 1989, when I next visited North yang, the South went on to increase its The demonstration was, to be sure, Korea, South Korea's GNP had expand• lead over the North not only economi• a foreigners' protest. The assumption ed to nearly $5,000 per capita while cally but politically. In 1987 student-led must be that the North Koreans seated economic performance in the North demonstrations forced President Chun in the stadium and witnessing it were continued to lag. Persistent reports Doo-hwan, the ex-general then ruling in part of the privileged class of Kim's reaching the outside world had told of Seoul, to agree to free elections. North loyalists, permitted to reside in the capi• serious food shortages. Kim Il-sung and Korea's chief talking point had been the tal and perhaps less likely than others his lieutenants seemed determined to military dictatorship in the South; now to be inspired to action by the pro• banish any problems by intensifying the that the South's people could choose testers' signs. North Koreans insisted, same old approaches. Communist lead• their leaders democratically, Pyongyang as in 1979, that they enjoyed complete ers in China, Hungary and elsewhere would have to scramble to find ammu• freedom. What about the reports by were experimenting with individual in• nition for its propaganda blasts. human rights groups that tens of thou• centives and free markets. The Pyong• Among South Korea's successes, sands of citizens were imprisoned for yang leadership meanwhile dreamed up none galled the North's leaders more political offenses? "There is no one ever more costly and elaborate schemes than the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which against the government in our country," to burnish its prestige with grandiose celebrated and spotlighted the South's a festival guide replied. "It's a lie." 12

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Yet, foreign analysts who had inter• Consumer Goods Clearly consumer residents of Japan who had repatriated viewed refugees from North Korea, for durables were a problem, although the and whose remaining relatives in Japan example, had quoted some of the regime sought to counter the impres• kept them supplied. Northerners as complaining about ex• sion. During the youth festival the Officials were sensitive about the haustion from the almost constant de• authorities stepped up shipments to the broadening gap in living standards and mands for "voluntary" labor and "speed stores. I doubted that the stores shown tried to persuade foreign journalists to campaigns." And a human rights group to foreigners were representative of ignore it. "Don't compare us with the claimed that 40 students at Kim Chaek those where ordinary North Koreans advanced countries," said one official. University and another college campus routinely shopped. Even so, the goods "Remember, we had to build everything had been arrested a year earlier after displayed there in 1989 were an im• from the destruction of the war. And posters appeared questioning the re• provement over the dreary selection we had to do it so that everyone could gime's economic policies. seen a decade earlier. Designs of some share the same level. That's not easy." goods such as women's handbags had But the regime seemed to know it Economic Problems clearly improved. Clothing, especially would have to offer more of the good Electrical power was in permanent women's clothing, showed more color life, especially consumer goods. shortage. Stores were not switching on and variety. their lights except during weekends and Some items were notable for either A Technology Gap Catching up would on special occasions. The youth festival their unavailability or their poor quali• require upgrading technology in such was just such a special occasion, and ty. One popular item among North fields as electronics. North Korea did huge amounts of power were used to Koreans was a stereophonic portable have some people capable of working light up Pyongyang and cool the visi• cassette-tape player, but I was unable to in high-tech fields. Kim Chaek Univer• tors. The effects of the power shortage find one in any of three downtown sity of Technology boasted computer could be seen when trolley buses Pyongyang department stores. Instead rooms equipped with personal and stopped one morning as the result of shoppers were offered tinny-sounding, mainframe computers imported from an apparent electrical brownout. primitive phonographs. Europe (especially Poland), Japan and North Korean officials in 1989 de• In 1979 a handmade prototype of a Singapore, as well as people who knew nied persistent reports of food short• sedan had been displayed at Pyong• how to use them and how they were ages. Officials acknowledged that rice yang's Exhibition of the Achievements made. The university exhibited robots was rationed, but the figures they gave of Socialist Construction. A guide there constructed in campus labs. But going for rations {700 grams a day for an had said the country hoped to go into into production of such high-tech adult, 500 for a child) seemed adequate mass production. By 1989 the earlier machines would be another matter, and assuming they were accurate. The ques• model had been replaced by two new there was little evidence the country tion was what the diet might include handmade prototypes of a car to be was making much progress there. As beyond the staples of grain and kirn- called the "Pyongyang—an out-and-out with automobiles, the North Koreans chee (spicy pickled vegetables). Foreign• copy of the Mercedes Benz 190, of seemed more successful at taking apart ers living in Pyongyang said that eggs which the country had recently import• foreign-made machines and building were available but meat was a rarity on ed a fleet. Production would start soon handmade prototypes than at starting most North Korean tables. at a factory then producing military mass production. Although North Korea in 1979 had jeep-type vehicles, said an exhibition seemed economically advanced com• guide. I decided not to hold my breath. * A report by the East Asia Analytical Unit of pared with China, the Chinese since Enough sophisticated foreign goods Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and then had benefited from a decade of were getting into the country to let Trade, cited in a Reuters report in Korea Times economic reform. On paper, North North Koreans glimpse what they were (18 Dec. 1992:7), stated that China's "official data seriously underestimate China's GDP (gross Korea remained far ahead on a per cap• missing. Pyongyang residents were ex• domestic product) by a factor of three." Tripling ita basis when compared with Beijing's cited about special shops opened dur• China's official per capita GDP figure of S370 as official economic statistics. The visual ing the festival that sold foreign goods. the Australian analysts suggest would yield a sum evidence suggested, however, that the Even during nonfestival times there was in the range of most estimates of the North Chinese had overtaken the North a steady flow of such goods to some Korean per capita figure. Koreans decisively.* North Koreans—particularly to former 13

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Clearly it would be hard to meet A visible change of questionable sig• North Koreans' rising expectations nificance was construction of the first without importing huge quantities of Protestant and Catholic churches per• goods—or, more practically, the foreign mitted to operate in Pyongyang in de• technology to produce them. Importing cades. The Protestant Pongsu Church technology would entail joint ventures displayed on its walls none of the and other dealings with the capitalist otherwise ubiquitous portraits of Kim world. A half-hearted and sketchy stab or his son. Congregation members as at a joint-ventures law in 1984 had unobtrusively as possible removed the failed, predictably, to attract much for• miniature Kim portraits from their eign investment interest. breasts before starting worship. No church members or clergy were mem• Changing to Stay the Same bers of the Kims' ruling Korean Wor• kers' (communist) Party, a clergyman In 1989 it was possible to detect a few said, because "we Christians believe in striking, if relatively modest, shifts in God." Church members speaking attitudes and behavior. The authorities through government-assigned interpre• wanted to change the image of North ters denied reports by foreign human- Korea as an Orwellian horror of brain• rights monitors that they suffered dis• North Koreans washed people. "Everybody says crimination in economic benefits and exuded so much Koreans are like machines, answering legal treatment. mechanically and smiling mechanically," warmth as to make The real question was whether Kim's complained a Pyongyang official. "It's almost plausible the regime was flexible enough to make far not true. Everybody is different."* government's goal of more drastic changes. It was the heyday Overall, North Koreans seemed of glasnost and perestroika in the increasing tourism somewhat easier and more relaxed— Soviet Union but North Koreans knew among themselves and with Westerners, little or nothing about Soviet reform. including Americans—than their coun• They didn't even know about the popu• terparts a decade before. Spontaneity lar protests that had been raging next was much more in evidence. Although door in China. North Koreans still sang the praises of My guide, a college English teacher juche, they seemed less obsessed with in his late 20s, mentioned that he giving the impression that everything hoped to go the following September to was Korean-made. At the Taean Heavy Beijing to study English and Chinese. I Machinery complex near Nampo, offi• asked him if he knew what had hap• cials conducted a tour of a factory pened at Tiananmen Square. "A little making electrical generators and identi• bit" about it was in Rodong Shinmun fied many of the machine tools as (Workers' Daily), the party newspaper, foreign-made. They offered no excuses. he said. Getting his information from North Koreans seemed to smile and the only source available to him, the laugh more in the presence of foreign• party-lining North Korean media, he ers. In some cases they exuded so much had not even heard the terms glasnost warmth and hospitality as to make al• most plausible the government's goal of * Kim Il-sung himself voices a similar complaint increasing tourism several-fold in the in his autobiography, With the Century, He next few years—to fill up the thousands writes, "Some people say that communists are de• of hotel rooms newly built and under void of human feelings and know neither life nor construction. But it would not be easy love that is worthy of human beings. But such to project an image that would .attract people are totally ignorant of what communists masses of foreign tourists. are like" (Kim Il-sung 1992, 2:99). 14

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and perestroika before I explained them North Koreans insisted that financial to him. He dismissed, however, any incentives were passe, but their actions need for reform :n North Korea. "Our suggested the opposite. By 1989 reports country has no glasnost or perestroika," had reached the outside world of self- he boasted. "Our policy is unchanged seeking behavior. For example, higher for 40 years. No one wants to change." ranking officials might demand bribes A look at North Korea's agriculture of scarce goods such as color television suggested the degree to which the coun• sets in exchange for handing out pro• try was unwilling or unable to commit motions. wholeheartedly to reforms. The official Against this background occurred an line contradicted the clear evidence of incident in which a festival guide asked what worked best. In small private one of the journalists for American cur• plots, to take the most readily gauged rency. He said he wanted dollars to example, the corn was taller than corn spend on foreign goods, which were on growing in nearby fields that were sale in the special hard-currency shops farmed collectively. Despite such visual established for the youth festival. It is proof, North Koreans publicly contin• possible he had been instructed to ask ued to denigrate those private plots, for money as part of the regime's ef• and the markets at which their produce forts to accumulate foreign exchange, was sold, as shameful relics of the bad but I suspected he had made the re• old pre-socialist days. While other com• quest on his own initiative and for his munist countries were experimenting personal benefit. This instance of seem• with private enterprise, North Koreans ingly individualistic behavior reinforced still were allowed to cultivate privately a sense that the regime might have given only their miniature patches of yard. up some of its rigid control, perhaps to The proclaimed policy was not to ex• a greater degree than planned. pand that tiny private sector but to The regime had paid a bonus of one phase it out. month's salary to the country's workers

In a typical heroic painting, Kim ll-sung (middle), Kim Jong-il (far right) and South Korean radical student Im Su-gyong (second from left) view the West Sea Barrage. Ms. Im has assumed a Joan of Arc role in North Korea's pantheon of heroes and heroines. 15

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before the festival opened in recognition into a revolutionary frenzy of over• a student march from the northern end of their hard work in a "200-day speed production. Carried on at breakneck of the peninsula, across the generally campaign" to meet production and con• speed and referred to with borrowed unpassable Demilitarized Zone that di• struction goals. In practice, then, there military terminology as "speed battles," vides North from South, to the south• was a gradual shift from the old-style its orgies of construction were the sort ern end. Her arrival in Pyongyang "moral" incentives, such as medals for of exercise of which even the most created pandemonium. Northerners, labor heroes, to financial incentives— dedicated ideologues must soon have evidently genuinely delighted and officially keyed, to be sure, to group tired. Yet North Koreans had battled moved by her visit, mobbed her. In the rather than individual performance. on, so that those visiting for the youth televised arrival scene, the jostled Whatever bourgeois sins North Ko• festival found new wonders to behold. cameraman was unable to keep his reans might be tempted to commit, In downtown Pyongyang, the basic con• camera still, resulting in a rare bit of however, they gave every appearance of crete work had been completed on a spontaneous television. Im Su-gyong believing in old-fashioned communism, pyramid-shaped 105-story hotel, intend• soon returned to the South, where she tied closely to the Kim cult. As before, ed to be Asia's highest once completed. was jailed until Christmas Eve of 1992 I was left with the feeling I had traveled As yet, it is still unfinished. for violating the National Security Act. to the center of a great and still-burning A major construction goal in 1989 That only made her a martyr to the faith. clearly was to try to outdo Seoul's cause—in the eyes not only of Southern activists but also, it seemed, of many As in 1979 the North Koreans I met Olympics, and no effort or expense was Northerners.* constantly praised Kim Il-sung for hav• spared. Besides stadiums and other ing built a socialist paradise guarantee• venues for the festival's sports events, Of course North Korean propaganda ing jobs and food, decent housing and North Koreans had built streets lined concerning the South was not directed free medical care and education, but with high-rise apartment buildings; only at South Koreans but at least now they were also adding references to those would house the festival par• equally at Northerners, and it was in• Kim Jong-il, the "dear leader." Kim ticipants. Later they would be turned triguing to see how the Northerners Jong-il had long since been officially over to citizens. Pyongyang's skyline reacted. They were given a hugely dis• proclaimed his father's successor. soared, and the opening and closing torted view of South Korea as a uni• A mammoth effort was underway ceremonies for the youth festival proved formly horrible place in need of simultaneously to maintain the Kim Il- more elaborate even than the extraordi• salvation by the great leader, a land sung personality cult and to stretch it nary shows Seoul had put on for the ruled by a cruel "puppet clique" in enough to envelop the younger Kim, Olympics. thrall to the U.S. imperialists, where the who represented the regime's hope of fruits of capitalist economic develop• continuing on without major change or ment had accrued to the wealthy few. Fans Abroad reform. Not only his name but his pic• Among North Koreans, those sophisti• ture and his words were everywhere Despite its profound problems, North cated enough to know that the South and his abilities were described in close Korea in 1989 still managed an appear• had the higher average living standard to superhuman terms. Pyongyang's ance of dynamism that appealed to still insisted that the North's system Revolutionary Museum of the Dear some people outside its borders. The was better because the wealth was dis• Leader Comrade Kim Jong-il showed ideology was even proving exportable tributed more evenly. painting after painting of the junior to South Korea. Radically inclined Kim as a student at Kim Il-sung Univer• South Korean students were attracted to * During my 1992 visit to Pyongyang, 1 was sity, striking leader-like and sagacious Kim Il-sung's teachings of revolutionary taken to an art studio where the main non-Kim poses while adoring members of the egalitarianism, economic self-sufficiency, subject of the artists turned out to be Ms. Im. There were sculptures of her and paintings galore, Class of 1964 beamed up at him. A unification zeal and anti-Americanism. in a variety of poses, the most dramatic a court• guide said that at age eight the prodigy Im Su-gyong, a South Korean univer• room scene from her trial in Seoul. had read Lenin's "State and Revolution" sity student, had defied her government and written a commentary on it. by visiting Pyongyang via a third coun• Pyongyang continued to rely on pro• try to attend the youth festival. She was paganda campaigns to whip its people promoting a pro-unification scheme for 16

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to the global free-market economy. train and bus from Pyongyang across 1992 AND BEYOND Belatedly following China's example, the central mountains to the east coast North Korea decided to set up its first and northward to the Russian and In April 1992, determined to attract free economic zones. Pyongyang wel• Chinese borders. Progress in farm more foreign investment, the North comed the tour participants from capi• mechanization seen in earlier years in Korean Ministry of External Economic talist countries in the hope they would other parts of the country seemed not Relations hosted a week-long tour for funnel investment into infrastructure to have occurred in these areas—or, if more than 100 business executives, and manufacturing. Kim Song-sik, vice- it had occurred, to have been reversed, scholars and officials, as well as an ac• chairman of the Committee for Promo• perhaps because of the oil shortage. companying press corps, of which I was tion of External Economic Relations, Farmers plowed far less often with trac• a member. Most of the visitors came told me that the goals were simple: "In• tors than with oxen, which were among from Japan and South Korea, but a few troduce more modern factories of inter• the few farm animals seen. Beanpoles came from China, Russia and the Unit• national standard, and generate more lining the dooryard of almost every ed States. We were to travel through re• foreign exchange." house along the route were the only mote areas that few outsiders had seen visible source of protein—helping to ex• for decades. Unfortunately, once we ar• plain a recent propaganda campaign An Economic Crisis rived, officials said the delegation's num• based on the slogan: "Let's eat two bers were so great that hotels outside Our host in Pyongyang, Deputy Prime meals a day instead of rhree."t the capital could not house the group— Minister Kim Dal-hyon, acknowledged Little nonfarming work could be so we bunked together for nights on that the collapse of Soviet and East Eu• seen. At the port of Najin, for exam• end in the sweaty compartments of a ropean communism had hit his country ple, we were told the workers were tak• slow-moving passenger train. hard. "Because of the rapid destruction ing a "holiday." In Pyongyang, large Pyongyang's tour arrangements sig• of the world socialist market" Kim numbers of people were out and about naled more serious efforts to attract said, "we can't export our goods to so• in midafternoon, a marked change foreign investment—and for good rea• cialist countries and import oil in ex• from the semideserted streets noted son. Despite Kim Il-sung's trumpeting change." In particular, longtime barter during most daylight hours on earlier of national self-reliance, his country for partner Moscow had begun demanding visits. My guide explained that new four decades had gotten more than a payment in hard currency, which was in little help from its socialist friends very short supply in North Korea. * Unnamed South Korean officials estimate that abroad. Now, the communist bloc had Trade with the former Soviet repub• the North Korean economy shrank by 3.7 percent shrunk to China, Cuba and not much lics had accounted for 38 percent of in 1990, 5.2 percent in 1991 and about 5 percent else, and that flow of aid and subsi• Pyongyang's global trade in 1990, but in 1992, according to a report in Korea Times (8 dized trade was squeezed off. A clear dropped to less than 14 percent in 1991, Jan. 1993). More alarming still is a Japanese Kyo- sign that Pyongyang's external partner• according to South Korean figures.8 do News Service report (The Japan Times 1 April ships were falling apart had come in Not only is North Korea importing less 1993) datelined Beijing, which indirectly quotes the summer of 1990, when South from its old ally; its exports are down "reports compiled by East European and Russian diplomats in Pyongyang" as saying the shrinkage Korean President Roh Tae-woo's "north• even more, since its products have a in 1992 may have amounted to 30 percent. ern policy" of wooing the Soviet Union hard time competing with rival free- and Pyongyang's other communist allies market products. Analysts say the t While North Korea claimed to have produced between eight and nine million tons of foodgrains paid off spectacularly. Roh flew to San North's economy actually shrank each in 1991, Russian experts estimate actual produc• Francisco for an unprecedented meeting year since 1990—including, by one esti• tion at five million tons, according to Marina with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. mate, a sickening drop of as much as Trigubenko, director of the Asia Research Center Diplomatic relations followed. By late 30 percent in 1992 alone,* By the end at the Russian Academy of Sciences. At a seminar 1992 China, the last major communist of that year China reportedly had sponsored by Seoul's Korea Rural Economic Insti• holdout, would exchange ambassadors joined Russia in demanding hard- tute, Trigubenko said the North would have a hard time feeding its 21 million people even with with Seoul. currency settlement, further fueling the its programs to control population growth and With 21 million people to keep rea• alarming trend. reclaim some 300,000 hectares for farming {Korea sonably satisfied, the regime in Pyong• Evidence of poverty and economic Times 30 Oct. 1992). yang had little alternative but to look stagnation was abundant as we rode by 17

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working hours permitted people to start area of Russia, China and North Korea early and finish early—but reflection surrounding the mouth of the Tumen suggested that there might be other rea• River, which forms the border among sons that kept them from the work• the three countries. Pyongyang's turn to place. All this tended to confirm reports host a conference on the proposal was that up to half the factories and work• the occasion for our tour in North ing population had been idled by en• Korea. ergy and other material shortages Skeptical about a part of the pro• resulting from the collapse of the inter• posal that calls for multinational man• national socialist barter economy. agement of the zone—which would Whether operating or not, factories mean sharing power on its own looked old and inefficient—and their territory—Pyongyang was proceeding The economy has products showed it. There were occa• with a parallel go-it-alone approach. actually shrunk sional bright spots. In a downtown On paper, North Korea had already es• tablished its first special economic zone each year since 1990 Pyongyang department store, a new dis• play featured stylish jogging suits. But at Najin and Sonbong, inside the terri• who in North Korea could afford 148 tory that would be part of a Tumen won, about $67 at the official rate and Delta multinational zone if the Chinese more than a typical worker's monthly and others should have their way. Try• pay, for a jogging suit? ing to lure investors there—regardless of As for the choices offered provincial how the multinational negotiations residents, there was no chance to find might turn out—clearly was a big part out. The train we were living on did of what the government had in mind not stop in cities and towns overnight when it admitted our group of visitors. but instead poked around in the coun• Although North Korea had sounded tryside and sat on rural sidings. The the general theme of welcoming outside suspicion that this was intended to keep investment since 1984,,the 100-odd busi• us from exploring the provincial towns nesses resulting from the joint-venture and cities became a certainty when we law enacted that year had brought in visited the port of Chongjin. Some foreign funds estimated by South journalists attempted to walk out of the Korea's Unification Board at only about port's gate to a nearby department $150 million.9 Most of that money had store, but they were stopped at gun• come from pro-Pyongyang Korean resi• point by a port guard. dents of Japan. In those ventures the government unofficially permitted some Join the World capitalist-style incentives—such as "gifts" With almost nothing positive happening of merchandise to more productive fac• in the domestic economy, a hint of tory workers.10 From an investor's view• change could be seen in North Korea's point, key points remained unclarified approach to the outside world. An in• in the joint-venture and foreign ex• ternational scheme for developing manu• change regulations. Outsiders' distrust facturing, trade and shipping among had combined with internal inertia to countries facing the Sea of Japan, with keep real change to a minimum. help from the United Nations Develop• If there were reasons in 1992 to im• ment Program, was a major factor agine that more investors might respond helping to coax Pyongyang officials out to the new initiatives, a most intriguing of their shells. Meetings in various factor headed the list: North Korea had cities in the region had explored multi• managed something of a generation national development of a triangular shift. Kim Jong-il, who turned 50 on 18

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16 February 1992, remained a mysteri• The deputy prime minister showed marching orders. While capitalistic ous figure who almost never met for• some understanding of prospective in• methods would be allowed in the trade eigners—but as day-to-day chief of the vestors* need to know just where they zones, Kim Song-sik of the Committee government and party he had placed stood. "Detailed laws and regulations for the Promotion of External Econom• proteges in a great many key economics on preferential treatment for investors, ic Cooperation said, "we think we can and foreign-relations posts. Some, such free flow of people, visa and tax ex• keep those methods from affecting en• as Deputy Prime Minister Kim Dal- emptions will be promulgated within terprises elsewhere in the country, hyon, were relatives. Still they represent• this year," Kim promised at a press con• where the government's economic pol• ed "a changing of the guard" as Kim ference. icy is unchanged." Duk-choong, former chief executive Indeed, new regulations were enacted This strategy envisioned even more officer of South Korea's Daewoo Cor• 5 October 1992. They offer foreign in• intense propaganda efforts to whip up poration, said during the trip. "All are vestors tax breaks, guarantee them mass enthusiasm for the status quo. In young generation—50s and 40s," Kim property rights and allow remittance of April 1992 the regime unveiled a new noted. "They're much more forth• some profits back home. Not only joint stage extravaganza, "Song of Best coming than in the past." ventures, as before, but also wholly Wishes," featuring a cast of thousands They were also more realistic. True, foreign-owned ventures are now permit• who wished Kim Il-sung a happy 80th Kim Dal-hyon's acknowledgment of ted. South Koreans, barred by the 1984 birthday and praised the system he had serious economic difficulties had nor law, may invest in the North under the installed. "Winds of temptation may yet become the party line; subordinates law's new version." Tax rates, published blow," the gigantic chorus sang, but such as Kim Song-sik continued to as• on 6 February 1993, are more favorable "we'll go our way forever. Hey, hey, let's sert that all was well and the country to foreign investors than China's rates.12 defend socialism!" was experiencing little ill effect from To prospective foreign investors, offi• the changes in other communist na• Economic Apartheid cials peddled the notion that totalitari• tions. Even Kim Dal-hyon insisted that North Korean authorities remained im• anism has its charms—social stability his countrymen "do not have any wor• paled on the horns of an old dilemma: not least among them. At a press con• ries about food, clothing and housing." Although failure to open to investment ference, Kim Dal-hyon was asked Significantly, though, he acknowledged by capitalists could doom the Pyong• whether workers for foreign firms that "the world is changing" and that yang regime, so could the attitudes, would be subjected to the time-consum• creation of special economic zones "is knowledge and ideas that would enter ing ideological cheerleading sessions for our survival." the country along with such change. that workers in other enterprises must Some of the younger officials also After all, how could a separate North attend. Perhaps not, he indicated, but embodied a fascinating answer to a Korean regime be justified once its sub• "I think our ideology will help the cre• very real question: In a country that jects could see it had become merely an ation of the free economic zones. There neither teaches nor understands free- inferior imitation of the wildly success• market economics, where do you find ful capitalist Korea to the South? * The * In a lecture on "The Unified German Economy competent managers for a push to join proposed solution of Kim Dal-hyon and and Its Implications on a Unified Korean Econo• the global economy? It turned out that his technocrats sounded like the ulti• my" delivered at Seoul's Research Institute for Na• tional Reunification on 26 August 1992, Harvard some of the rising economic stars had mate test of totalitarianism: establish Professor Lawrence H. Summers observed: "There been trained in the sciences—one of the free economic zones, but segregate is a political dynamic that was unfortunate for them so tightly they would have no ef• few areas in which North Koreans can gradual reform in East Germany and is in North fect on people and institutions else• get education relatively free of ideologi• Korea. Namely, there was a reason for Poland to where in the country. cal cant. Kim Jong-u, vice-minister of exist quite apart from its being communist. There external economic affairs and chairman The experience of other countries is no reason for North Korea to exist except for the fact that it is communist. That is why East of the Committee for the Promotion of such as China suggested that the eco• Germany stayed harder-line longer than Poland, External Economic Cooperation, had nomic apartheid envisioned would not Hungary and Czechoslovakia despite the blandish• been a nuclear scientist. Deputy Prime work for long, and that real economic ments of significant amounts of financial assist• Minister Kim Dal-hyon himself had takeoff would both require and contrib• ance from West Germany and that is why I suspect been a chemist and head of North ute to real market reform and opening. North Korea is unlikely to make a move toward a Korea's Academy of Sciences. Pyongyang officials, however, had their market system." 19

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won't be any thieves, punks or pimps in son we should pay these debts right at our zones." this moment," he said. "Creditor coun• Most outsiders nonetheless reacted tries should understand the economic warily, put off not only by the unlikely situation faced by socialist countries." strategy of development without fun• damental change but also by Pyong• Fraternal Dealings yang's general profile—from its sorry record of debt default to its reputation Blood ties linking the two Koreas could for aggression to doubts about political go a long way toward producing such stability once Kim Il-sung should pass understanding. There were reports a from the scene. Particularly unexcited few years ago of South Korean pro• were the Japanese, who have the posals to buy up some of the North resources, the proximity and the history Koreans' overseas debt as a fraternal of interest in the Korean peninsula to gesture. More substantively, in 1988 become a major factor if they should Seoul ruled that private companies wish to do so. Some Japanese suggested could deal with the North. Chung Ju- Tens of thousands of it would be hard to take Pyongyang yung, founder of the Hyundai Group, subjects manipulate cards in a Pyongyang seriously until it began paying off the traveled to Pyongyang in January 1989 stadium during a 1992 old debts with some of the money that and discussed a joint $700 million celebration of Kim had been channeled into monuments project to develop a resort on both Il-sung's 80th birthday and birthday bashes. Kim Dal-hyon sides of the border near North Korea's on April 15th. pleaded for patience. "There is no rea• scenic Mt. Kumgang. 20

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Political considerations keep inter• Costs of Reunification No doubt vening, though. For example, the col• another cause for at least momentary lapse of East Germany and its absorp• relaxation in Pyongyang was a shift of tion by West Germany in 1990 triggered opinion in South Korea by 1992 so a major reassessment on both sides of drastic that it appeared, for the mo• the Korean Demilitarized Zone. The eu• ment, that the interests of the Northern phoria in Seoul was palpable as some and Southern regimes might actually predicted Korean reunification within overlap. German unification had proven five years. As in Germany, reunification so expensive that many South Koreans would come through absorption of the who had once looked forward to a former communist state by the victo• quick, German-style reunification of rious capitalist state—and only then Korea now had second thoughts. Many would the South invest in the North. now hoped for a more gradual process, As a bonus, meanwhile, news of the one that would allow time for the demise of European communism was North to build up its economy and constraining the leftist radical move• thus represent less of a burden to a ment in the South, in which Pyongyang prospective merger partner. had placed its hopes for the eventual "German reunification is a good ex• peninsula-wide victory of Kim Il-sung's ample of the worst case," said Park revolution. The idea of doing anything Young-kyu, a scholar at Seoul's Re• that could feed money into North search Institute for National Reunifica• Korea and help prolong its separate ex• tion and one of the South Koreans on istence became anathema in Seoul, es• the trip. South Korea's Finance Ministry pecially to government officials. said the price tag, if the South should Members of the North Korean elite have to absorb the Northern economy were shocked by the fate of their East before the year 2000, would be $980 German counterparts, who in the new, billion—more than three times the unified Germany turned out to have no South's current GNP of $280 billion.14 claim to leadership and its perquisites, Such estimates take into account the or even, in some cases, to decent jobs. needs for worker retraining, improve• Members of the This precedent was as horrifying to ments for infrastructure such as roads North Korean elite Pyongyang as German unification was and ports, social welfare benefits for were shocked by inspirational to Seoul. Indeed, avoiding Northerners and costs for environmen• "absorption" became an obsession in tal cleanup and administrative inte• the fate of their Pyongyang. gration. East German By early 1992, though, Pyongyang's Many economists feared that the gap counterparts panic over the prospect of absorption in incomes and living standards had seemed to have abated slightly. The re• grown too wide to try to splice the two gime may have felt that a campaign to Korean economies together. By the be• frighten any wavering members of its ginning of 1992, the South was ap• elite class and unify them around the proaching a $7,000 per capita income, Kim 11-sung and Kim Jong-il leadership while that of the North was estimated was succeeding. For example, North at around $1,000.15 A consensus was Korean television broadcast a documen• building in South Korea that Seoul tary showing former East German offi• must help Pyongyang close that gap— cials looking for jobs and peddling hot and in the process help prop up the dogs on the street.11 North Korean economy. 21

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Meanwhile, soaring labor costs had A Tempting Fit Prospective South punched the export-based South Korean Korean investors, of course, are not economy in the solar plexus—driving charitable institutions. Fortunately, the home the humbling lesson that a rela• economies of North and South Korea tively scrawny Seoul would be much offer a complementary fit tempting to harder pressed than powerhouse Bonn Seoul business leaders. The North has to avoid the worst consequences of sud• natural resources. Resource-poor South den reunification. In their nightmares, Korea has experience and know-how in Seoul residents saw their capital over• producing world-class manufactured run by destitute Northern cousins flee• goods, but has to pay its workers 10 ing south to pursue dreams of the good times North Korean wages to make life. The Finance Ministry proposed se• them—and Southern workers increas• Seoul would be vere limits on cross-border travel in the ingly turn up their noses at jobs that much harder pressed initial post-reunification period—with combine the "three Ds": dirty, danger• an exception for the divided families ous and difficult. than powerhouse whom the South has sought to re• Industrialists from the South are Bonn to avoid the 16 unite. naturally attracted to a population that worst consequences Seoul's Korea Institute of Economy is polite and well-behaved and a labor of reunification and Technology, among others, argued force that is low-paid for the moment that the South should help develop and, apparently, highly disciplined. As new, more competitive industry in the General Manager Jon Song-won of North before reunification to minimize Pyongyang's Eguk Moran Garment Fac• such disruptions. The message went tory said of his employees: "They don't over especially well with one particular even know the word 'strike.'" His facto• group of South Koreans. Shin Woong- ry makes suits for ethnic Korean buyers shik, a Seoul lawyer specializing in le• in Japan in exchange for materials and gal dealings with Pyongyang, went on management costs plus a flat labor the trip and told me that much of the charge of $10 a suit. Southern interest came from among the In addition to the Mt. Kumgang millions of South Koreans who hail tourism project, South and North from the North. Before and during the Koreans had discussed joint develop• Korean War, people from the North, ment of North Korean natural many of them from the upper socioeco• resources, joint fisheries zones, even nomic groups purged by the commu• joint ventures in third countries— nists, migrated to the South. Himself specifically, using North Korean labor the grandson of the operator of a gold for construction projects run by South mine in what is now North Korea, Shin Korean contractors in places like said many of the South Koreans who Pakistan and the Middle East and log• want to help develop the North are ging schemes in Siberia. rich, sentimental business people who So far the closest thing to an actual were born there and consider it their investment deal has been made by Dae• homeland..Topping the list: Daewoo woo Group. Daewoo Chairman Kim Group Chairman Kim Woo-choong and Woo-choong (brother of Kim Duk- Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung—the choong) went to Pyongyang at Deputy latter an unsuccessful candidate for Prime Minister Kim Dal-hyon's invita• president of South Korea in the Decem• tion in January 1992. While there, he ber 1992 election. signed a contract for a joint venture in 22

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which the Northern regime would pro• Suspicions that Pyongyang was de• Korean sites—which it called non- vide the land and the labor for a big veloping the capability to build nuclear nuclear military installations—would be industrial complex at the west coast weapons had become a major issue in an unjustified intrusion on sovereignty. port of Nampo—which Pyongyang 1991. The United States had been gather• It also cited the U.S.-South Korean would designate as another free trade ing evidence of the alleged project, but military exercise Team Spirit, then in zone. Daewoo would provide capital the issue had remained obscure until a progress, calling it a rehearsal for a and technology and help operate nine Japanese politician and amateur diplo• nuclear attack on the North. If not factories, making textiles, garments, mat visited Kim Il-sung and made a reversed, Pyongyang's withdrawal would shoes, luggage, stuffed toys and house• surprise promise to promote normaliza• seriously undermine the global NPT hold utensils. Chairman Kim said he tion of Japan-North Korea relations. system and most likely would set off a was confident the factories could export Shin Kanemaru, then leader of the nuclear arms race among the two $10 billion worth of goods a year. most powerful faction in the ruling Koreas and Japan. Thus it triggered a It was tempting during much of Liberal Democratic Party, included an flurry of consultations in world capitals. 1992 to expect that investment in offer of billons of dollars in reparations Pyongyang went out of its way to let North Korea might proceed according to North Korea from its former coloni• it be known that the decision to with• to what could be called the China pat• al masters in Tokyo for damages inflict• draw from the NPT had been made by tern. More than a decade ago when ed before, during and after World War Kim Jong-il. Advertising his take-charge China set out to reform its economy II. Washington quickly sent an intelli• role seems to have been part of the and attract outside investment, Japanese gence team to Tokyo to brief Japanese decades-long process of making his suc• and Western interests watched with officials on the fruits of spy satellite cession a fait accompli. Earlier in the interest—but put down relatively little pictures of the North Korean project same week, the junior Kim had an• money, particularly at the beginning. site, warning against aiding a Pyong• nounced that he was placing the nation The largest part of the outside invest• yang regime that might soon pose a on a "semi-war" footing during Team ment came from overseas Chinese in nuclear threat to Japan itself. There• Spirit. At rallies, North Koreans Hong Kong and elsewhere. Seoul law• upon Tokyo agreed to withhold any pledged loyalty to Kim Jong-il. "If the yer Shin argued that North Korea, like reparations as a carrot to persuade the enemies trample upon an inch of land China, was more fortunate in its built- North Koreans to give up their nuclear or a blade of grass of our country, we in overseas network than, for example, ambitions and allow full inspection of will become bullets and bombs to anni• 17 Vietnam, Cambodia and Cuba—which the suspected facilities. hilate them," one participant was quot• "don't have brother countries." Indeed, Pyongyang did permit some interna• ed as saying.'8 it seemed a good bet that, for a while tional inspections, and in view of its Assuming that he did make the at least, the bulk of any significant in• economic situation there was reason to withdrawal decision himself,* what vestment in North Korea would come think it might soon decide the price from Koreans abroad—not only in was right to accept a complete inspec• * The Souih Korean press in January of 1993 Japan and the United States* but, tion program or otherwise relinquish its quoted an unnamed government source as saying especially, in South Korea. nuclear card. Thus South Korean com• North Korea was planning "investment fairs" in panies continued into early 1993 to Minneapolis and other major American cities, tar• geted mainly at ethnic Korean investors (Korea Nuclear Card prepare themselves for quick action Times 26 Jan. 1993). once the ban should be lifted, t Such optimistic thinking, however, soon t Executives of the giant Daewoo, Samsung and fell victim to more politics. Before Dae• Lucky Goldstar conglomerates had meetings with woo's contract could win the required Bombshell Announcement On 13 North Korean Deputy Premier Kim Dal-hyon in approval by the South Korean authori• March 1993, however, Pyongyang Beijing as late as December of 1992 (Korea Times ties, the Seoul government banned all stunned the world with an announce• 3 Feb. 1993:9). economic exchanges. To get the ban ment that it was withdrawing from the % Whether he did or not, "it's his game to win or lifted, the government said, Pyongyang Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). lose," as South Korean Foreign Minister Han would have to agree to mutual inspec• The statement complained that pro• Sung-joo said in an appearance at the Seoul For• eign Correspondents' Club on 18 March, five days tions by North and South Korea of sus• posed International Atomic Energy after the North's announcement. pected nuclear-weapons sites. Agency inspections of two secret North 23

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was Kim Jong-il thinking, and how Raising the Stakes Chances are Pyong• does such saber-rattling jibe with the yang had never reconciled itself to the regime's efforts to attract foreign idea of giving up whatever nuclear investment? arms capability it had developed, and reasoned that the threat of a bomb was Nuclear Thinking Consider some of useful insurance. It may have hoped to the background to the presumed work maintain this capability through subter• on nuclear weapons. The Gulf War had fuge while pretending to submit to shown Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il NPT restrictions* that had been less two important facts. First, the U.S. than effective in deterring other coun• military had conventional forces so po• tries from bomb programs. tent, thanks in part to new weapons Under such circumstances, when the systems, that they could all but wipe International Atomic Energy Agency out the Iraqi military in a matter of a (IAEA) set a deadline for the stringent few days. They might well have a simi• new inspections and forced his hand, lar conventional-war advantage over Kim Jong-il may have figured he had North Korea. For Pyongyang that possi• little to lose by raising the stakes for bility emphasized the need to develop Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. Possible an equalizer. Second, despite all that gains could include the direct high-level the United States and its allies threw at negotiations with Washington that Pyong• him, Saddam Hussein hung onto pow• yang had sought for years, focusing on er, thumbing his nose at Washington both economic incentives and security and at international nuclear inspectors. inducements for Pyongyang to drop out By March 1993 in South Korea, a of the nuclear club. As a bonus, the new president with an exclusively move would shock Kim Young-sam's Pyongyang's civilian background, Kim Young-sam, fledgling administration, perhaps con• withdrawal from had taken office and begun immediately tributing to the political instability that Pyongyang likes to see in Seoul. And the Nuclear Non- to dismantle the remaining police-state apparatus instituted by his army general the decision gave Kim Jong-il the chance Proliferation Treaty predecessors, making Pyongyang look to show himself to his own people as a could set off a even worse by comparison. powerful player on the world stage. nuclear arms race Meanwhile the efforts to attract for• among the two eign aid and investment had not gone * Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Koreas and Japan well for Pyongyang. Talks with Japan some 140 nations have agreed to prevent nuclear had finally been suspended in Novem• weapons transfer and not to expand facilities used ber 1992 over Tokyo's demand that to make such weapons. North Korea signed the treaty in 1985, under pressure from the then- Pyongyang account for a Japanese Soviet Union. The following year, in proposing woman allegedly kidnapped to North that the Korean peninsula become a nuclear-free Korea. Pyongyang's main ally in wring• zone, the North pledged not to test, produce or ing money out of Japan, Kanemaru, stockpile nuclear weapons. However, Pyongyang had lost his post as ruling party boss delayed until January 1992 signing—again under and fallen so low as to be indicted, in international pressure—an agreement allowing in• March 1993, for massive tax evasion. spections by the International Atomic Energy Agency {IAEA). By that time its nuclear weapons With Japan, the United States and program, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, South Korea united in insisting that the was well along. The IAEA, stung by disclosures North prove itself atomically clean be• that other countries had hidden their nuclear arms fore receiving any aid, it was hard to programs from its inspectors, set out on a regimen find the leverage for a deal offering of inspections that shortly became more intrusive maximum advantage. than Pyongyang was willing to bear. 24

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The Team Spirit Factor Citing Team exercise and their own responsive Spirit as justification for the North maneuvers as, respectively, pretext and Korean move seems at first glance cover for a coup d'etat—perhaps after largely a rhetorical flourish. The exer• his father's death. After all, what is the cise is an otherwise annual one that need for all the frantic unity campaigns Washington and Seoul had suspended and rallies pledging loyalty to Kim the previous year as an inducement to Jong-il if there is not a growing recog• The stench of the North to settle the nuclear and nition of a split in interests between the failure in North other issues. Even after resuming it, ruling pair and other groups of North Korea has become they invited Pyongyang to send observ• Koreans? In particular, people in the ers to monitor the "purely defensive" elite—civilian and military alike—may almost overpowering exercise. On the other hand, Pyong• wish they were permitted to reform the yang's own war plans for the invasion system enough to preserve its and their of South Korea in 1950 called for use own status. of mock military exercises as a cover We may doubt that there are fully for hostile troop movements.19 Thus its developed factions in North Korea, but perennial complaints that Washington it seems likely that some influential and Seoul could use Team Spirit that members of the elite are more amena• way do represent the voice of ex• ble to change than some of their col• perience. leagues. And the record to date of Korean War memories do not ex• change under the Kims cannot have plain, however, why Pyongyang's shrill• encouraged them. ness on the Team Spirit question has, if Consider the period on which this anything, increased. This may have less paper has focused. In the 1970s the to do with real fears of an invasion North began to lag behind South from the South than with several fac• Korea—but rejected major change. In tors that lately have surfaced domesti• the 1980s the economy remained stag• cally. One such factor, often noted, is nant, the ideology of egalitarianism and the severe fuel shortage: Cranking up altruism rang far more hollow to North tanks and trucks and planes to shadow Koreans, and the country all but lost the other side's troop movements—just the race with South Korea. Reform was in case—during Team Spirit must be the watchword in other communist paid for with further reduction of eco• countries. But Pyongyang redoubled its nomic activity. Another factor may commitment to Kim Il-sung's hard-line be—as South Korean Foreign Minister ideology. In the 1990s European com• Han Sung-joo has suggested20—that munism is dead while in North Korea Kim Jong-il had personally taken credit the stench of failure has become almost for the suspension of Team Spirit in overpowering. Still the Pyongyang re• 1991 and felt, when the exercise was re• gime rejects basic change. sumed, that he needed to regain face he In the end, adding up every change had lost. that could be detected over the last de• cade and a half produces a list that Coup Fears? I would suggest yet seems unimpressive at best and, when another domestic factor that may have compared with the exciting happenings figured in Pyongyang's ferocious reac• elsewhere in the communist world, tion to Team Spirit. Kim Jong-il may downright pitiful. well fear that elements in the North Korean military could use a future 25

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Revisionism In Pyongyang the struggle—not only fellow Koreans but also Chinese and the agents of the Fundamental reform of the North Soviet Union as well. In these memoirs, Korean system would imply criticism of however, Kim acknowledges that he Kim 11-sung. Opening the country to worked as a cadre of a Chinese Com• foreign ideas and information would munist Party organization and fought in admit views critical of him. Therefore a "joint struggle" with Chinese forces. both have been unthinkable. Limited to He recalls by name many previously ig• halfway measures, the ruling class has nored comrades, including Korean and been helpless to take the serious steps Chinese guerrilla leaders. And he re• many must believe are needed to pro• veals that he accepted an appointment long their rule—in the way, for exam• by representatives of Moscow's Com• ple, that Chinese economic reformers munist International as a youth or• under Deng Xiaoping have been able to ganizer in Manchuria's Eastern Jilin extend Communist Party rule. Province in 1930. Perhaps the only possible way out But even while making these modest for Kim Il-sung, since the time it be• efforts to correct the record, Kim tries came apparent his system was losing to distort that record further. He mirac• the race, would have been to recast his ulously appears, for example, as a image, either by replacing lies with lifelong, staunch opponent of discrimi• truth or by blaming subordinates and nation against people on account of evil advisers for the excesses of his sys• their class or ideological background. tem. Kim could then permit his tech• This despite the fact, as defectors and nocrats to go for something resembling international human-rights groups have a Chinese-style economic reform—while reported, that North Korea's communist leaving the political system and leader• caste system is the epitome of such dis• ship relatively unchanged for the time crimination. It classifies all families as being. Like Mao, he could retain his "loyal," "waverers" or "hostile elements" place in history as a towering patriotic and treats them accordingly. figure and the father of the republic. There isn't much time, though, for a Two volumes of Kim's memoirs, new Kim Il-sung to emerge before he published in 1992, suggest he may at dies. Kim Jong-il, meanwhile, has iden• least have toyed with this strategy. tified himself so closely and intensely Covering the period from his birth in with his father's ideas and system, and 1912 until early 1933, nearly 21 years, has made such extensive use of lies and they are a partially revisionist work distortions in building his own person• that attempts to distance him from ality cult, that he and the regime he earlier lies and half-truths of commis• heads may be as boxed in now as Kim sion and omission, as well as from Il-sung ever was. The junior Kim, over some of the most widely condemned a period of many years and with the aspects of his system.21 publication of many speeches and trea• For example, Kim was a legitimate tises, became the chief priest of his hero of the anti-Japanese struggle of father's juche ideology—his means of the 1930s—but only one of a number seeking legitimacy for such an un- of heroes.* To justify a personality cult, Marxist institution as dynastic rule. however, Kim had to put the others in the shade. For his greater glory Pyong• * As Dae-Sook Sun of the University of Hawaii yang over the decades downgraded or notes in his biography, some of the others were deleted the roles of others involved in Kim's seniors and equals (Suh 1988:1-54). 26

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As recently as March 1993 he warned would-be reformers could even assign in a 22-page thesis against private him the role of a one-man Gang of ownership and other "abuses of social• Four, to be blamed like Mao's widow ism," which he blamed for the collapse Jiang Qing for the misrule of the old of socialist systems abroad.22 ruler's final years. There are many examples of the lies Although there remains little sign of on which Kim Jong-il's personality cult counter-revolutionary activity in the is built. Pyongyang claims he was born North, defectors' reports and accounts in a cabin on the slopes of Mt. Paektu, of interviews with travelers do suggest which is on the North Korean-Man- that much of the adult population har• churian border, while his father was bors increasing doubts about the sys• fighting there against the Japanese in tem. By one estimate the Kim-loyalist 1942. This "holy birthplace" has now fanatics now account for only perhaps come to play a large role in North a tenth of the population.* Periodic Korean propaganda. But it has been reports tell of crowds of up to a couple well established that Kim Il-sung and hundred people at a time gathering to his wife, Kim Jong-il's mother, were in protest food shortages and other eco• the Soviet Union at the time the boy nomic conditions. was born, 16 February 1942.23 The Kim Jong-il regime, like the * In an interview with a Newsweek reporter, Kim Il-sung regime, will find it difficult economist Lee Young Hwa, a Japan resident of to open and reform the system without Korean nationality, described an eight-month stay sacrificing the Kim family image. As in Pyongyang in 1991. "Ten percent of the popula• tion are fanatics, but the rest of them are people the need and demand for reform in• like us, and they are suffering," Lee said (Takaya- Kim Il-sung Square in crease, Kim Jong-il has a wild ride raa 1993:43). Pyongyang ahead of him. Once his father is gone, 27

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Outside Influences . . . Tokyo." The North Korean said he had been a Conley fan for years. Substantial numbers of North Koreans hear from relatives and others who have traveled or lived abroad that life in LOOKING AHEAD South Korea and the West—and even in China—is richer. Getting caught saying Pyongyang's ability to control its peo• so brings a one-month sentence in a ple, even if it has declined as reports reeducation camp.* But this is a risk suggest, should not be underestimated. more and more people are likely to With constant vigilance—taking advan• take. The economy, after all, can hardly tage of the country's relatively compact Kim Jong-il could improve if the regime's nuclear gamble geography, concentrated population and scares off anyone considering invest• be assigned the tightly sealed borders, as well as any ment from outside. No doubt it is sig• role of a one-man additional clout bestowed by the pre• nificant that the government lately has Gang of Four, to be sumed possession of a nuclear bomb— been at pains to patch even tiny holes the regime may be able to maintain blamed like Mao's in the tight lid it keeps on information substantial control and stave off col• widow for the mis• from outside. Recent reports tell of a lapse for at least a short while. rule of the Great crackdown on contact even with the

24 A scenario offering a modicum of Leader's final years Chinese. stability into the medium term—perhaps Despite the regime's surveillance and several years—might be conceivable if control, there is reason to believe some the United States could find a way to people have obtained forbidden short• guarantee the security of the regime in wave receivers and listen to foreign exchange for satisfaction on the nuclear broadcasts. Ordinary North Korean ra• issue. As Pyongyang knows from the dio listeners have long been limited by 1970s episode with the late South available equipment to a single govern• Korean President Park Chung-hee's ment medium-band frequency. The U.S. nuclear program, Washington was will• government's Voice of America (VOA) ing to offer both a nuclear security has been accessible only to the small guarantee and substantia] financial aid group of North Koreans allowed to to buy the South off from building the hear short-wave broadcasts—i.e., trusted bomb. With firm assurances that no members of the leadership class whose one outside the country would do any• work absolutely required familiarity thing to help topple the regime, and with events abroad. But in January with aid commitments from Japan, 1993, reports say, the regime began South Korea and the West, it might jamming the transmissions of VOA.25 seem that Kim and company could af• Ironically, some members of the ford the risk of trying Chinese-style country's elite had become regular VOA economic reforms—smoothing the way listeners—even fans. When the first for those reforms with more of the delegation of North Korean scholars historical revisionism discussed earlier. visited Washington in 1989, its first But optimism regarding a quick, sight-seeing request was for a tour of clean outcome must be rationed spar• VOA headquarters.26 In Pyongyang dur• ingly. Washington, for its part, will be ing our 1992 visit one official aston• at pains to avoid the appearance of ished the veteran VOA Asia correspon• dent Ed Conley by giving a near-perfect * The sentence for speaking ill of Kim Il-sung is imitation of Conley's trademark signoff: life imprisonment, according to an ethnic Korean 1 "Edward Conley . . . Voice of America interviewed who often travels to North Korea. 28

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submitting to nuclear blackmail—and Four." In addition, Summers said that will be impatient with any attempts by with the South Korean economy ex• Pyongyang to use high-level talks with periencing a shortage of the sort of American officials to buy time for con• cheap labor available in the North— tinuing nuclear weapons development. and suffering in international competi• As for the Kims, their real problems tion as a result—the North-South eco• are domestic. The trap they have set for nomic fit will never be better. With Washington will themselves at home may paralyze any such views increasingly heard, we may want to avoid the impetus to compromise internationally. soon see another shift of Southern appearance of sub• Remaining in power indefinitely is the opinion, whether in favor of rapid only outcome that would truly spell Northern collapse and unification or mitting to nuclear security for the Kims. And if their re• merely recognizing that this is a strong blackmail gime is doomed by its own internal dy• possibility for which the South must be namic, even the world's sole superpower prepared. cannot guarantee its perpetuation— The more ominous question is the however long and at whatever level political-military one: whether events Washington and Pyongyang may talk. and the regime's own actions are isolat• The case for expecting an eventual ing the Kims to the extent of backing collapse, coup d'etat or other sudden them into a corner. Possibly, China's change grows ever stronger with the aid and advice could be a stabilizing news out of the North. Economically, factor. Despite Beijing's need for eco• if the outcome were merely a sudden nomic ties with South Korea and other collapse and reunification on the Ger• market-economy countries, it retains an man model, the South Koreans—with obvious interest in the continued sur• help from their allies—could probably vival of a communist regime right on handle it. Indeed, new figures suggest its border.* that it would cost the South more to Still, sources extremely knowledge• postpone reunification. able about the North have been talking An estimate by Korea University since the latter part of 1992 about economist Hwang Eui Gak says the some act of desperation they half ex• South's capital investment tab would be pect, something that might feel good at $1.2 billion if reunification occurred as the time to the Pyongyang leadership late as the year 2000—but less if it and distract the people from their real happened earlier.27 Harvard Professor problems. Most likely this would be a Lawrence H. Summers said in a lecture lashing out externally, of which the at Seoul's Research Institute for Nation• NPT withdrawal and the "war footing" al Unification on 26 August 1992, that may have been precursors. the unification bill would mount with time. Summers gave other reasons why * "To China, who has to believe that the socialist the South should welcome early unifi• system can be improved and perfected so long as cation. "The prospects for gradual re• there is the willingness to carry out the necessary form in North Korea seem to me to be reforms and be open to outside exchanges, there is every wish for North Korea to succeed in over• near nonexistent," he said. "Every suc• coming her problems and continue to thrive as a cessful economic reform in the world secure and stable neighbor." (Statement by Tsang has been associated with change in po• Tak-sing, chief editor of Ta Kung Pao, a Hong litical leadership. Even the Chinese Kong daily with close ties to the Beijing regime, at classic example of gradual reform was a seminar sponsored by the Seoul Foreign Cor• preceded by a wrenching political respondents' Club and the Korea Press Center on change with the end of the Gang of 3 December 1992.) 29

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Japanese Korea-watcher Katsumi drawal is not necessarily irrational and Sato speculates that Pyongyang's likely may even be counted as a shrewd ploy response to international sanctions if it turns out to have increased his would range from leaving the United negotiating leverage and his regime's Nations, through announcing that it short-to-medium-term security. has nuclear weapons (which would In any case, the pressure is on Kim amount to a threat to use them on Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in a way it was South Korea or another neighbor, such not on European communist leaders as Japan), to attacking South Korea who did not foresee their fate. The with terror and assassination squads, Kims knew those leaders and, for ex• conventional forces or nuclear weapons. ample, saw what happened to Nicolae In an analysis in the prestigious month• and Elena Ceausescu, the Romanian ly Bungei Shunju for May 1993, Sato dictator and his wife who were execut• reported that Pyongyang was on the ed by a firing squad during the Decem• verge of having to dip into its military ber 1989 anticommunist revolt, t reserves of grain and oil to supply In addition to indulging in their own civilian needs. This could be creating megalomania, the Kims are busily in• an imperative for North Korea to use ducing paranoia in people loyal to them the war option "before it becomes im• with campaigns echoing the rhetoric of possible," he suggested. militant religious cults all the way from A British defense expert, Paul Beaver Teheran to Waco, Texas. If Pyongyang's of Jane's Sentinel intelligence database, news agencies can be believed, some was quoted in a Reuters dispatch as 1.5 million people volunteered to join saying Pyongyang still lacks the delivery the army during the "semi-war" footing system but has a bomb—so "the only in March 1993 and many signed oaths thing they could do at the moment is in blood declaring themselves ready to // the regime is blow themselves up." Beaver added that lay down their lives for Kim Il-sung in reaching the stage he couldn't rule out a suicidal gesture.28 a "sacred war of reunification."25 Even where it has little North Korea, thanks to Kim Il- if only a fraction of the population buys into such extremism, a harrowing left to lose, ques• sung's stubborn refusal to change, would seem to offer the perfect exam• wait is in store for outsiders watching tions about the ple of what Yale University historian to see which way North Korea will go. judgment of the Paul Kennedy, in his new book, Prepar• Kims become more ing for the 21st Century, refers to as the * For example, in 1978 when Kim Jong-il al• worrisome "failed state." If the regime is reaching legedly ordered the kidnapping of a South Korean the stage where it has little left to lose, movie director and his actress wife from Hong Kong to Pyongyang (for the purpose of improving questions asked for decades about the North Korean movies) and again in 1987 when he judgement and even the sanity of the allegedly ordered the bombing of a Korean Air• Kims become more worrisome. Ever lines plane, he "seemed to ignore the potential im• since Kim Il-sung's disastrous error in pact of the action." If his liking for such "bold invading the South in 1950, his own and forceful" actions reflects his personality, "it military behavior has been more or less raises very worrisome questions about his eager• ness to take risks and his inability to assess conse• in his regime's rational self-interest. quences" (Oh 1988:29-30). Kim Jong-il is much less of a known quantity, but what can be inferred from I One diplomat from a former Soviet-bloc coun• available clues is not reassuring. Many try told the author that Deputy Prime Minister Kim Dal-hyon, a relative of the Kims, got his analysts have questioned his emotional chemistry training in Romania—where, ironically, makeup, describing him as impetuous one of his teachers was Elena Ceausescu. at best.* But his threat of NPT with• commander of the North Korean People's ENDNOTES Army and self-described author of the war plans, in Hankuk llbo, beginning 1 1. Byoung-Lo Philo Kim (1992). November 1990. Seiler (1992) contains a 2. Joan Robinson (1965), quoted in translation of that testimony. Joseph Sang-hoon Chung (1974:151). 20. In his 18 March 1993 appearance at 3. Karl Mener (1961:23). the Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club.

4. Kim Il-sung (1958), quoted in Kim 21. See Martin (1993a, 1993b). Chang-soon (1979:12). 22. Kim Jong-il (1993), cited in Korea 5. Byoung-Lo Philo Kim (1992:123). Times (5 March 1993).

6. Byoung-Lo Philo Kim (1992:66). 23. See, for example, Seiler (1992).

7. Korea Annual (1992:277). 24. See, for example, "NK Bans Contact With Chinese" {Korea Times 28 Jan. 8. Figures are from Korea Times (26 1993:1). The Yonhap news agency report Nov. 1992:9), citing a report by the Korea picked up from the Japanese wire service Trade Promotion Corporation (KOTRA). Kyodo quotes a Western source in Pyong• North Korea does not release trade statis• yang as saying the ban extended even to tics. The KOTRA figures are compilations reading the Chinese newspaper Peoples of two-way trade data from 61 countries. Daily. North Korea's global exports dropped 24.8 percent and imports 9.9 percent for 25. The jamming of VOA began in early 1991, according to a KOTRA report cited January of 1993, according to a Reuters in Korea Times (20 Nov. 1992:9). report {Korea Times 15 Jan. 1993:3).

9. Korea Times (23 Oct. 1992). 26. Author's conversation with one of the group's American hosts in June 1989. 10. Conversation with a European inves• tor, 1992. 27. Korea Herald (31 March 1993).

11. Korea Times (21 Oct. 1992). 28. Japan Times (1 April 1993).

12. Korea Herald (13 March 1993). 29. Associated Press dispatch from Tokyo quoting the Korean Central News Agency 13. This was picked up and rebroadcast [Korea Times 23 March 1993). on South Korea's KBS on 23 October 1992.

14. International Herald Tribune (29 Jan. 1993:3).

15. Korea Annual (1992:177, 276).

16. Korea Times (29 Jan. 1993).

17. See "Nuclear Jitters" in Newsweek (29 April 1991).

18. Quote of an unnamed participant provided by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, picked up by Agence France Presse and carried in Korea Times (18 March 1993).

19. See serialized testimony by Yu Song-chol, former operations bureau 31

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Mener, Karl. 1961. "Seeing is Believing." REFERENCES In Impressions of Korea, Pyongyang: For• eign Languages Publishing House. Cha, Byong-gwon. 1979. "The Financial Structure of North Korea—Its Charac• Oh, Kong Dan. 1988. "Leadership teristics." Vantage Point, vol. II, no. 1, Change in North Korean Politics: The January. Succession of Kim Il-sung." Rand Corpo• ration Report. Santa Monica: Rand Cor• Chay, Pyung-gil. 1978. "The Policy Direc• poration. tions of the North Korea Regime." Van• tage Point, vol. I, no. 7, November. Robinson, Joan. 1965. "Korean Miracle." Monthly Review, January. Chung, Joseph Sang-hoon. 1974. The North Korean Economy: Structure and Sato, Katsumi. 1993. 'North Korea: A Development. Stanford: Hoover Institu• Dangerous Neighbor.' Bungei Shunju, tion Press. May.

Eberstadt, Nicholas, and Judith Banister. Scalapino, Robert A., and Chong-Sik Lee. 1990. North Korea: Population Trends 1972. Communism in Korea. Part I: The and Prospects. Washington: U.S. Bureau Movement. Berkeley: University of of the Census. California Press.

Kennedy, Paul M. 1993. Preparing for the Seiler, Sydney A. 1992. "Kim II Song 21st Century. New York: Random House. 1941-1948: The Creation of a Legend, The Creation of a Regime.** Unpublished Kim, Byoung-Lo Philo. 1992. Two Koreas master's thesis, Department of Korean in Development: A Comparative Study of Studies, Graduate School of International Principles and Strategies of Capitalist and Studies, Yonsei University. Communist Third World Development. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Pub• Suh, Dae-Sook. 1988. Kim U Sung, The lishers. North Korean Leader. Part I. New York: Columbia University Press. Kim, Chang-soon. 1979. "North Korea Today." Vantage Point, vol II, no. 3. Takayama, Hideko. 1993. "A Visitor to Pyongyang." Newsweek International, Kim, Il-sung. 1958. "On Communist Edu• Pacific edition, 29 March. cation," November 28.

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Martin, Bradley. 1993a. "Remaking Kim's Image." Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 April.

Martin, Bradley. 1993b. "Revisionism in Pyongyang" (in Korean). Newsweek Hankuk-pan, 1 April.