Pride, Prejudice and Manchurian Heritage: North Korean Migrants and Memories of a Land Left Behind Issue Date: 2020-02-26

Home , Blue House raid, Jang Jin, Kim Seok, NK News, Nordpolitik, North Korean studies

Cover Page

The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/85722 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.

Author: Green, C.K. Title: Pride, Prejudice and Manchurian Heritage: North Korean Migrants and Memories of a Land Left Behind Issue Date: 2020-02-26

LITERATURE REVIEW: North Korean Studies in the 21st Century1

Researching the geographical and political construct known officially as the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea (DPRK; DPR Korea; more widely as North Korea) through its defector-

migrant population is a relatively new phenomenon, one that emerged from a set of specific

socio-economic circumstances present on the Korean peninsula in the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Prior to that period, such research would have been impossible. Once the inter-

Korean border hardened at the end of the Korean War in 19532 until parts of DPR Korea

collapsed into famine in the early 1990s, the number of people leaving DPR Korea was

miniscule.3 The anti-communist Republic of Korea (ROK; South Korea) government also

rejected the very notion of empirical research of North Korea, which it did not recognize as a

separate state. That did not change significantly until South Korea turned from military

dictatorship toward democracy in 1987.

Today, more than thirty years after the democratization of the ROK, the situation on the Korean

peninsula has altered dramatically. Due in no small part to the aforementioned North Korean

famine of 1995-1998, more than 30,000 former citizens of North Korea have resettled in South

Korea, which has become a consolidated democracy.4 This has opened the door to academic

research that looks at DPR Korea through the eyes of the defector-migrant North Korean

population.

1 I wish to thank James E. Hoare and Christopher Richardson for their insightful comments on an early draft of this chapter. 2 Volumes of migrants moving around the Korean peninsula between 1945 and 1953 was, of course, of a completely different scale to anything that has been seen since, including during the “Arduous March” famine of the 1990s. 3 This made it difficult, if not impossible, to ask politically sensitive questions to migrant North Koreans living in the South, a small number of people in any case, and a community that was always already viewed by the South Korean authorities with suspicion. 4 Defined as the peaceful transfer of power from ruling party to opposition and back. In South Korea, this means from conservative to liberal (in 1998) and back again (in 2008). Whilst the Pak Kŭnhye era unquestionably presented a challenge to democracy in South Korea, the political system itself was never under serious threat.

22 In this chapter, then, I look in detail at the development of North Korean studies, doing so in

the context of peninsula social history. I investigate the history of the research environment for

North Korean studies, appraise today’s infrastructure for North Korea research and education,

examine different approaches to the study of North Korea both today and in the past, and

review the history of the scholars who wrote past studies. I discuss research in these areas in the

round, but end by focusing attention on the research method used in this thesis; that is, surveys

and interviews with resettled North Koreans living in South Korea. Our goal is to reveal the

contours of the North Korean studies field, specifically its unique set of theoretical and

methodological preoccupations and core questions, and thus to reveal also the positionality,

value, and policy-relevance of this research.

The literature reviewed in this chapter is in two languages, Korean and English.5 To be included,

a text must have as its main theme some aspect or element of DPR Korea – its society, daily life,

history, politics, education, military, and so forth. I do not review literature in Russian, Chinese,

5 There is a substantial volume of empirical research on North Korea published in languages other than Korean and English. The Cold War saw insightful works in Russian, a reflection of North Korea’s post-war status as an ally of the USSR. There is also much to be found in the archives and university libraries of Eastern Europe, such as the materials that have made their presence felt in works in English by Charles Armstrong and Balazs Salontai in recent years. (I note without additional comment Salontai’s well-evidenced and thus credible accusation of plagiarism against Armstrong in 2015.) Archives and private collections from around the world also inform the outputs of the Woodrow Wilson Center NKIDP, or North Korea International Documentation Project. There is a body of Korean-language research by Chosŏnjok (ethnic Korean) scholars based at Yanbian University in Yŏn'gil (Yanji), PRC, some of which is published in Korean by South Korean journals, in addition to the works of Han Chinese scholars. Many of these non-Anglophone scholarly communities have unique research vantage points, and obvious advantages over European and North American scholars in terms of access to North Korea. This makes it doubly unfortunate that there remains little collaboration between the traditions of the former USSR and its satellites, modern Chinese academia, and the western side of the old Iron Curtain. Partly this is down to historical political legacy -- most Eastern European and Soviet scholars used to focus on Korean literature and culture rather than politics, resulting in fewer areas of scholarly overlap – but that hardly accounts for the gulf that exists between the various groups. Efforts to connect scholarly communities have been made in recent decades. The Association of Korean Studies in Europe (AKSE) began to reach out to East European and Soviet scholars in the 1980s. There are scholars writing in English and Korean from the former Soviet Union (Andrei Lankov, Alexandre Mansourov, Dima Mironenko, etc.), young Russians such as Kayla Iacovino, a volcanologist now working with the US Geological Survey, Natalia Kim of the National Research University School of Higher Economics in Moscow, and Fyodor Tertitskiy, a graduate of the Department of Sociology at Sŏul National University. There are also Russian- speaking South Koreans such as Lee Chisu of Myŏngji University in Sŏul, and Russian-speaking Americans such as Anthony Rinna, with whom I collaborate on the digital periodical Sino-NK. There is an annual forum held at Yŏnbyŏn University in Korean and Chinese, though organizers tend not to include scholars from beyond East Asia, and events hosted by the Consulate-General of the United States in Shenyang, which take place primarily in English.

23 or any other language, although naturally some of the authors do of course hail – and draw on

scholarly traditions and literatures – from elsewhere.

I have tried where possible to cite the temporal and geographical locations in which individual

scholars grew up. Where that information is available, I stipulate when and where each individual

was born, and the period in which he or she came of age, meaning reached the age of 18. In

doing so, I draw on the concept of “social generations”.6 It was the war of 1950-53 that gave the

Korean peninsula its debut on the stage of world history, but the early 20th century in all of Asia

was tumultuous, and few were un- or even just mildly affected by it.7 As such, the personal

circumstances of a scholar from that region can be expected to inform his or her views in adulthood of North and South Korea as an object of research, which makes the background of the author useful (though not deterministically so) information for the reader. With that in mind,

I have sought to include a small amount of demographic information on key scholars.

This chapter is divided up into two main categories: (I) Place and Structure; and (II) People and

Publications. The Place and Structure category is about the history of the research environment for North Korean studies as a subject both globally and in South Korean tertiary education; in the latter case as a case study in weakness. The People and Publications category is sub-divided into three generational blocks: (i) Those scholars first active in the research arena in the early and middle Cold War era; (ii) Those first active in the late Cold War and early 1990s; and (iii) Those

6 It is useful to appreciate where ethnically Korean scholars are situated in the historical development of the Korean peninsula. Mannheim posits that a group of people born in the same year or consecutive series of years in each region will share a common frame of social reference, and that this will in turn shape that generation’s attitudes and beliefs. Mannheim’s supposition is that the period between ages 18-25 is particularly critical in forming the political and social opinions of a specific demographic, and that views formed in the 18-25 period are particularly likely to be carried through life. Thus, one’s positionality vis-a-vis North Korea during that critical formative period has an impact on outputs, and social generation is a legitimate variable to include in any assessment of the scholarship of an individual. It is not the only grounds upon which one could reasonably structure an analysis of difference within the field, but it is a reasonable one. For more, see: Karl Mannheim, “The Problem of Generations,” in Karl Mannheim: Essays, ed. Paul Keeskemeti (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 1952, republished 1972), 276-322. 7 The comment about the Korean War and its place in world history stems from a private discussion with Prof. Ra Chongil (Ra Jong-yil) in Sŏul in April 2018. The remainder is derived from Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: 1914-1991 (London: Little Brown, 1994), 2-5.

24 first active in the late 1990s and 2000s.8 I then review the publications in English and Korean

that use surveys and interviews involving defector-migrant North Koreans, and offer some

concluding remarks.

Place and Structure: History of the Research Environment

The story about the study of modern Korea told in this chapter begins in the post-WWII period.

That does not mean there was no “modern Korea research” prior to the 1930s and 1940s. An

alternative history of the study of modern Korea might reasonably extend deep into the 19th

century and attend to works on the life and culture of the Korean peninsula by Horace Allen

(1858-1932), known as the first American Protestant missionary in Korea (from 1884 to 1894),

British explorer Isabella Bird (1831-1904) and Emily Kemp (1860-1939), to name but a few.9

Alternatively, a transnational, diasporic approach could start when “One Hundred And Two

Subjects of the Hermit Kingdom” reached Hawaii to “Try Their Luck at Plantation Labor” in

January 1903, shortly before Korea began 35 years under Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945).10

The contention here is not that these works are without merit, and therefore should not be

included. On the contrary. Rather, it was not until the growth of Area Studies in the post-WWII

period that the study of Korea started on the road to becoming a self-sustaining academic

endeavor (a destination at which it has arguably yet to arrive). Therefore, I draw the line in

August 1945; the moment of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

8 The reasoning behind these categories is explained as the chapter proceeds. 9 Horace Newton Allen, Things Korean: a collection of sketches and anecdotes, missionary and diplomatic (Sŏul: Kyung-In Pub. Co. for the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 1975); Andrea Yun Kwon, “Providence and Politics: Horace N. Allen and the Early US-Korea Encounter, 1884-1894,” PhD diss., University of California Berkeley, 2012; Isabella Bird Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbors: A Narrative of Travel, with an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Emily Kemp, The Face of Manchuria, Korea, and Russian Turkestan (London: Chatto and Windus, 1910). 10 “A Large Party Come by the Gaelic,” The Hawaiian Star, January 13, 1903: 1. Archived at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5434000/korean_immigration_jan_1903_ss/ (last accessed January 14, 2019); Duk Hee Lee Murabayashi, “Korean Passengers Arriving at Honolulu, 1903-1905,” Center for Korean Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawai‘i (Manoa: University of Hawaii, 2004); Sonia Ryang, “The Transnational (Re)turn of Korean Studies,” Transnational Asia 1, no. 1 (December 30, 2016). http://transnationalasia.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=119 (last accessed February 24, 2017).

25 Korean Peninsula History and North Korean Studies Research11

In 1945, the remaking of the world order by American power – born of financial dominance,

rapidly advancing scientific and technical capabilities, and the fact that America’s erstwhile

competitors had been thoroughly defeated in war – was both possible and, to many, desirable.12

A practical undertaking concerned first and foremost with understanding and predicting the

behavior of actors in a complex and dangerous world, Area Studies was seen as a plank in that

remaking, and came to receive exceptional levels of funding.13 Understandably given the money

and prestige on offer, academia was a full and active participant in the endeavor. Scholars

became political actors, and intelligence and academic communities joined forces like never

before.14 There were of course negative aspects to the phenomenon; Bruce Cumings writes both

at length and with deep skepticism about the “astonishing” levels of collaboration among “the

universities, the foundations, and the intelligence arms of the American state” in the post-WWII

English-speaking world.15

But whether astonishing or not – though regrettable from the standpoint of academic integrity,

unlike Cumings I am inclined to regard the process as quite predictable and probably

unavoidable – resources flowed to the nascent field, usually in the general direction of study of

the Soviet Union. Even before the Cold War had begun in earnest, the United States was finding

11 Much of what I say in this chapter about research on North Korea could be said today about research on South Korea. Outside of South Korean universities, the two branches of Korea research almost always co-exist, and what is true for one is mostly true for the other. This was not always the case, however; the gap between the two used to be more significant. Language skills, disciplinary background and institutional membership were all once highly divisive, much more so than today. I wish to thank Remco Breuker for his insights in this area. 12 Keith Lowe, The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (London: Penguin Random House, 2017), 83-98. 13 The Defense Technical Information Center (http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/) hosts an extensive archive of US official reports on North Korea from this era, which focuses on the nuts and bolts of North Korean military and economic conditions. A notable aspect of these reports is that they include hard data on budgets, information that the North Korean government has long since stopped making public. 14 Niall Ferguson, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist (New York: Penguin, 2015), 233. 15 Bruce Cumings, Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American-East Asian Relations at the End of the Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 173-204. Cumings speaks about his own early Korean Studies influences in Kim Keong-il (ed.), Pioneers of Korean Studies (Sŏul: Academy of Korean Studies, 2004), 655-687.

26 it almost impossible to work with its nominal ally in Moscow, and at Yalta and elsewhere was accused of capitulating at every turn in the face of Soviet intransigence.16 One conclusion drawn from this was that the United States needed to understand more about the Soviet Union.

Though George F. Kennan’s classic 1947 Foreign Affairs essay on the “sources of Soviet conduct” laid solid foundations for understanding the conditions of the Soviet version of the relationship between “ideology and circumstances” within which all states operate, much still remained to be explained, or better yet, predicted.17 Academia seemed to offer a route to this end.

Money began to pour in. An intelligence arm of the US state, the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to today’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), relocated its entire Soviet division to

Columbia University in 1946, where it was renamed the Russian Institute.18 In 1947, the Carnegie

Corporation of New York gave Harvard University $740,000 USD, a very significant sum at the time, which was used to establish the Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center for

Russian and Eurasian Research19). In the 1950s, the Ford Foundation funded several area studies programs relating to the Soviet Union to the tune of $270m USD, all under the watchful eye of then-CIA Director Allen Dulles.20 These new avenues to public prominence attracted young, ambitious talent. Henry Kissinger would go on to become one of the best-known beneficiaries of the brave new world. As Niall Ferguson puts it in his book on the controversial former US

16 Lowe, The Fear and the Freedom, 222. 17 George F. Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, July 1947. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct (last accessed August 29, 2019). As an aside, Kennan states in the conclusion to his essay that “To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.” This evergreen statement also holds for South Korea in its battle for peninsular dominance with North Korea, a fact that Ra Chongil has pointed out to me several times during private conversation. 18 Cumings, Parallax Visions, 180; David C. Engerman, “Knowing Allies and Enemies: The World War II Origins of Soviet Studies in American Universities,” in Russian/Soviet Studies in the United States, Amerikanistika in Russia: Mutual Representations in Academic Projects, eds. Ivan Kurilla and Victoria I. Zhuraleva (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), 176-177. 19 Cumings, Parallax Visions, 180. 20 Cumings, Parallax Visions, 184

27 Secretary of State, this was “the new ‘great game,’ and the best and brightest from Ivy League

colleges thirsted to play it.”21

In this nascent Cold War context, research on North Korea in the US, to the limited extent that

it took place at all, was driven by a handful of mostly ethnically Korean scholars who went from

the Korean peninsula and nearby regions of Northeast Asia to study at American universities

during and shortly after the end of the Korean War.22 Primary sources of the day came from the

life experiences of these individuals, official documents to which they had access, and the

reminiscences of third parties with first-hand experience of events in Korea following the

division of the peninsula in 1945.23

In the newly formed (on August 15, 1948) Republic of Korea, meanwhile, no substantive North

Korea research was taking place. The national economy had been destroyed by the Korean War,

and thereafter, as social scientists Kim Tongch'un (b.1959 in Yŏngju-si, Kyŏngsangbuk-to, 18 in

1977) and Son Hoch'ŏl (b.1952 in Sŏul (known more commonly as Seoul), 18 in 1970) are just

two of a great many to point out, anti-communism took root as the Republic of Korea’s defining

kukshi (governing philosophy).24 The 1950s were dominated to such a degree by inter-Korean

21 Ferguson, Kissinger, 265. 22 The low standard of intelligence about Korea in the run up to the outbreak of the Korean War is recounted in detail in Matthew M. Aid, “U.S. Humint and Comint in the Korean War: From the Approach of War to the Chinese Intervention,” Intelligence and National Security 14, no, 4 (Winter 1999) and “American Comint in the Korean War (part ii): From the Chinese intervention to the armistice,” Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 14- 49; Thomas R. Johnson, “American Cryptology During the Korean War,” Studies in Intelligence 45, no. 3 (2001). https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000872751.pdf (last accessed November 25, 2016. 23 Some in this last group would go on to become academics; others, for instance S.J. Davies, were already on different paths. Davies was an ordained British minister and prisoner of war held by the Chinese military in North Korea during the Korean War of 1950-53. See: S.J. Davies, In spite of dungeons: the experiences of a prisoner-of-war in North Korea of the chaplain to the first battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954). The scholarly group includes people such as George McCune, who was born in P’yŏngyang to missionaries in 1908, witnessed the formal colonization of Korea by Japan during his elementary school years, and then continued his education and ultimately died in the United States in 1948. See: George M. McCune and Arthur L. Grey, Jr., Korea Today (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950). McCune’s partner in the creation in 1939 of the McCune- Reischauer system of Korean language Romanization used in this thesis, Edwin O. Reischauer was first and foremost concerned with Japan. Bill Skillend, the first British teacher of things Korean also began with Japanese and then moved on to Korea. Until Korean language and culture began to be taught in multiple locations, Japan was the most common path into Korean Studies. Indeed, today there is still a tendency for scholars of China or Japan to migrate into Korean Studies, often without pausing to gain the relevant language skills. 24 Kim Tongch'un, Pan'gongŭi sidae han'gukkwa togil naengjŏnŭi chŏngch'i 반공의 시대 한국과 독일 냉전의 정치 [Antikommunismus in Korea und Deutschland] (Paju: Dolbegae, 2015), 288; Son Hoch'ŏl, Hyŏndae Han'guk chŏngch'i:

28 antagonism – in many ways transcending the tenor of the early Cold War elsewhere – that, as

Kim Namsik (b.1925 in Nonsan-si, Ch'ungch'ŏngnam-do, 18 in 1943, d. 200525) recalls, “Just

using the expression ‘peaceful unification’ infringed anti-communist laws.” 26 The Asiatic

Research Institute of Korea University (ARI) was founded in 1957, but unsurprisingly, work on

North Korea was not among its undertakings.27 Political extremism rendered meaningful North

Korea-related research to all intents and purposes impossible.

Piecemeal public discussion of North Korea issues only broke out in the ROK with the April

1960 fall of the Yi Sŭngman (Rhee Syngman) government that had ruled since the Republic of

Korea was established in 1948. However, this contestation took place in the context of

widespread social chaos under the successor Chang Myŏn government, which proved short-

lived. The military dictatorship of Pak Chŏnghŭi (Park Chung-hee), established via the May 16

Coup (5.16 kunsa chŏngbyŏn) in May 1961, emphasized with some justification the urgent need to

centralize state functions and bring society under political control. Most of the space for

democratic debate of all kinds was closed off, including the controversial topic of North Korea.

In Pak Chŏnghŭi’s propagandist 1970 book on the “social ideology of reconstruction,” the coup

leader notes caustically the circumstances that prompted his seizure of power, saying, “If the

literal anarchy under the Chang Regime had not been corrected, the national tragedy of another

iron, yŏksa, hyŏnsil 현대 한국정치: 이론, 역사, 현실 1945-2011 [Contemporary Korean Politics: Theory, History and Present, 1945-2011] (Sŏul: Imagine, 2011), 239-240; Gi-wook Shin, James Freda and Gihong Yi, “The politics of ethnic nationalism in divided Korea,” Nations and Nationalism 5, no. 4 (1999): 479. 25 Upon Kim Namsik’s death on January 7, 2015, historian and progressive social activist Han Hongku described Kim in respectful terms as a teacher [sŭsŭng] to anyone researching North Korea and specifically issues surrounding unification. For more see: Han Hongku, “Puk'anyŏn'guŭi k'ŭn pyŏri ttŏrŏjida” 북한연구의 큰 별이 떨어지다 [A great star of North Korea research falls], Hankyoreh21, January 19, 2005. 26 Kim Namsik, “Pukhanyŏn'gu hyŏnhwanggwa munjejŏm” 북한연구 현황과 문제점 [The current state and controversies of North Korea research], Wŏlgan Mal, July 1988, 16. 27 Chŏng Yŏngch'ŏl, “Pukhanhagŭi hyŏnhwanggwa chŏnmang 북한학의 현황과 전망 [The current state and outlook of North Korean studies],” Hwanghaemunhwa 황해문화[Hwanghae Review] 57 (2007): 309.

29 Korean War would have been repeated.” Pak apparently believed that his military coup had

forestalled “a recurrence of this terrible probability.”28

It is hardly surprising, if even half of what Pak claimed was true, that he would have sought to

limit public debate and contestation over North Korea policy. But his words were, of course,

self-serving justifications and, like all memoirs, his book includes indigestible chunks of self- exculpatory rhetoric. We will never know if Pak’s counter-factual prediction that a second

Korean War was impending in 1960-61 would have come to pass. But whatever benefits Pak’s coup conferred on South Korea, we can say with confidence that it did not resolve the new state’s economic and social problems immediately, though it would in due course make a huge contribution to this end. In the short to medium term, the Republic of Korea remained politically and economically fragile, with the agitation of domestic left-wing groups an ever- present threat to social stability.29 This only reaffirmed the Pak government’s conviction that

active management of public discourses on North Korea – to say nothing of active management

of the streets themselves – was an essential task of government.30

To summarize, then, in the United States and South Korea during the early post-WWII period,

studies of North Korea were in very short supply, contrary to the situation in US universities

where the study of the USSR was concerned. There, money flowed toward research into the

28 Park Chung Hee, Our Nation’s Path: Ideology of Social Reconstruction (Sŏul: Hollym, 1970), 172. 29 Han Kihong, Chinboŭi kŭnŭl: namhanŭi chihahyŏngmyŏngjojikkwa pukhan 진보의 그늘: 남한의 지하혁명조직과 북한 [The Progressive’s Shadow: South Korea’s underground revolutionary organizations and North Korea] (Sŏul: Sidaejŏngsin, 2012), 173-185. 30 The economy would take off in the 1970s, symbolized by the opening in 1970 of the country’s first highway, the kyŏngbu gosoktoro, which dramatically reduced travel times from Sŏul to Pusan on the country’s southeastern coast. But the early days of the “Hangang-ŭi kijŏk,” the so-called “Miracle on the Han River,” were in fact some way shy of miraculous for most. GDP growth was impressive at 6 percent in 1960-65 and 10.6 percent from 1965-70, but this mostly laid the heavy industrial foundations for future growth. In the meantime, people working in the manufacturing sector labored under harsh conditions in a low-wage economy. 1970 is remembered today not only for the opening of the Sŏul-Pusan highway, but also for the death of Chŏn T'aeil, a labor activist who set himself alight in protest at working conditions in the textile factories of p'yŏnghwa sijang (Peace Market) in Dongdaemun- gu, Sŏul. The paradoxes of the period are jarring. For more, see: Rhyu Si-min, Naŭi han'gukhyŏndaesa 나의 한국현대사 [My modern Korean history] (Sŏul: Dolbegae, 2014), 107 and 331-340; Clark W. Sorenson and Hyung-A Kim, Reassessing the Park Chung Hee Era, 1961-1979: Development, Political Thought, Democracy, and Cultural Influence (Seattle: Center for Korea Studies, University of Washington, 2011).

30 Soviet Union and Soviet bloc with a focus on Europe. It was not until 1967 that Sŏ Taesuk (Suh

Dae-sook; b.1931 in Rongjing (Longjing), now part of the Yŏnbyŏn Korean Autonomous

Prefecture, PRC; 18 in 1949) published The Korean Communist Movement, 1918-48, which a reviewer

called the “first scholarly monograph in any language to delineate the contours of the Korean

communist movement and illuminate the background of Kim Ilsŏng, including the

circumstances surrounding his rise to power in the Soviet-occupied North” (emphasis added).31

It would be remiss to ignore, though, that while the atmosphere was far from conducive to

North Korea-related research in either the United States or South Korea, and very little research did indeed take place, the seeds of development were – whether by accident or design – being sown. Under Pak Chŏnghŭi, South Korea was going through a period of intensive institution- building, with government bodies created to breathe life into the military government’s various economic and security objectives.

One such institution was the Educational Institute of Foreign Service Officers (oemugongmuwŏn gyoyugwŏn; or EIFSO), today’s Korea National Diplomatic Academy. EIFSO was established in

1963 with funding from the Asia Foundation to fund domestic diplomacy and security research.

This would in due course come to include North Korea-focused research, as it still does.

Elsewhere, in 1968 with the full backing of government, Tong-A Ilbo, a venerable South Korean media conglomerate and daily newspaper, set up a national security and unification-related research institute32, and in 1970, Yŏngnam University established the t'ongil munje yŏn'guso, or

Unification Question33 Research Institute, which remains active to this day.34

31 Suh Dae-sook, The Korean Communist Movement 1918-48 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967). Ko mentions the book in his 1998 review of the North Korean studies field. See: Ko Pyŏngch'ŏl (B.C. Koh), “The State of North Korean Studies: A Critical Appraisal,” Korean Studies 22 (1998): 1-14. As members of the first generation of North Korea scholars, more details about Sŏ and Ko are provided in the People section of this chapter. 32 Kim, “Pukhanyŏn'gu hyŏnhwanggwa munjejŏm,” 16. 33 The term munje is frequently translated into English as “problem,” but it is more appropriate to use “question,” as I do here. The term is a combination of the Hanja “ask”(問) and “subject” (題). 34 Information on founding date obtained from the institute website: http://uni.yu.ac.kr/uni/sub01_c.htm. Kim Namsik asserts that the institute was founded in 1969.

31 But of particular importance to the future growth of domestic North Korea research in South

Korea was the creation in 1969 of the National Unification Board (kukt'ot'ongirwŏn), a state body

whose remit was exactly that; territorial unification.35 The new branch of government, which would become the Ministry of Unification thirty years later in 1998, was formed, President Pak explained at the time, to unify discussion and decision-making where matters of unification were concerned, and to systematize debate of North Korea (all comfortably within the purview and

oversight of the state, needless to say). The following article was published in one South Korean

newspaper – Economic Daily – on the day the National Unification Board was inaugurated: 36

Carrying the long-cherished desire of the nation (minjok 민족)… National Unification Board opens Maeil Kyŏngje, 1969.03.01

The National Unification Board, which is charged with the priceless duty of accomplishing the supreme national task of fatherland unification, was inaugurated with an opening ceremony in Freedom “Center” at 11:30 AM on the 1st. During the opening ceremony, which was attended by leading officials of the administration, legislature and judiciary including President Pak Chŏnghŭi, National Assembly Speaker Lee and representatives of academia and the media, President Pak emphasized in impromptu remarks that the National Unification Board is a nationwide, bipartisan organization that brings together various unification-related tasks and functions currently dispersed within the government and sets the short, medium and long-term policy goals of unification policy.

Clearly, the creation of the National Unification Board was a political decision entirely

compatible with the imperative toward political centralization prioritized by the Pak military

35 When the Korean lexicon of nation and subjecthood are translated from Korean into English, the results are not always comprehensible in any but the broadest of terms. The National Unification Board is a good example of this. The name “National Unification Board” is a translation of kukt'ot'ongirwŏn. In Hangeul, the term is 국토통일원. The first syllable, kukt’o, means the physical territory of a country, and is a geographical term. However, other terms such as minjok (민족), meaning ethnic group or race, and kukka (국가), meaning state, are also regularly translated as “nation” or “national”. In the case of the kukt'ot'ongirwŏn, the “national” is not intrinsically about ethnicity; it is a territorial matter. 36 “Carrying the long-cherished desire of the nation… National Unification Board opens,” Maeil Kyŏngje, March 1, 1969. http://newslibrary.naver.com/viewer/index.nhn?articleId=1969030100099201009&edtNo=1&printCount=1&publ ishDate=1969-03-01&officeId=00009&pageNo=1&printNo=912&publishType=00020 (last accessed November 2, 2016).

32 government. But the new institution also had a symbolic function. It opened on March 1, thus

marking the 50th anniversary of the historically and constitutionally momentous 1919 Korean

independence movement against Japanese rule.37

While the new institution reportedly managed modest funding streams for domestic North

Korea research projects, the availability of money did not ipso facto alter the North Korean

studies field in a substantive sense, because the domestic political atmosphere did not

dramatically change.38 The projects that the National Unification Board promoted in the 1970s

and 80s were oriented toward a set of objectives that would have been familiar to those active in

the 60s; chosen not “because of an interest in specific areas of human life” in DPR Korea, “but

rather due to political interests and needs in North Korea related to the divided peninsula.”39

This was in a sense reasonable. Although one might wish to have a situation in which research

can be done freely and legitimized by nothing more than reference to one’s own piqued

academic curiosity, in a period of intense geopolitical competition a coordinated approach led by

government is not only inevitable, but also arguably desirable. In the era before economic growth transformed South Korea’s financial fortunes, democratization did the same for Sŏul’s political clout, and catastrophe befell North Korea in both areas, there was little funding or academic bandwidth available for research objectives without policy-relevance.40

The period of the late 1960s and 70s did, however, see a noticeable shift in the tenor of the Cold

War worldwide, framed in large part by the Vietnam War and emergence of proxy wars between

the two superpowers. In Korea, the launch of ROK military involvement in Vietnam after 1964

37 The preamble to the Republic of Korea Constitution stipulates that the Republic of Korea government is obliged to uphold the cause of the March 1st Independence Movement. 38 Kim, “Pukhanyŏn'gu hyŏnhwanggwa munjejŏm,” 16. 39 Kim et al., “A Sketch of North Korean Studies in South Korea,” Korean Political Science Review 45, no. 3 (2011): 88. 40 The incentive structures underpinning academic research today also prioritize policy-relevant research, of course, and seem set to continue doing so.

33 (an American “foul war of aggression”, according to North Korea41) led, in 1966, to Kim Ilsŏng

initiating an active campaign of (in theory) building up anti-state forces in South Korea for the

purpose of forcing the unification of the Korean peninsula.42 The period is particularly

remembered for two major incidents in January 1968 – the “daring and narrow-minded43” 1.21 sat'ae (“Blue House raid”) and the capture of a U.S. reconnaissance vessel the USS Pueblo, which took place within days of one another, as well as the shooting down of a US Navy EC-121 reconnaissance plane by the North Korean military on April 15, 1969 (which it may be worth noting was also the 57th birthday of Kim Ilsŏng).44

Diplomatic communications at the time suggest that the Blue House raid and capture of the USS

Pueblo were actions aimed at reviving the stuttering DPRK-PRC alliance. If so, the tactic cannot

be called an unalloyed success, although it depends on one’s metrics: Beijing did begin to send

aid and assistance to Pyongyang in 1971 after a prolonged hiatus.45 But the long-term losses for

North Korea eclipsed these immediate gains. By the early 1970s, the United States was pursuing not only détente with the Soviet Union but also diplomatic opening with the People’s Republic of China, and DPR Korea’s relative geopolitical position was in obvious decline.

41 Kim Ilsŏng, “The Present Situation and the Tasks of Our Party,” report, Conference of the Workers’ Party of Korea, October 5, 1966, published in Kim Il Sung, Kim Il Sung Works Vol. 20 (P’yŏngyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1984), 386. 42 “The National Security Agency and the EC-121 Shootdown,” report, United States Cryptological History Special Series Crisis Collection Vol. 3 (Washington, DC: Office of Archives and History National Security Agency/Central Security Service, 1989). https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/cryptologic- histories/assets/files/EC-121.pdf (last accessed May 2, 2017). 43 "Telegram from P’yŏngyang to Bucharest, TOP SECRET, No. 76.012, Urgent," January 22, 1968, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Political Affairs Fond, Telegrams from P’yŏngyang, TOP SECRET, 1968, Archive of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Obtained and translated for NKIDP by Eliza Gheorghe. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113939 (last accessed September 26, 2019). 44 “The National Security Agency and the EC-121 Shootdown,” 5. 45 Mitchell Lerner and Jong-dae Shin, “New Romanian Evidence on the Blue House Raid and the USS Pueblo Incident,” Wilson Center North Korea International Documentation Project, April 20, 2012. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/new-romanian-evidence-the-blue-house-raid-and-the-uss-pueblo- incident (last accessed December 5, 2016); Oberdorfer and Carlin, The Two Koreas, 10. Ryoo Kihl-jae, asking how much influence the international situation had on North Korean domestic policy decisions, contends that North Korea’s aggressive actions of the time were intended to “justify sacrifices that the people of North Korea had to make” following the policy shift to greater militarization of the North Korean economy after 1962. See: Ryoo Kihl- jae, “International Environment and Domestic Political Change in North Korea from 1961 to 1967: How Threat Perception Funneled down into the Monolithic Ideological System,” Hyŏndaebuk'anyŏn'gu 현대북한연구 [Review of North Korean Studies] 20, no. 1 (2017): 197.

34 The silver lining for DPR Korea was that the Republic of Korea was also struggling to maintain

its alliance with the United States in this period, or so it must have felt to those watching from

the North.46 President Richard Nixon’s 1969 decision to draw down U.S. forces on the Korean

peninsula blindsided President Pak.47 Troop numbers were reduced by a non-trivial amount,

from 63,000 to 43,000, and the so-called Nixon Doctrine left Pak with the distinct impression –

or so he said – that the U.S. could no longer be relied on to come to South Korea’s aid.48 This appears to have prompted Pak in his August 15 Liberation Day speech the following year to reach out to P’yŏngyang.49

Faced with rising mutual insecurity due to the Great Power politics going on around them,

North Korea accepted Pak’s entreaty after a mere two days.50 The result was several Red Cross

meetings from 1971 through 1975, by no means a series of unalloyed successes it must be said,

but the period did see the July 4th South-North Joint Communique of 1972.51 The Joint

Communique was the most notable fruit of two rounds of secret meetings between Yi Hurak,

the head of the South Korean state intelligence agency, and Kim Yŏngju, Kim Ilsŏng’s younger

brother and head of the KWP Organization and Guidance Department.52

46 Oberdorfer and Carlin, The Two Koreas, 10-11. 47 Nam Joo-Hong, America's Commitment to South Korea: The First Decade of the Nixon Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011): 62-64. 48 North Korea certainly assessed South Korea’s motivations accordingly, saying they were driven by fears that “after the Sino-American rapprochement and the Soviet-American détente, [South Korea] would share the fate of Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek], who was then abandoned by the Americans.” See: "Telegram from Beirut, No.015.088, Urgent, SECRET," April 02, 1973, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives, Matter 220, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Secret, MFA, Folder no. 1515, First Directorate – Relations, Regarding Relations between North and South Korea and the Position of Various States on this Topic, January 16 – July 30, 1973. Obtained and translated for NKIDP by Eliza Gheorghe. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114045 (last accessed September 17, 2019). Leon Whyte, “Evolution of the U.S.-ROK Alliance: Abandonment Fears,” The Diplomat, June 22, 2015. https://thediplomat.com/2015/06/evolution-of-the-u-s-rok-alliance-abandonment-fears/ (last accessed 23 September, 2019). 49 Kim Yŏnch'ŏl (Kim Yeon-chul), 70-nyŏnŭi taehwa 70 년의 대화 [A 70-year dialogue] (Paju: Changbi, 2018), 100-101. The book is particularly noteworthy as an articulation of the North Korea policy of Kim Yŏnch'ŏl given that Kim has been the Minister of Unification in the administration of Moon Jae-in since April 2019. 50 Kim Yŏnch'ŏl, 70-nyŏnŭi taehwa, 102. 51 Oberdorfer and Carlin, The Two Koreas, 22-25. 52 “The July 4 South-North Joint Communique” is available in English via the UN document library: http://peacemaker.un.org/korea-4july-communique72. Kim Yŏngju remained in post until Kim Chŏngil forced him out in 1974 during a power struggle to succeed Kim Ilsŏng. Unlike both his brother and nephew, Kim Yŏngju

35 Putative forward movement diplomatically did not, however, translate into much in the way of

action to ease tensions on the ground. Clause three of the Joint Communique states that “to

restore severed national ties, promote mutual understanding and to expedite independent

peaceful unification, the two sides have agreed to carry out numerous exchanges in various

fields,” mutual hostility remained the dominant frame of interaction. “Numerous exchanges” did

not materialize. In the sporting realm, for example, “Ideas of holding goodwill football matches

between the two Koreas, inviting the North to the World Shooting Championship in Sŏul, and

forming a united team for both the 35th World Table Tennis Championship and the 1980

Moscow Olympic Games [were] discussed without concrete results.”53 The ultimate goal of the

two governments seemed still to be geopolitical victory over the other and absolute dominance

of the Korean peninsula.54

Neither regime felt secure. This led both Sŏul and P’yŏngyang to try and reinforce themselves

against external threats (including each other) even as they continued fitfully with bilateral dialogue. In South Korea, President Pak quietly initiated a South Korean nuclear weapons program to achieve results by “the early eighties.”55 The step may have been unwise, but it was

logical, as, in addition to fears that the ROK-US alliance may be slipping, South Korea was

increasingly aware of a growing threat in the northern half of the peninsula. North Korea had

been sending nuclear physicists for training at the Soviet Union’s Joint Institute for Nuclear

is still alive today. He was restored to a (largely ceremonial) government position by Kim Chŏngil after a period of internal exile in the heavily militarized city of Kanggye lasting two decades. 53 Doosik Min and Yujeong Choi, “Sport cooperation in divided Korea: an overstated role of sport diplomacy in South Korea,” Sport in Society 22, no. 8 (2019): 1382-1395. 54 Oberdorfer and Carlin, The Two Koreas, 9-12. 55 The Wilson Center Digital Archive has detailed diplomatic records concerning South Korea’s nascent nuclear weapons program. The “early eighties” claim is contained in a US Department of State cable by the then-US ambassador in Sŏul, Richard L. Sneider. Memorably, Sneider also cautioned that the “ROKs are serious, tough customers bent in this case on a potentially harmful cause.” South Korea signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in April 1975. See: "US Department of State Cable, ROK Plans to Develop Nuclear Weapons and Missiles," March 12, 1975, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Gerald Ford Presidential Library, National Security Adviser Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific, Box 11, Korea - State Department Telegrams, to SecState - NODIS (4). Obtained by Charles Kraus. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114615. An overview of South Korea’s nuclear activities is available at the following URL: http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/south-korea/.

36 Research in Dubna, some 100km north of Moscow (an institution of which the DPRK is still a

member state56), since 195657, and in 1965 had acquired a 2MW IRT-2000 research nuclear

reactor from the USSR.58 This was not necessarily evidence of nuclear weapons ambitions, but

combined with North Korea’s conventional capabilities, it worried Sŏul.59 South Korea also

began to pursue nuclear power, an ambition that the exposure of Project 890 would eventually

show was also not peaceful.60

In North Korea, the ruling Korean Workers’ Party adopted the so-called “Ten Principles for the

Establishment of the Monolithic Ideological System” on April 14, 1974, the day before Kim

Ilsŏng’s 62nd birthday.61 The Ten Principles were designed to secure the absolutist rule of Kim

Ilsŏng, and in the process give his rising son, Kim Chŏngil, control over the levers of power to

repel enemies from within and without.62 Not least given attempts (some real, plenty more

imagined) by factions linked to outside powers to overthrow the Kim government in the 1950s

and 60s, this was seen as an urgent part of the DPR Korea state-making project.63 On the

56 See “Dubna - Town of Science,” the information page of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at http://wwwinfo.jinr.ru/dubna-e.htm (last accessed February 7, 2017). 57 Donald Greenlees, “How North Korea fulfilled its nuclear quest,” The International Herald Tribune, October 23, 2006. Republished by the New York Times (online): http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/asia/23iht- bomb.3257012.html (last accessed February 7, 2017). 58 Ministry of National Defense, Taeryangsalssangmugi (WMD) mundappaekkwa 대량살상무기 (WMD) 문답백과 [Weapons of Mass Destruction Q&A] (Sŏul: Ministry of National Defense, 2004): 54. Digitized online by the National Archives of Korea: http://www.archives.go.kr/next/search/viewArchiveDetail.do?rfile_no=200041125275&ritem_no=000000000001 (last accessed February 7, 2017). South Korea also began a peaceful nuclear program at around the same time, joining the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957. Sungyeol Choi et al. “Fourteen Lessons Learned from the Successful Nuclear Power Program of the Republic of Korea,” Energy Policy 37, no. 12 (2009): 5496. 59 North Korea’s conventional military had been quietly beefed up since the early 1960s, and a review of North Korean forces by Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) in the spring of 1978 found that the strength of North Korean forces in the border region facing South Korea had been greatly underestimated. Robert Rich, “Withdrawal of US Ground Combat Troops from Korea: A Case Study in US National Security Decision Making,” US Department of State Foreign Service Institute. Declassified report, June 1982: 24-26. http://nautilus.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/richwithdrawal.pdf (last accessed November 2, 2017). 60 Se Young Jang, "The Evolution of US Extended Deterrence and South Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions," Journal of Strategic Studies 39, no. 4 (2016): 513-517. 61 An Munsŏk, Puk'an hyŏndaesa sanch'aek 3: 1960-1979 북한 현대사 산책 3: 1960-1979 [A walk through modern North Korean history, vol. 3] (Sŏul: Inmul, 2016), 252-255. 62 An, Puk'an hyŏndaesa sanch'aek 3, 252. 63 The deterioration of inter-Korean conditions in the 1970s is succinctly summarized in Ko Pyŏngch'ŏl (B.C. Koh), “North Korea 1976: Under Stress,” Asian Survey 17, no. 1 (January 1977): 61-70.

37 ground, the Ten Principles worked to enforce (or at least, attempt to enforce) political- ideological conformity in the local population.

The impact of all this on academia was obvious. Now that the two Koreas were talking, South

Korea needed both information and analysis about the North, and would in time have to revise the nationl narrative it told itself. For these reasons among others, 1972 saw the creation of the

Institute of Far Eastern Studies (IFES) at Kyungnam University, followed by the creation in Sŏul of the Academy of Korean Studies in 1978 – with a nationalistic mandate to “enhance Korea’s understanding of itself and to discover the cultural essence of the country in order to further national cohesion” – and its Graduate School of Korean Studies in 1980.64 The establishment of a sustainable funding environment for Korean Studies in Korean and American universities also began with the institutions created in this period.65 Korean Studies in the United States began to grow when The Center for Korean Studies at USC Berkeley opened in 1979, the Korea Center at

Harvard University came into being in 1981, and the Center for Korea Research at Columbia

University set up shop in 1988.

It was toward the end of this period that hundreds of young Americans began to go and do volunteer work in South Korea under the Peace Corps banner. The list of those who headed for

Korea between 1966 and 1981 includes a number of senior Korean Studies academics in the

United States today: In addition to the aforementioned Bruce Cumings, there were Donald

Baker, Donald Clark, Carter Eckert, Linda Lewis, David McCann, Michael Robinson and

Edward Schultz. Famously, by the late 1990s all three Korean Studies faculty positions at

64 Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia, “Academy of Korean Studies,” Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia 4 (2013): 97-100. 65 As Christopher Richardson and Remco Breuker noted to me at various times in the course of reviewing this chapter, this was not the case anywhere other than South Korea, the United States, and programs in France, Germany, the UK, and at Leiden. Today, individual university Korean Studies programs and chairs elsewhere often rise and fall on the presence or absence of funding from AKS (notably through its big-ticket granting agency, the Korean Studies Promotion Service) or Korea Foundation. Long-term sustainability is still some way off for many.

38 Harvard University were held by former Peace Corps volunteers who had been in Korea during

this period.66

Conditions for North Korea research in the South began to improve from this point on. The

slow demise of military dictatorship was formalized in June 1987, shortly before the Sŏul

Olympics in the summer of 1988.67 The pukpang chŏngch'aek, or Nordpolitik, policy of the

democratically elected President No T'aeu (Roh Tae-woo; 1988-1993) staked out an opening for

ordinary South Koreans to both trade with and access information about North Korea,

launching a process that reached its apogee with the Sunshine Policy era of 1998-2007.68 Where once even government institutions had been forced to operate clandestinely to acquire materials on North Korea, under President No books on the subject now began to appear in bookshops, and the occasional news or current affairs item on North Korean topics began to appear on

South Korean television in a departure from the Pak era (1961-1979).69

The diversity of North Korea research tracked per capita GDP in South Korea, which hit $7000

at the turn of the 1990s. In 1991, the same year that the two Koreas simultaneously joined the

UN, the Research Institute for National Unification (which became the Korean Institute for

66 Kang Hyun-kyung, “Peace Corps volunteers trigger expansion of Korean studies,” The Korea Times, September 4, 2015. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/10/665_186193.html (last accessed January 4, 2017). 67 No T'aeu formally yielded to calls for electoral democracy through the 6.29 Democratization Declaration, or “6.29 minjuhwa sŏnŏn,” in 1987. For more see the Encyclopedia of Korean National Culture: http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=539919&cid=46626&categoryId=46626 (last accessed July 15, 2019). 68 In the July 7 Declaration of 1988, No “affirmed that South Korea no longer regarded North Korea as a target of confrontation and competition and that North Korea is an integral part of the Korean national community as well as a ‘benign partner’ with which to achieve common prosperity.” The declaration allowed indirect inter-Korean trade, which was previously banned, and treated it as intra-national, not inter-state, trade.” Lee Sang-keun and Moon Chung-in, “South Korea’s Economic Engagement toward North Korea,” report, Korea Economic Institute of America Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies, October 2016: 226. 69 Former President No deserves credit for his relatively farsighted political approach, but he did not summon up Nordpolitik out of nowhere; rather, the policy accelerated trends that had begun in the early 1980s. For instance, the monthly publication “Mal” was launched in 1985, giving open voice to a hitherto unseen range of left-leaning views on social topics, including but not limited to inter-Korean affairs and unification. Cynical though the Chŏn regime’s motivations may have been, the effect was real. Anecdotal evidence here comes from private conversations in December 2016 with Dr. James E. Hoare, who travelled frequently to Sŏul during this period as a member of the British Foreign Office. Also see Jung Hae-gu and Kim Ho-ki, “Development of Democratization Movement in South Korea,” working paper, Stanford FSI, undated: 10. http://fsi.stanford.edu/publications/development_of_democratization_movement_in_south_korea (last accessed October 13, 2017).

39 National Unification (KINU) in 1999) was founded under the auspices of the National

Unification Board, and the Korea Foundation (KF) was created under the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs. Domestically, sources of funding and administrative support for scholars improved

dramatically at the same time as the prospect of falling victim to an anti-communist witch-hunt

declined almost to zero (though a great many cognitive barriers to transcending Cold War frames

of thought remained).70 As Eastern European and Soviet archives opened at the end of the Cold

War, revealing a wealth of historical data on Korean affairs, so academics in Korea and the

English-speaking world seized opportunities to take up themes not directly related to peninsular

politics and security.71

Data concerning publications on North Korea in both Korean and English reveal this shift. One

study of the Korean-language corpus elicited data on the publication of books, journal articles

and dissertations in South Korea in the period from 1963 to 2008 by running a basket of search

terms through the RISS (Research Information Service System) of the Korea Education and

Research Information Service, each describing aspects of the study of North Korea, including

North Korea (pukhan 북한), “escaping from North Korea” (t’albuk 탈북), and unification (t’ongil

통일).72

This study ran the search terms t’ongil and t’albuk through the RISS system and narrowed the

search results to domestic academic journal publications. The first image below shows results for

t’ongil, for which the overall volume of outputs in the period was highest, while the second shows

t’albuk. The data highlight the growth in Korean-language journal publications on the DPRK.

70 Minkyu Sung, “The ‘truth politics’ of anti-North Koreanism: the post-ideological cultural representation of North Korea and the cultural criticisms of Korean nationalism,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 10, no. 3 (2009): 439-459; Lee Jong-seok, “Puk'anyŏn'gubangbŏmnonr pip'an'gwa taean 북한연구방법론: 비판과 대안 [A method of North Korean studies: critique and alternative],” Yŏksabip'yŏng 역사비평 [Critical Review of History] 12 (1990): 75-98. 71 See the KINU website: http://www.kinu.or.kr/eng/about/about_02_01.jsp. As a state-run body, KINU is beholden to political headwinds. This makes it periodically controversial, and means that its research ought to be approached with critical caution. 72 Kim et al., “A Sketch of North Korean Studies,” 92. RISS is online at: http://www.riss.kr/index.do.

40 Interestingly, they also record a dip in the period 2015-16, which may reflect active (and later

found to be illegal) attempts by the government of former President Pak Kŭnhye (Park Geun- hye, 2013-2016) to manage the cultural sphere in a way reminiscent of the anti-communist

dictatorship era.

Annual South Korean Journal Publications, 1970-2019 (keyword: t’ongil) 3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

Annual South Korean Journal Publications, 1994-2019 (keyword: t'albuk) 250

200

150

100

Waxing and waning of the number of Korean domestic journal publications on the topic of unification since 1970 (t’ongil; top) and the contemporary topic of “escape from North Korea” (t’albuk; below) since the phenomenon emerged as a significant issue in 1994. | Source: RISS Trends in the English-language corpus are similar, though perhaps less spectacular. The image below shows the publication of books in English that use the terms North Korea and DPRK

41 between 1940 and 2000. Overall growth started in the English sphere earlier than in South

Korea, but it only grew at a modest pace until the 1990s, when it began to accelerate in a manner broadly analogous to that in the Korean corpus.

Volume of books relating to North Korea and the DPRK in English, 1940-2000. | Source: Google Ngrams To provide a relevant comparison, the image below adds two additional search terms: “South

Korea” (the green line) and “ROK” (orange). This shows that growth in the number of books published on North Korea/DPRK forms part of a general trend of rising interest in the Korean peninsula overall in the period 1940-2000.

Volume of books relating to North Korea, DPRK, South Korea, and ROK in English, 1940-2000. | Source: Google Ngrams An article in Minjok21 attributes this late-1990s growth in the Korean-language sphere to the election of the progressive government in Sŏul in late 1997. With all the optimism one would expect from an activist magazine founded explicitly to promote improved bilateral relations in

42 the aftermath of the inter-Korean summit of June 15, 200073, the Minjok21 piece asserts that

since “South-North relations are moving from an era of confrontation to one of reconciliation,

an objective, scientific understanding of North Korea is a pressing generational demand.”74

However, that is far from being the whole story. First, the volume of books being published in general grew enormously over the period in question; there was nothing unique about books on

Korea in this regard. There is a notable and widespread trend toward niche-topic publications at this time. 75

Moreover, while the election of Kim Taejung (Kim Dae-jung; 1998-2003) in December 1997 and subsequent launch of the “sunshine policy” is of course a salient variable, it is not the only one that warrants consideration. Several other inter-related factors drove the growth: first, evidence

of famine in North Korea after 1995, which led to international humanitarian intervention,

prompted a sudden outflow of news and information about DPR Korea, attracted the attention

of activists and scholars, and exposed a different face of North Korea, prompting some of those

in South Korea who had supported North Korea in previous decades for its anti-American

stance to radically rethink their positions.76 This was certainly a motivation for some in my

personal network in South Korea to move into anti-North Korea activism. Second, the Minjok21

73 Minjok21 was founded in August 2000. For details of the media, see the company introduction page of its website (in Korean): http://www.minjog21.com/com/com-1.html. 74 Chŏng Ch'anghyŏn, “Nature and integration of ’3rd Generation’ scholars of the North: setting the foundation stone for development of unification studies,” Minjok21 (December 2006): 156-158. 75 There are some differences between topics. For some search terms, for instance “cookery,” interest has remained constant over the period under examination. For other terms, for example “Shakespeare,” the number of publications featuring the term has declined in the period since 1940. For “guitar”, growth broadly correlates with the growing interest in North and South Korea. One may conclude from this only that the volume of niche publications has ballooned since 1970, a fact that puts rising interest in the two Koreas in its proper literary- sociological context. 76 The North Korean government issued a request for aid in late 1995. See: Andrea Koppel, “Floods force North Korea to ask for international help,” CNN, December 18, 1995. http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9512/north_korea/ (last accessed on September 10, 2019). It was evidence of enormous human suffering in North Korea that inspired some of the country’s most ardent supporters in South Korea to turn into vocal critics. Among these is Kim Yŏnghwan, who founded an underground revolutionary political party in South Korea on Kim Ilsŏng’s orders in the early 1990s but then exposed it in 1997. He would later go on to play a key role in the founding of NKnet and Daily NK. For more on Kim’s time as a pro-North Korean revolutionary, see: Kim Yŏnghwan (Kim Young-hwan), Tashi kangch'ŏllo sara 다시 강철로 살아 [Living again as Kang Ch'ŏl] (Sŏul: Shidae Chŏngshin, 2015).

43 piece ignores the media attention that accompanied the defection from North to South Korea of

former Korean Workers’ Party International Secretary Hwang Changyŏp (Hwang Jang-yop) and

his associate Kim Tŏkhong (Kim Deok-hong) on February 12, 1997.

Hwang was feted by some South Koreans as a hero

when he arrived in South Korea, while others –

presumably those of a more ethnonationalist or anti-

American disposition – loudly asserted his national

betrayal. Either way, Hwang felt that the North

Korean government had been using him for decades,

and that his instrumentalization by and for state

power was incompatible with the search for “truth,”

which he saw as the ultimate purpose of a scholar.77

Hwang saw himself first and foremost as a

The front page of the conservative South Korean philosopher-scholar, but claimed also that it was his Chosun Ilbo on February 13, 1997, the day after Hwang Changyŏp sought asylum in Beijing. The headline reads: “The people (inmin) are starving; what duty to tell the world the truth about the famine kind of socialism is that?” | Source: Chosun Ilbo digital archive underway in North Korea, which he said had caused the preventable deaths of three million people.78 He may also have been at risk of being purged

had he remained in North Korea.79

77 Hwang Changyŏp (Hwang Jang-yop), Nanŭn yŏksaŭi chillirŭl poatta 나는 역사의 진리를 보았다 [I have seen the truth of history] (Sŏul: Shidae Chŏngshin, 1998), 7-9. 78 Estimating the death toll in the famine is difficult, and moreover politically charged. In acknowledging the famine publicly, a DPRK official from the Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee acknowledged a figure of 220,000 deaths. “Officials put toll at 220,000 dead,” Wilmington Morning Star, May 11, 1999. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19990511&id=Wa4sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4B4EAAAAIBAJ&p g=4974,4664617 (last accessed July 5, 2013). Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard place all figures between 600,000 and 1 million deaths into a sub-category of “sober academic research.” Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2011): 6. I lack both the academic training and relevant data to come to an independent estimate. 79 Conversation with a former senior South Korean intelligence official, Sŏul, November 2016.

44 Whatever the motivations behind Hwang’s escape from North Korea, he immediately became

the key source of information for civil society and government actors in South Korea, even

though his public appearances were short in length and limited in number. Senior intelligence

officers held weekly luncheons with him, during which he helped them interpret North Korean

political strategies, a task he found simple and could not understand why others found difficult.80

He gave speeches at North Korean human rights events and wrote books, approximately half of

them about conditions in North Korea, the other half on philosophy. Every Tuesday, he held

meetings with a small group of activists at his tightly guarded office near Nonhyŏn (Nonhyeon)

subway station in southern Sŏul. He used these events to give training and explain North Korean

politics and daily life to an attentive audience.81

Hwang Changyŏp’s memoir was published in 1998 by Shidae Chŏngshin, a publishing house

founded by a group of activists who would go on to found NK Net the following year as a direct

result of this process of information-sharing between Hwang and local groups. NK Net was one

of the first NGOs in the world formed to campaign exclusively for North Korean human

rights.82 Known in English as Zeitgeist Publishing House, right up until 2012, Shidae Chŏngshin

was headquartered on the first floor of a building in Chebu-dong, Chongno-gu, Sŏul. For a

decade, North Korea news and opinion site Daily NK83 operated on the second floor of the same

building, which was owned by the mother of one of the founders of both NK Net and Daily NK,

Han Kihong.84

80 Conversation with a former senior South Korean intelligence official, Sŏul, November 2016. 81 Daily NK ran a series of articles summarizing the content of Hwang’s lectures, many of which are no longer online. These articles aside, no documentary evidence of the meetings remains. 82 Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights was founded earlier than this, in 1996, by the late Benjamin H. Yoon. Yoon also founded the Korean chapter of Amnesty International. See: http://eng.nkhumanrights.or.kr/eng/info/about.php. 83 I refer here to Daily NK as “independent,” but note that since 2007 it has received annual core funding in the region of $150,000-$200,000 p.a. from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded by the U.S. Congress. In 2015, Daily NK joined Radio Free Chosun (chayu chosŏn pangsong) and Open Radio for North Korea (yŏllin puk'an pangsong) to form a loose alliance called Unification Media Group. See http://www.uni- media.net/index.php. 84 By the mid-2000s, driven by these organizations, North Korean human rights became an issue of societal concern in South Korea, although it has still to achieve widespread recognition among the local population.

45 Given the nature of the story told in this chapter thus far, one may be forgiven for anticipating that the trajectory for North Korean studies has been unceasingly upward in the 21st century. To some extent, that is the case. The number of journalists covering North Korea in both English- and Korean-language media has grown over the intervening years. When Daily NK was launched in December 2004, it was regarded as a highly innovative digital media/advocacy project, and attracted funding from the United States. Today, Daily NK faces stiff competition from NK News in English – though the products are not actually similar, and Daily NK’s news-gathering method remains unique – while several major South Korean media organizations employ specialist North

Korea journalists, Pak Chinhŭi at state broadcaster KBS and Chu Sŏngha at the Tong-A Ilbo being the most prominent.

However, the picture for academia is much more mixed. Contemporary North Korean studies remains weakly institutionalized around the world. Few English-language journals are devoted to

North Korean studies – one, North Korean Review, has had a troubled existence largely of its own making since it was founded in 2005, and a second, The Journal of North Korean Studies, was due to launch in 2017 under the auspices of Kungmin (usually written Kookmin) University in Sŏul, edited by Andrei Lankov (b. 1963 in Leningrad, USSR, 18 in 1981), but has yet to see the light of day.

The discrepancy between the apparent importance of the “North Korea question” – as evidenced by the amount of time devoted to it in the political arena and its prominence in media

– and its weakly institutionalized status in academic research and teaching is borne primarily of two factors: limited or incomplete data, which is more of a problem for academia than politics or media, and market forces.

The former is dealt with in detail in a later section. With regards to the latter, market forces; there simply aren’t that many young people willing to study and research North Korea, even in

South Korea. Even though Korean Studies in general has been steadily growing in the English-

46 speaking world in the 2000s, this is only secondarily down to interest in North Korea. The

popularity of South Korean cultural productions (K-pop, Korean film, Korean television

dramas, and so forth) plays a far bigger role and is recipient of much more investment than

anything to do with North Korea.

In South Korea, the study of South Korea and North Korea do not co-exist under the umbrella

of Korean Studies as they generally do elsewhere. This allows the weakness of academic study of

North Korea to become starkly apparent. For that reason, it is to the South Korean educational

environment that we now turn.85

North Korean Studies in South Korean Universities

On February 15, 2016, a small group of students from Korea University, one of South Korea’s

premier educational institutions, gathered outside the central government complex in downtown

Sŏul. A team of their contemporaries went to ch'ŏngwadae – the Blue House – home to the South

Korean president – then Pak Kŭnhye – and a third to the National Assembly, South Korea’s unicameral legislature on the island of Yŏŭido. Their simultaneous protests were intended to alert the Ministry of Unification and other branches of South Korean government to the impending demise of an undergraduate North Korean studies department.

These efforts, perhaps predictably, were in vain. A few weeks later, the elite Korea University’s

Department of North Koreanology86 left its independent home in the College of Humanities,

and North Korean studies disappeared from Korea University as an undergraduate major,

absorbed into a new undergraduate major incorporating unification, diplomacy, and national

85 A previous version of “North Korean Studies: The Unloved Subject” was published on www.policyforum.net, a digital periodical run by the Asia & the Pacific Policy Society (APPS). Republished here in amended form with permission. See: Christopher Green and Peter Ward, “North Korean studies: the unloved subject,” Policy Forum, March 16, 2016. http://www.policyforum.net/north-korean-studies-the-unloved-subject/ (last accessed on September 10, 2019). 86 English name given to the department by the university.

47 security.87 The university claims that the merger was designed to protect the unique identity of

the subject and help it survive in a world of harsh economic realities. This may or may not be the

case. At any rate, it shows the extent to which the study of North Korea in South Korea, never

particularly strong, has declined. The protesting students said that the study of North Korea

deserves treatment that transcends simple economics – that in South Korea, North Korean

studies ought to be treated as a matter of life and death.88 One protesting student told the

Kyunghyang Shinmun, a South Korean daily newspaper, “The study of North Korea is not a

mere profession in the here and now; it is knowledge and learning for the future.”89 But for

universities concerned with the bottom line, especially private ones like Korea University, that is

not enough.

This current state of affairs represents a reversal from the 1990s and turn of the 21st century,

when no fewer than six South Korean universities had standalone North Korean studies

departments. The first, at Tongguk (Dongguk) University, was established in 1994, and all of

them arose in quick succession thereafter, showing the extent to which South Korean attitudes

toward North Korea liberalized after the end of the military dictatorship period.

However, the market for the subject was simply not there, and interest swiftly began to wane. A

program at Chosŏn University in Kwangju lasted a mere year. Others fared better, but were

nevertheless incapable of attracting a sustainable undergraduate intake: Catholic Kwandong

87 South Korea is the only country in the world with an undergraduate major in North Korean Studies. In other countries, the subject forms part of a Korean Studies major. At the postgraduate level, North Korean Studies is offered as a standalone MA course at only one institution outside South Korea, that being the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in the UK. 88 A graduate student in the North Korean studies department of Korea University as of February 2016 told me privately that she felt undergraduate students were primarily upset by the impending sacrifice of departmental heritage – that of South Korea’s premier undergraduate North Korean studies degree course – more than any sense of existential threat, either to themselves or to South Korea’s national security. 89 Ko Yŏtŭk, “Nampuk kyŏngsaek p'ul hakmunintet'ss t'pukhanhakkwat'to salachil wiki” 남북 경색 풀 학문인데… ’북한학과’ 도 사라질 위기 [The field will ease blocked South-North… crisis of disappearance of ‘North Korean studies’], Kyunghyang Sinmun, February 15, 2016. http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?code=940401&artid=201602152136555 (last accessed September 10, 2019).

48 University in Kangnŭng, Kangwon-do closed its North Korean Studies major in 2006 after ten

years, and Sŏnmun (Sun Moon) University in Asan, Gyeonggi-do followed suit in 2008. By the

time Myŏngji (Myongji) University in Sŏul merged the study of North Korea into its Department

of Political Science and Diplomacy in 2010, only two of the original six, at Korea and Tongguk

universities, remained.90

The reasons for this rise and decline are complex, involving social, economic and political

factors. For some of the universities, the creation of North Korea Studies departments was

economically opportunistic, and as such never especially likely to succeed. Others, especially

Korea University, faced different challenges. The now-defunct Department of North

Koreanology was not well placed to compete for new students as undergraduate classes in the

department were taught at the university’s satellite campus in Sejong City. This represented an

active deterrent to South Korean students, the best of whom will try to attend university in Sŏul, where the best internships and networking opportunities are concentrated. Half the population of South Korea lives in the metropolitan area and surrounding satellite cities, and apart from a handful of exceptions such as Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in

Taejŏn and Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in P’ohang, an

education obtained outside the capital is widely regarded as second class.

Moreover, the quality of the education in the program at Korea University was not sufficient to

attract ambitious students. A range of courses is essential to attract a sustainable student body.

90 Since this time, the sword of Damocles has hovered permanently over the Tongguk University program. In 2007, the number of places available on the major was halved to twenty. Including foreigners, just 21 students enrolled in 2011. Should this number fall below 15, Daily NK reported at the time, the department would have to close. (That it has not closed at the time of writing does at least suggests that this minimal condition has been repeatedly met.) Korea University, the most prestigious of the universities involved in promoting North Korean studies, has always fared somewhat better, attracting roughly thirty freshmen and women per year. However, for all its relative prominence even this department has not been a genuine success, a fact amply reflected in its inability to defend against consolidation. For more, see: Lee Eun Sol, “North Korean Studies Struggling to Survive,” Daily NK, April 1, 2011. http://www1.dailynk.com/english/m/read.php?cataId=nk00400&num=7524 (last accessed February 12, 2016).

49 As Professor Yu Hoyŏl (Yoo Ho-yeol, b.1955 in Sŏul, 18 in 1973) of Korea University told Daily

NK:

On the one hand, there is the point that North Korean Studies covers too much theory […] it would be good to study North Korea from the fundamental angles of politics, economics, sociology, etc., but within the limitations it is hard to deal with everything.91

Last but by no means least, the department suffered from a lack of job prospects for graduates.

As is the case with their choice of university location, few South Korean students choose their university major based solely upon love of subject. South Korea has a very competitive employment market, equally competitive families, and stable white-collar jobs are not easy to come by. If an undergraduate major does not bring good job prospects, it is not going to thrive.

In this regard, North Korean studies was (and is) not competitive. Back to Yu Hoyŏl:

There is no way for North Korean studies majors to avoid the reality of limited opportunities after graduation. If there were healthy North Korean studies departments at around ten universities in the capital then a consensus could be reached, but it is hard to foresee stability based on the scale of the departments in the remaining universities.92

Why are the employment prospects for a graduate of North Korean Studies so poor? Partly because successive governments, most recently but not exclusively those of Yi Myŏngbak (Lee

Myung-bak, 2008-2013) and Pak Kŭnhye, did not encourage South Koreans to study North

Korea. This appears counter-intuitive, particularly if one sees North Korea as posing a serious threat – or for that matter a great opportunity – for South Korea. The prima facie evidence suggests that few undergraduate major courses would be more deserving of South Korean government support than North Korean studies.

91 Lee Eun Sol, “North Korean Studies Struggling to Survive,” Daily NK, April 1, 2011. http://www1.dailynk.com/english/m/read.php?cataId=nk00400&num=7524 (last accessed February 12, 2016). 92 Lee Eun Sol, “North Korean Studies Struggling to Survive,” Daily NK, April 1, 2011. http://www1.dailynk.com/english/m/read.php?cataId=nk00400&num=7524 (last accessed February 12, 2016).

50 Yet, consecutive South Korean governments have shown that they are not prepared to allocate

the money necessary to nurture talent in the way that happened when the US was faced with

what it saw as the threat of Soviet expansionism at the end of WWII. Some money has been

invested in research centers; there is a graduate school, the University of North Korean Studies.

Founded in 1997, one of its professors was, until 2015, South Korean Minister of Unification

(Ryu Kiljae, or Ryu Kihl-jae). However, the University of North Korean Studies, which does

wide-ranging research, publishes Hyŏndaepukhanyŏn'gu (Review of North Korean Studies), the

premier Korean-language journal in the field, and has an outstanding library, is an outlier not

representative of the sector, and has not in any case been an economically successful venture.93

In addition to standard concerns over the financial viability of humanities research vis-à-vis the sciences and technology, at the core of all this is a pervasive assumption in South Korea that the

DPRK is only ever a few years away from collapse.94 Known in Korean as “pukhan punggoeron”

(“North Korea collapsism”), this intellectual and practical commitment to the idea that North

Korea will soon disappear leads to the conclusion that North Korea is not worthy of government spending or student research. The notion is continuously reaffirmed. In September

2014, for example, senior North Korean defector Chang Chinsŏng (Jang Jin-sung; b. 1970 in

Sariwon, DPR Korea, 18 in 1988) told a lecture at Leiden University in the Netherlands that

North Korea would collapse in “between five and seven years.”95 Chang is not the only one to

93 Review of North Korean Studies can be downloaded from the University of North Korean Studies’ website at http://www.nk.ac.kr/kor/CFR/CFR_0401L.aspx. It is published in Korean. For more on the University of North Korean Studies as an institution, see: http://www.nk.ac.kr/ENG/UNKS_main.aspx 94 Pak Se-yol, “Pakkŭnhye 'puk'an punggoeronot'n"puk'an chŏnggwŏn pyŏnhwashik'il kŏt” 박근혜 '북한 붕괴론'…"북한 정권 변화시킬 것” [Pak Kŭnhye ‘North Korea collapsism’… “will change the North Korean regime”], Pressian, February 16, 2016. http://www.pressian.com/news/article?no=133267 (last accessed on September 10, 2019). 95 “The North Korean regime will collapse within five to seven years,” Leiden University news & events web page, September 18, 2014. http://news.leiden.edu/news-2014/the-north-korean-regime-will-collapse-within-five-to- seven-years.html (last accessed November 25, 2016). This mirrors the assertion of another senior defector, Ko Yŏnghwan, who said upon his defection in 1991 that North Korea would disappear “within five years.” “Kim Chŏngil innŭn han pparŭn t'ongil ŏryŏpta” 김정일 있는 한 빠른 통일 어렵다 [Rapid unification difficult whilst Kim Chŏngil is around], Dong-A Ilbo, April 4, 1996. The first of these predictions may still happen, of course. One must wait until 2021 to find out. http://newslibrary.naver.com/viewer/index.nhn?articleId=1996040400209113001&edtNo=45&printCount=1&pu

51 have made a similar prediction. And while there are perfectly sound reasons why one might

discount a prediction so curiously specific, rejection of a large number of expert voices like

Chang’s predicting the same thing – the end of North Korea as a separate state – can quickly

begin to feel risky, especially when the stakes could include one’s own career. Who would opt to

study a subject like North Korea, when authoritative voices say DPR Korea itself might be gone

this time in five to seven years?96

In spite of all the challenges facing the subject, South Korea has produced some world-class

scholars of North Korea (more on them and their works to come). But this is not the norm. The

bulk of today’s South Korean youth sees North Korea as too poor, too small and too

anachronistic to be taken seriously as a subject of study. DPR Korea is seen as an

unrepresentative political specimen that yields insufficient data for empirically robust

comparative studies (this last point, at least, is more-or-less accurate, which is why this thesis is

also not a comparative study!). Worse still, consecutive South Korean governments have framed

policy around the expectation that North Korea would collapse – to be replaced by a unified

Korean government dominated by South Korea – and therefore have not allocated sums of

money to understanding it.97 The private sector has little interest.98 Talent responds to such

constraints in the logical manner: it goes elsewhere.

blishDate=1996-04-04&officeId=00020&pageNo=13&printNo=23158&publishType=00010 (last accessed November 25, 2016). Senior defectors are by no means the only ones to believe that collapse is impending, and indeed given their experiences, we would be wise to listen to what they have to say. Nevertheless, such claims have repeatedly been falsified by subsequent experience. 96 There is promise in reframing the notion of North Korean studies as “studies of northern Korea.” As Christopher Richardson noted in private conversation in April 2017, whatever happens next, “Just as 35 years of Japanese occupation echoes down the decades, so will 70-plus years of Korean Workers’ Party occupation echo even longer.” The need to ensure sustainable platforms for the research of northern Korea on its own terms is clear. 97 Speaking privately with South Korean diplomats reveals a more nuanced picture, whereby North Korea is expected to survive for the foreseeable future. In public, however, this is not the government’s message. 98 The partially privately funded UniKorea Foundation is one notable exception to this rule, though its resources are limited. See https://www.tongilnanum.com/unishare.tongil (last accessed June 19, 2019). Disclosure: this author has received funding from the UniKorea Foundation on two occasions, in 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, an approximate total of $100,000.

52 People and Publications: Three Generations of North Korean Studies Writing

In the previous section, “Place”, I looked in detail at the historical contours of the research

environment for the study of North Korea in both South Korea and the English-speaking world

since the end of WWII. In this section, I turn to look at the people who have worked in that

environment and the resulting literature. In keeping with the previous section, I do so by

breaking down the field into separate generations: (a) those scholars first active in the research

arena in the Cold War era; (b) those first active in the late Cold War and early 1990s; and (c)

those first active in the late 1990s and 2000s, up to the present day.99

In this instance, a chronological approach makes the most sense. Any young person encounters

culture anew as he or she enters adulthood. This is the “fresh contact” Mannheim spoke about

in 1928; the difference between the perpetuation of social patterns and the creative and novel

attitudes that young people passing through the age range 18-25 bring to interpreting cultural

heritage. Change, Mannheim argues, comes about through interpretation of the personally

acquired memories individuals incorporate as a person enters adulthood.100

In accordance with the concept of fresh contact, a South Korean scholar who came of age

during the Korean War may not be readily able to share thoughts and experiences with a scholar

who came of age during the democratization period in South Korea in the 1980s and 1990s.

Likewise, someone who came of age in the late-Pak Chŏnghŭi or Chŏn Tuhwan (Chun Doo-

hwan, 1979-1988) eras and was among those battling for South Korean democratization might

99 This structure is derivative of the following paper, published upon the 70th anniversary of liberation from Japanese rule on August 15, 1945. Koh Yu-hwan, “Pundan 70nyŏn pukhanyŏn'gu kyŏnghyange kwanhan koch'al” 분단 70 년 북한연구 경향에 관한 고찰 [A Study on the Research Trends of North Korean Studies after the division of South and North Korea in 1945], T'ongiljŏngch'aegyŏn'gu 통일정책연구[Unification Policy Research] 24, no. 1 (2015): 29- 54. I differ from Ko in that he includes four generations, dividing the Cold War era into an early and late period. In my view, he fails to sustain the distinction. 100 Mannheim, “The Problem of Generations,” 294. The emphasis in my sentence is in the original. Mannheim sets up a dichotomy between “personally acquired” and “appropriated” memories, the latter being those handed down in various ways, notably through formal education and discourses within the family, but never personally experienced.

53 want for points of historically meaningful connection with the scholar coming to the study of

North Korea in the Sunshine Policy era (1998-2007) of South Korean politics, or indeed one

who – today – has his or her thinking informed by the ramifications of the sinking of the ROKS

Ch'ŏnan by a North Korean torpedo in March 2010 or shelling of the island of Yŏnp'yŏng-do by

North Korean artillery in November of the same year. None of this makes inter-generational

communication impossible, of course; societies would cease to function altogether if that were

the case. However, it does mean that conversation advances from different baselines of

experience, and it is worth highlighting what those different baselines may be. What are the

implications of generational divisions for literature on North Korea? In the following section, I

look one-by-one at the three generations and their prominent works.101

Generation One

The first generation of North Korea scholars emerged out of the death of Japanese Imperialism

and Cold War milieu at the birth of Area Studies that we explored in the previous section. As we

have seen, in Korea, the period was characterized by social instability and ultimately war. Born

under colonial rule in Korea or China and in several cases educated in Imperial Japan, the first

generation of scholars had the dubious good fortune to experience the war and post-war periods

first hand from a variety of perspectives.

Probably the most prominent academic of the first generation is Yi Chŏngsik (Lee Chong-sik; b.

1931, 18 in 1949).102 Born in Anju, northern Korea, Yi grew up first in Manchuria and then

briefly in the fledgling North Korean state. At the age of 20 he left North Korea for Sŏul during

the Korean War, and for America shortly thereafter.103 Yang Homin (b.1919 in P’yŏngyang,

101 Generational considerations are a less productive avenue of inquiry where scholars of Korea from outside East Asia are concerned. However, for the purposes of structuring the next section, I incorporate non-Korean scholars into the age cohorts that I use to distinguish the works of ethnically Korean writers. 102 Politically speaking, the generation famously includes former President Kim Taejung (b. 1924 on Hauido, an island off the southwest coast of Korea, 18 in 1942, d. 2009). 103 “Eminent Scholar Chong-sik Lee Receives Kyung-Ahm Prize,” web notification, Kyung Hee University, November 23, 2012. http://khu.ac.kr/eng/about/news_view.jsp?idx=133 (last accessed September 10, 2019).

54 northern Korea, 18 in 1937, d. 2010104) was among several Korean would-be scholars to take the

alternate path of attending university in Imperial Japan, in Yang’s case at Chuo [中央] University

in Tokyo, before returning to Korea post-liberation in 1945. An ardent opponent of the 1965

normalization of diplomatic relations between the ROK and Japan, Yang authored the two-

volume, stridently critical Pukhanŭi ideollogiwa chŏngch'i [“North Korea’s ideology and politics”],

the first volume of which was published in 1967, the second in 1972.105

Others in this generation did not leave Korea, and instead played active political and social roles

prior to entering academia. A committed communist just like his parents, a common enough

ideological perspective at the time, Kim Namsik went to North Korea prior to the outbreak of

the Korean War, before the inter-Korean border could harden. There, he was trained to conduct

clandestine activities back in his home region in what was then known as the southern zone

(nambu). In 1962, Kim was – while acting as a North Korean agent – arrested in the city of

Taejŏn, a mere 30km from his birthplace. Kim Ch'angsun (b. 1920 in Uiju, North P’yŏngan

Province, modern-day North Korea, 18 in 1938, d. 2007106) worked as a journalist for two newspapers, the regional P'yŏngbuk Shinmun and nationwide Minju Chosŏn, in the very earliest days of the North Korean state, before joining the mass of civilians fleeing into South Korea in 1950 and, in 1961, writing one of the finest early explanations of North Korean society, Fifteen-year

104 “Yang Homin chŏn hanlimtae sŏkchwakyosu t'akye” 양호민 전 한림대 석좌교수 타계 [Former Hallym University Distinguished Professor Yang Homin passes away], Hankyoreh, March 18, 2010. http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/obituary/410915.html (last accessed September 10, 2019). 105 Hŏ Jinsŏk, “(Myŏngbokŭl pimnida) wŏllo chŏngch'ihakcha yanghomin ssi” (명복을 빕니다) 원로 정치학자 양호민 씨 [(Prayer for a soul) Veteran political scientist Mr. Yang Homin],” Dong-A Ilbo, March 19, 2010. http://news.donga.com/List/Series_70030000000165/3/70030000000165/20100319/26945098/1 (last accessed September 10, 2019). For more on the books cited, see: Yang Homin, Puk'anŭi iideollogiwa chŏngch'i 북한의 이이데올로기와 정치 [North Korea’s Ideology and Politics] (Sŏul: Korea University Asiatic Research Institute, 1967). 106 “’Pukhan yŏnkuka’ Kim Ch'angsun sochang pyŏlse” ‘북한연구가’ 김창순 소장 별세 [‘North Korea researcher’ institute head Kim Ch'angsun passes away], Hankyoreh, December 4, 2007. http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/obituary/254701.html (last accessed September 10, 2019).

55 History of North Korea.107 Finally, Sŏ Taesuk108, former director of the Center for Korean Studies at

the University of Hawaii, was born in contested Manchuria just as the Mukden Incident was

being used as a pretext for Japan’s invasion of the region, leading to the formation of a Japanese

puppet state, Manchukuo.

As a rule, first-generation scholars are characterized by the propensity not to ascribe any distinctive ideological features to the DPR Korea state formation process. Their works are descriptive, and the state formation process is explained via a framework of factional politics under an umbrella of Soviet power.109 This “Sovietization” framing derives from the assessment

that Soviet power was the ultimate guarantor of Kim Ilsŏng’s rule in the early decades of the

North Korean state. The Robert A. Scalapino edited volume North Korea Today, published in

1963, is reflective of the widely-shared perception of scholars at the time:

[The authors] are in agreement about the following: that the KWP prior to 1950 seemed to be under virtually complete domination by the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union); that Chinese involvement in the Korean War made the KWP increasingly responsive to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party); that until Korean experimentation with the Chinese agricultural communes in late 1958 the primacy of Soviet control seems to have been maintained; that from 1958 to 1961 there were signs of experimentation with Chinese policies; and that since the Twenty Second CPSU Congress there has been marked agreement between publicly adopted Korean and Chinese positions on a wide range of issues facing the international communist movement [which] marked divergences from openly adopted Soviet policy positions.110

Joungwon Alexander Kim divides this early period into three stages: (1) the satellite stage (1945-

1950); (2) the transitional stage (1951-1958); and (3) the autonomous stage (1959-1970).111 Ko

107 Kim Ch'angsun, Pukhan sibonyŏnsa, 1945-nyon-8-wŏ l-̆ 1961-nyŏn-1-wol̆ 북한십오년사, 1945 년 8 월-1962 년 1 월 [Fifteen- year History of North Korea, August 1945-January 1961] (Sŏul : Jimungak, 1961). 108 Sin Sang-mi, “[Int'ŏpyu] Pukhan yŏnku kwŏnwicha Sŏ Taesuk kyosu” [인터뷰] 북한 연구 권위자 서대숙 교수 [[Interview] Master of North Korean studies research, Professor Sŏ Taesuk], Hankook Ilbo, November 1, 2014. http://weekly.hankooki.com/lpage/politics/201411/dh20141101091718137430.htm (last accessed September 10, 2019). 109 Bruce Cumings, “The Corporate State in North Korea,” in State and Society in Contemporary Korea, ed. Hagen Koo (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 197-230. 110 Glenn D. Paige and Dong Jun Lee, “The Post-War Politics of Communist Korea,” in North Korea Today, ed. Robert A. Scalapino (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963), 24. The Twenty Second CPSU Congress was held over several days in the second half of October 1961. 111 Joungwon Alexander Kim, “Soviet Policy in North Korea,” World Politics 22, no. 2 (January 1970): 237.

56 Pyŏngch'ŏl (aka B.C. Koh, b. approximately 1937 in Sŏul, 18 in 1955) sub-divides the period

1956-1965 into three: (1) ambivalent neutrality (1956-1961); (2) P’yŏngyang-Peking axis (1962-

1964); and (3) rapprochement with the Soviet Union (1965 through to approximately 1969, the date of publication). John Bradbury takes a similar view to Joungwon Alexander Kim of the periodization between the transitional and autonomous stages, noting that in 1958 – initially at a plenum of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party and then with the launch of the Ch'ŏllima movement in September – North Korea began experimentation with Chinese-style “total mobilization of all available resources [..] in order to break through the barriers of industrialization and modernization.” Bradbury in particular explicates the clear lineage between the Chinese policy line and the emerging developmental approach adopted by North Korea.112

Minor distinctions notwithstanding, this was an expansion of the conventional wisdom about conditions in post-WWII Eastern Europe. First-generation scholarship gives the reader a sense of the verbatim carrying over of that conventional wisdom about Soviet post-war policy in

Europe into the Asian setting. Though occasionally difficult to read, this is not surprising. After all, it was also the stated position of the United States Military Government in Korea, which ruled the southern portion of the Korean peninsula from 1945 to 1948.113 Some scholars such as

Bradbury saw the cracks early.114 However, only with the capturing of the USS Pueblo by North

Korean forces in January 1968 did questions begin to be asked in the political sphere about putative Soviet control of North Korea, which had long-since come to be regarded as obvious.115

112 John Bradbury, “Sino-Soviet Competition in North Korea,” The China Quarterly 6 (April-June 1961): 18-19. 113 Kim Gwang-oon, “The Making of the North Korean State,” Journal of Korean Studies 12, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 17. 114 Bradbury, “Sino-Soviet Competition,” 15-28. 115 Bradbury, “Sino-Soviet Competition,” 16.

57 First generation scholars were no

doubt also influenced by the story

DPR Korea told about itself in

publications, one of the main planks

of which was bilateral friendship

with the Soviet Union. A volume

published in P’yŏngyang upon the

tenth anniversary of the founding of

Kim Ilsŏng University in 1958

explains Korean economic

development in Sovietization terms,

despite the fact that it was published

at the same time as the regime was

evidently considering a radical shift

towards Chinese strategies for “Together forever with the Soviet people!” A pro-Soviet North Korean propaganda poster from August 1960. | Original colour image courtesy of development.116 An exemplary the Asian Library – Leiden University propaganda poster from August 12,

1960, two years later, has one Korean and one Soviet worker with their hands around each

other’s shoulders, standing in front of an iconic visage of V.I. Lenin, who is flanked by the flags

of the DPRK (to Lenin’s right) and the USSR (on his left). It declares, “Yŏngwonhi ssoryŏn inmin-

gwa hamkke!” or, “Together forever with the Soviet people!”117

116 Pyŏn, Rakchu, Tonggŭn Pang, Kwangsun Kim, Chuno Ri, Chŏngil Kim, Sŭngjun Kim, Hanggung Rim, Ryongshing Cho, Kwangjŭm An, Yŏngbae Ri, and Ch'unjŏm Kim, Uri naraŭi inmin kyŏngje palchŏn 우리 나라의 인민 경제 발전 [The Development of Our Country’s People’s Economy] (P’yŏngyang: Kungnipch'ulp'ansa, 1958). 117 Posters are a ubiquitous form of public propaganda in North Korea. See Vivian H. Lee, “Marketing Politics: North Korean Painter Song Byeok as Artist and Commodity,” MA diss., SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology, 2018.

58 One should also note that North Korea did cleave closer to the orthodox economic and social

practices and policies of other socialist states in its early period than it would do in later

decades.118 As a matter of simple common sense, it is impossible to declare exactly when DPR

Korea’s move away from socialist orthodoxy took place, since seeking a watershed date for a

protracted social and political process is impossible, and rather unwise.119 However, if one were

determined to try, then May 25, 1967 would be the date one would choose.120 The mid-1960s,

not coincidentally when Kim Chŏngil began to rise through the ranks in the North, saw the

“promotion of patriotism” emerge as a key task of government, which resulted in gross

distortions of economic allocation.121 This was a full four years after North Korea Today was published, which shows how, given the context, viewing the DPRK through a lens of existing socialist systems and their developmental trajectories was a justifiable heuristic to adopt early on, even if one must conclude that the cookie cutter approach was far too rigidly applied and for much too long.122

Of the ethnic Korean scholars in the first generation, only Yi Chŏngsik, Sŏ Taesuk and Ko

Pyŏngch'ŏl (B.C. Koh) attained prominence in the English-speaking world, thanks in part to

American university educations that meant that they could write comprehensibly in English.

Ko’s first book, The Foreign Policy of North Korea, published in 1964, details the ways in which

118 Reasonable, but by no means universally popular. Myers, for instance, is of the view that North Korea was always a virulently ethno-nationalist political entity, one that merely used a thin veneer of Soviet orthodoxy to disguise its true character. See: Chŏng Sŏngchang, Hyŏndae Puk'anŭi chŏngch'i: yŏksa inyŏm kwŏllyŏkchegye 현대 북한의 정치: 역사, 이념, 권력체계 [The contemporary North Korean politics: history, ideology, and power system] (Sŏul: Hanul, 2011); Brian R. Myers, “Knocking on the Great Gate: The ‘Strong and Prosperous Country’ Campaign in North Korean Propaganda,” in Exploring North Korean Arts, ed. Ruediger Frank (Vienna: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2011), 72-87. 119 The same is true of the evolution of chuch’e, ostensibly North Korea’s guiding ideology since the 1970s (and, in the revisionist narrative of the North Korean state, since its inception). 120 Fyodor Tertitskiy, “1967: The Transition to Absolute Autocracy in North Korea,” in Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics, ed. Adam Cathcart et al. (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017), 82-94. 121 Shinn et al. Area Handbook for North Korea (Washington, DC: Foreign Area Studies of The American University, 1969), 197. 122 What it does not excuse is contemporary scholarship taking the same approach. In his paper on foundational meta-narratives in North Korea, Eric Ballbach singles out Russian scholar Alexandre Mansourov’s work, “The Hermit Mouse Roars: North Korea’s Response to U.S. Security Policies” for criticism. For more see: Eric J. Ballbach, “The History of the Present: Foundational Meta-Narratives in Contemporary North Korean Discourse,” S/N Korean Humanities 1, no. 2 (September 2015): 95.

59 North Korea pursued a foreign policy of oscillation between Russia and China whilst trying fairly

successfully to modernize its economy and find a way to win the Korean peninsula struggle for

political legitimacy.123 Yi Chŏngsik is known for his work with Robert Scalapino on the

comprehensive two-part text Communism in Korea.124 First published in 1973, the book is notable

as one of the first to use testimony from people leaving North Korea as a basis by which to

explain the country. Given the range of sources used in the text, it is a considerable advance on

what came before it. The criticism it attracts centers on its highly descriptive nature. As Samuel

Kim noted in one 1980 review, “Its theoretical and methodological value is minimal” thanks to

there being “no discernable link between empirical data and theoretical concepts.”125 (Ko

Pyŏngch'ŏl disagrees quite completely, it should be noted. He hails Communism in Korea as a “tour

de force – required reading for anyone who aspires to do research on North Korea.”126). Finally,

Sŏ Taesuk published the comprehensive monograph Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader in 1988.

Today, thirty years after its publication, the book remains canonical for students seeking to understand the critical role of the North Korean founding leader in DPRK state institutionalization processes, although its later sections fall into an abrasive and polemical anti-

123 Ko Pyŏngch'ŏl, The Foreign Policy of North Korea (New York: F.A. Praeger, 1969). Sŏ Taesuk reviewed the book at the time. For more see: Suh Dae-sook, “Reviewed Work(s): The Foreign Policy of North Korea, by Byung Chul Koh; Korea, Democracy on Trial, by John Kie-Chiang Oh,” Pacific Affairs 43, no. 2 (Summer 1970): 295-296. 124 Robert Scalapino and Yi Chŏngsik, Communism in Korea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972). 125 Samuel S. Kim, “Research on Korean Communism: Promise versus Performance,” World Politics 32, no. 2 (Jan. 1980): 281-310. Kim’s critique of the theoretical underpinnings (or lack thereof) of Communism in Korea is one that readers of contemporary major works on North Korea such as Charles Armstrong’s Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992 and Andrei Lankov’s The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia would recognize, for at the top of the scholarly pile not a great deal has changed. For more on the plagiarism case that has enveloped the Tyranny of the Weak and led to Charles Armstrong being stripped of his post at Columbia University, see: Sino-NK, “Yongusil 97: On the Academic Misconduct of Charles Armstrong, and Sino-NK’s 2013 Roundtable,” Sino-NK, September 25, 2019. https://sinonk.com/2019/09/25/yongusil-97-on-the-academic- misconduct-of-charles-armstrong-and-sino-nks-2013-roundtable/ (last accessed September 26, 2019). 126 Ko Pyŏngch'ŏl (B.C. Koh), “The State of North Korean Studies: A Critical Appraisal,” 3.

60 communism that exemplifies the generation from which Sŏ emerged.127 The other authors in the

first generation published predominantly or exclusively in Korean throughout their careers.128

Generation Two

The second generation of scholars emerged into unimaginably different social conditions to

those of their first-generation predecessors. First and foremost, theirs was the first generation to

be born after the end of the Korean War. This made them the first to come of age in the so-

called “developmental state” (or “modernization state”129) period in which the era of South

Korea’s economic stability and relative material abundance began, without the traumas of war as a backdrop.130 Domestically speaking, the second generation rose into politically torrid times: the

promulgation of the Yusin constitution in 1972; assassination attempt against Pak Chŏnghŭi in

1974 that killed his wife; successful assassination of Pak Chŏnghŭi in 1979 by one of his closest

associates; May 18th Kwangju Uprising and its brutal suppression in 1980; ongoing military rule

under Chŏn Tuhwan (Chun Doo-hwan) until 1987; and, eventually, arrival of a nascent

democratic order in South Korea in 1987 and Sŏul Olympics a year later in 1988. The generation

saw South Korean incomes advance extremely quickly, with comparative wealth obtained in

127 Suh Dae-sook, Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader (Columbia University Press, 1988). Suh’s list of publications also includes: Documents of Korean Communism (Princeton University Press, 1970) and Korean Communism, 1945-1980: A Reference Guide to the Political System (University of Hawai'i Press, 1981). Readers may wish to consult a book review of Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader by Yi Chŏngsik in the Journal of Asian Studies 49, no. 4 (November 1990): 950- 952. 128 For example, Kim Ch'angsun, Puk'an Ideollogiwa Taemoryak 북한 이데올로기와 대모략 [North Korea’s Ideology and Grand Strategy] (Sŏul: Puk'an Yŏn'guso, 1997). 129 This is the term used in: Carter Eckert, Park Chung Hee and Modern Korea: the roots of militarism 1866-1945 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2016). 130 There is an argument, somewhat common in Korean-language anthropological literature, that the social circumstances of Korea in this period amounted to the continuation of conflict, and that the people of both Koreas suffered psychological harm analogous with wartime suffering. See for example Kim Pyŏngno and Sŏ Pohyŏk (eds.), Pundan p'ongnyŏk 분단 폭력 [Division Violence] (Paju: Acanet, 2016). However, even though one may accept that there was constant tension on the peninsula, and that this was punctuated by regular acts of border violence and infiltration far in excess of that which we see today, it remains the case that with the possible exception of those who directly experienced episodes of violence near the inter-Korean frontier, life was not close to as bad as it had been during WWII and the Korean War.

61 hitherto unimaginable ways and at very considerable speed. Such wrenching social, economic

and political change brought shifting consciousnesses.131

Influenced by and often drawn from a coalition of leftists and democratization activists that

struggled against the state in this period, in addition to Kim Taejung’s liberal successor, No

Muhyŏn (Roh Moo-hyun, 2003-2008, b. 1946 in Kimhae, South Kyŏngsang Province during the

United States Army Military Government period from 1945-1948, 18 in 1964, d. 2009), the

second generation includes Yu Hoyŏl, born in 1955 in Sŏul, 18 in 1973, and now a professor at

Korea University in Sŏul. Yu is probably the North Korea scholar with the highest name

recognition in South Korea today, though that has more to do with regular appearances in the

mass media than scholarly production.132 Others include constructivist scholar, current head of

the Sejong Institute133 and author of the comprehensive 2010 monograph, Pukhan kwŏllyŏgŭi

yŏksa: sasang, chŏngch'esŏng, kujo, Paek Haksun (Paik Hak-soon, b.1954 in Bosŏng, South Chŏlla

Province, ROK, 18 in 1972).134 There is also the scholar of economic marketization Yang Munsu

(Yang Moon-soo, b. approx. 1964 in Masan, South Kyŏngsang Province, ROK, 18 in approx.

1982), who, along with Sŏul National University’s Kim Pyŏngyŏn (Kim Byung-yeon, b. approx.

1965 in Sŏul, 18 in approx. 1983), wrote Pukhan kyŏngjeesŏŭi sijanggwa chŏngbu.135

Second-generation scholars are characterized by a much broader range of scholarly interests than

their predecessors, ones not necessarily related to the kinds of political, military or intelligence

objectives that were the only acceptable major areas of inquiry to the South Korean government

131 The traumas of dislocation borne of rapid socio-economic development are not to be trivialized, but these are different forms of trauma. 132 Though a prominent public figure, Yu has not always been a prolific scholar. The two facets of his character may well be linked. In any event, Yu’s most recent book, the 2018 text “Fate of the North Korean system in transition”, received some attention. Yu Hoyŏl, Chŏnhwan'gi pukhanch'ejeŭi unmyŏng 전환기 북한체제의 운명 [Fate of the North Korean system in transition] (Sŏul: Maebong, 2018). 133 Based in the countryside northwest of Sŏngnam, the Sejong Institute was established in 1983 as the Irhae Jaedan [일해재단] by then-President Chŏn Tuhwan. Irhae (아호) was Chŏn’s pen name. 134 Paek Haksun, Pukhan kwŏllyŏgŭi yŏksa: sasang, chŏngch'esŏng, kujo 북한 권력의 역사: 사상, 정체성, 구조 [The History of Power in North Korea: Ideas, Identities, and Structures] (Sŏul: Hanul, 2010). 135 Kim Byung-yeon and Yang Moon-soo, Pukhan kyŏngjeesŏŭi sijanggwa chŏngbu 북한 경제에서의 시장과 정부 [Markets and the State in North Korea] (Sŏul: Seoul National University Press, 2012).

62 in its early period. Exemplifying this trend, one of relatively few women in the field of North

Korean studies, Kim Sŏk’yang (Kim Seok-hyang) came to prominence in the English-speaking

world in 2013 via a co-authored paper with Kookmin University’s Andrei Lankov examining the

causes and prevalence of drug use in North Korean society, which attracted considerable media

attention at the time and shows the way South Korean academia and to a lesser extent media and

politics has acquired an interest in comparatively esoteric – though unquestionably important –

issue such as public health.136

Importantly, generation two was the first to take up the idea, pioneered by the likes of Scalapino

and Lee years earlier but not really developed further, of surveys and interviews with ordinary

North Koreans as a research method. This is present in Kim Sŏk’yang’s 2013 text,

Hoeryŏngsaramdŭl kiŏk sok iyagirŭl tŭllyŏjuda,137 a city study that deftly portrays life in one location,

Hoeryong in North Hamkyŏng Province, from the 1970s through to the 2000s through the voices of its former residents, and the aforementioned Yang and Kim text Pukhan kyŏngjeesŏŭi sijanggwa chŏngbu, which uses testimony from former residents of North Korea to describe the country’s ongoing marketization process.138 Though limited in theoretical weight in a way not

dissimilar to the work of Scalapino and Lee, both texts offer hitherto inaccessible levels of detail

about North Korean society.

Of course, the rising prevalence of what we may label “North Korean migrant as method” in

this period is partially a matter of expedience. The careers of second-generation researchers

advanced in the 1980s and particularly 1990s, in parallel with famine in North Korea and

emergence of a defector-migrant diaspora in South Korea. Equally, their rise to dominance came

136 See Lankov, Andrei and Kim Seok-hyang (Kim Sŏk'yang), “A New Face of North Korean Drug Use,” North Korean Review 9, no. 1 (Fall 2013). North Korean Review is a relatively inaccessible journal, but a summary of the article is available here: “Jumped up in Pyongyang,” Wilson Quarterly 37, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 142-144. 137 Kim, Hoeryŏngsaramdŭl kiŏk sok iyagirŭl tŭllyŏjuda. 138 Kim Byung-yeon (Kim Pyŏngyŏn) and Yang Moon-soo (Yang Munsu), Pukhan kyŏngjeesŏŭi sijanggwa chŏngbu 북한 경제에서의 시장과 정부 [Markets and the State in North Korea] (Sŏul: Seoul National University Press, 2012).

63 about at a time of broader realignments in sociology, history and closely related fields.

Scholarship in general moved away from focusing on Marxist problematics – very much the

trend in the 1970s139 -- and toward an emphasis on “culture, consciousness, and interpretation,” to which these forms of scholarship were broadly suited.140

Generation Three

The third generation of North Korea scholars arose in the period of radical change in North

Korea between the death of Kim Ilsŏng on July 8, 1994 and the present day. This cohort of

contemporary scholars has built strongly upon the foundational work of generation two, opening

the study of North Korea up to methodologies including micro-histories, city studies, and

network analysis. The use of defector-migrant interviews and surveys in research on a larger scale than previously has led to a growing volume of what Ko describes as “bottom-up histories” of

North Korea.141 At its insightful best, works by this generation transition relatively seamlessly

from “means-end reasoning to the reconstruction of situations within which social actors act”.142

The third generation includes Hong Min, a research professor at Dongguk University and co-

author of Relations Between Corruption and Human Rights in North Korea143 as well as city studies of

Hamhung and P’yŏngsŏng144, which are based in part or whole on defector-migrant interviews.

139 When two retired scholars of development studies in Europe who had been prominent during the 1970s, Jacques Hersh and Ellen Brun agreed to write a piece for Sino-NK on North Korea in 2016, the result highlighted the shifting ideational landscape of North Korean studies since the 1970s. Jacques Hersh and Ellen Brun, “Resiliency and Opacity: A Review of North Korea: Markets and Military Rule,” Sino-NK, January 5, 2016. https://sinonk.com/2016/01/05/resiliency-and-opacity-a-review-of-hazel-smith/ (last accessed September 3, 2018). 140 Charles Tilly, Explaining Social Processes (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008), 194. 141 Koh, “Pundan 70nyŏn,” 31. There is, of course, a tragic sadness in the fact that these methodologies have entered mainstream use in part because the number of people leaving North Korea and settling in the South has risen; in other words, that greater diversity in the field of North Korean studies is predicated in part on greater human suffering for the population of North Korea. The latest statistics from the Ministry of Unification show a total North Korean settler population in South Korea of 28,133 as of June 2015, although the number of arrivals has been declining since the beginning of the Kim Chŏngŭn era in 2011. 142 Tilly, Explaining Social Processes, 194. 143 Kim Soo-am et al., “Relations Between Corruption and Human Rights in North Korea,” working paper, KINU Study Series 13-02, July 2013. 144 Ko Yuhwan et al., Hamhŭnggwa p'yŏngsŏng: konggan, ilssang, chŏngch'iŭi tosisa 함흥과 평성 공간 일상 정치의 도시사 [Hamhŭng and P’yŏngsŏng: Urban History of Space, Everyday Life and Politics] (Paju: Hanul, 2014).

64 Other research has taken survey and interview methods out into the field in China, where it has

been applied to North Korean citizens visiting the country on temporary visit visas. Kang

Tongwŏn is the co-author of a book that, for the first time, parses survey responses from such

North Korean citizens (i.e. not people seeking to leave North Korea permanently) visiting the

border region of China.145

One can take this triumphalist sense of scholarly advancement too far. Perhaps intoxicated by

the methodological improvements I outlined above, or perhaps just keen to make headlines, one

activist-scholar declared third-generation research to be the only one of any value at all. In a

2005 piece for Hankyoreh21 published upon the passing of first-generation scholar Kim Namsik,

historian-activist Han Hongku pondered aloud how many of the approximately 3000 MA and

PhD theses on North Korea published in Korean between 1945 and the end of 1986,

immediately prior to South Korea’s democratization in June 1987, were of any academic value

whatsoever. There is cause, he alleges, to question whether the number could possibly be greater

than one hundred. His conclusion? “It would not be wrong to say that academic research of

North Korea was only properly systematized starting in the 1990s.”146

Han’s claim seems like naked sensationalism. At any rate, he is unwise to dismiss so much past

scholarship so cheaply. Though small in number, texts such as Communism in Korea are

foundational to understandings in English-speaking countries of North Korea both in the past

and today.147 Nevertheless, Han is right to claim the superiority of contemporary research. It is an inescapable fact that today’s South Korean scholarship on North Korea, much but by no

145 Kang Tongwŏn and Pak Chŏngnan, Saramgwa saram: Kim Chŏngŭn sidae pukchosŏn inminŭl mannada 사람과 사람: 김정은 시대 북조선 인민을 만나다 [Person to person: meeting Kim Chŏngŭn-era North Chosŏn citizens] (Sŏul: Neona Books, 2015). Nobody in this group has published a monograph in English to date. 146 Han Hongku, “Puk'anyŏn'guŭi k'ŭn pyŏri ttŏrŏjida,” Hankyoreh21, January 19, 2005. http://legacy.h21.hani.co.kr/section-021075000/2005/01/021075000200501190544019.html (last accessed November 9, 2015). Hankyoreh21 is a part of the Hankyoreh newspaper company. 147 As noted elsewhere, Scalapino and Lee were among the first to use testimony from people leaving North Korea as a basis by which to explain events in the country. See Robert Scalapino and Yi Chŏngsik, Communism in Korea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972).

65 means all of it underpinned by survey and interview projects, is superior in both quantity and

quality to prior work on the subject, or to any other body of literature on the DPRK in other

languages with which I am conversant. Once dominated by anti-communism, methodological

dogmatism, and subject to repressive political oversight that left many areas of inquiry almost

completely untouched, since the 1990s, South Korean scholars have produced significant

analyses of the DPRK that treat the country sensitively, on its own terms, and with few

ideological blinkers.

That said, all is not as it should be. Though the rhetorical violence of South Korean anti-

communism has dissipated, opening the field to diverse scholarly works in the era of generation

three, problems nevertheless remain. The most notable is namhanjungshimjuŭi, or “South Korea-

centrism.” In keeping with the Eurocentrism from which the concept derives its name,

namhanjungshimjuŭi is the alleged predisposition of South Korean scholars to (erroneously) assess

North Korea by the values and culture of South Korea.148

Namhanjungshimjuŭi has three core attributes: (1) it asserts that the North Korean system has

failed, while the South Korean system is “the” (using the definite article; not “a”) model for

developmental success; (2) it claims that the North Korean system is unique and thus not apt for

analysis in comparative political frameworks involving third countries, an invalid argument given

that every political and economic system has its similarities and differences with others; and (3) it

posits that the North Korean system can be properly analyzed through comparison with

systemic factors of relevance to the South Korean system (the DPRK constitution, for example,

148 Cheong Sŏngchang, “Puk'anjŏngch'i yŏn'guwa namhanjungshimjuŭi” 북한정치 연구와 남한중심주의 [North Korean politics research and South Korea-centrism], Chŏngch'ijŏngboyŏn'gu 정치정보연구 [The Journal of Political Science and Communication] 10, no. 1 (June 2007): 89-106.

66 or the bureaucratic structures of government agencies and ministries), in spite of the fact that

North Korea is neither a constitutional state nor a statist system.149

South Korea-centrism is underpinned by a defensive nationalism akin to that on display in the

field of nihonjinron (“discussions of the Japanese”), a research agenda in Japanese academia that

seeks to “define the specificity of Japanese identity.”150 Accordingly, Namhanjungshimjuŭi leads to

rejection of non-Korean participation not merely in Korean affairs, but also in Korean Studies.

Ko Yuhwan is not alone in claiming that North Korean studies is a branch of Area Studies

unlike any other precisely because it is closely related to uri minjogŭi unmyŏng (“the fate of our

nation”).151 By “nation”, Ko points to the Korean ethnic nation, an ethnic grouping comprised

primarily of the citizens of North and South Korea, but also incorporating ethnic Koreans in

third countries (notably China, Japan, and the United States).152 In evoking the fate of the nation

in this ethnocentric way, Ko situates North Korea as a sui generis topic of research, and asserts

(South) Korean primacy in contending with it.153 The phenomenon is therefore at its most

problematic in Korean-language works published by South Korean scholars working in the

South.154

There are, though, some scholars bucking this posture, providing analysis of North Korea that

transcends, avoids, or just ignores namhanjungshimjuŭi. Philo Kim (Kim Pyŏngno), sociologist and

149 Chŏng Sŏngchang, “Puk'anjŏngch'i yŏn'guwa namhanjungshimjuŭi,” 89-106; Chŏng Sŏngchang, Hyŏndae pukhanŭi chŏngch'i: yŏksa inyŏm kwŏllyŏkch'egye, 27-29. I address the wisdom of basing research of the DPRK on the state constitution in: Christopher Green, “Wrapped in a Fog: on the DPRK Constitution and the Ten Principles,” in Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics, Adam Cathcart, Robert Winstanley-Chesters and Christopher Green (eds.), 23-38 (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017). 150 Peter N. Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), Introduction. 151 Koh Yuhwan, “Pundan 70nyŏn,” 31 152 Emerging from a Confucian communitarian cultural history, many Koreans, particularly older cohorts, view the ideal society as “like a family” and co-ethnics (e.g. ethnic Koreans resident in third states) as members of the same “cultural-political community.” Kim Sungmoon, “The logic of multiculturalism and Korean democracy,” Citizenship Studies 17, no. 3 (2013): 360 153 As an aside, though by no means a trivial point, Ko’s position is also not conducive to dialogue with scholars from the DPRK. 154 Needless to say, nationalistic approaches to academia are not unique to South Korea; I have already mentioned the Japanese case of nihonjinron, and in any event, it seems humans tend to set their own background and experiences as a baseline standard by which to assess the Other. See: Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness.

67 author of Reading North Korea by “Chosŏn” Korea, is one example. Reading North Korea by “Chosŏn”

Korea attempts – imperfectly – to analyze North Korea on its own terms, as the “Chosŏn” of the

title and the name by which North Koreans call their state, not as “North Korea”, a designation

ascribed to that state by others. The book explicitly rejects the idea that the North Korean

system can be properly analyzed through comparison with attributes of the South Korean system

Although flawed as a sociological reading of North Korea, Kim’s monograph implicitly critiques

and rejects namhanjungshimjuŭi in a somewhat productive way. 155

South Korea’s so-called “compressed modernization” has, via the tensions and dislocations that

it exacerbates, triggered a war for the future between a generation of conservative, often

authoritarian supporters of South Korea as it was – defined culturally by ethnic homogeneity and

politically by anti-communism toward North Korea and defensive nationalism toward others,

but also economically highly successful – and a generation of comparatively outward-looking,

less nation-state-centric attitudes of those relatively younger people who see a different path for

the state going forward, and who are inclined to see the negative attributes of South Korea as it

was under military dictatorship. There is something universal about this conflict in advanced

industrial societies, but it is more overt and combative in South Korea than many other places,

and that is in turn mirrored in the history of the study of North Korea. It remains to be seen

how the battle for the soul of South Korean society will pan out, but we can be sure that the

outcome will continue to be reflected in North Korean studies going forward.156

Surveys and Interviews in the Literature: Approach to North Korea Research

As noted previously in this chapter, there is a greater volume of North Korean studies research

being produced in the 21st century than ever before. South Korean statistical data confirm the

155 Kim Pyŏngno, Pukhan, chosŏnŭro tasi ikta 북한, 조선으로 다시 읽다 [Reading North Korea by Chosun Korea: In- depth Analysis of the Real North Korean Society] (Sŏul: Sŏul National University Press, 2016). 156 Chang Kyung-sup, “Compressed modernity and its discontents: South Korean society in transition,” Economy and Society 28, no. 1 (1999): 30-55.

68 numbers. Ko finds that a total of 742 doctoral theses on North Korea were registered with the

South Korean legislature – the National Assembly Library of Korea (kuk'oedosŏgwan) being the

library of record in South Korea – between 1970 and 2014. Of these, just seven were registered

in the 1970s and a further 21 in the 1980s. Seven times this number (146) followed in the 1990s,

reflecting the political liberation of Nordpolitik.157 The overwhelming majority, however, were

registered in the 21st century.

298 doctoral theses were registered in the period 2000-2009, and no fewer than 270 in the four

years between 2010 and 2014.158 To put it more dramatically, more doctoral theses were written on North Korean topics in the first fourteen years of the 21st century than in the preceding 52

years of North Korea’s existence as a separate state.

South Korean Doctoral Theses on North Korea Topics, 2000-2019 200 183 180 163 156 160 135 136 140 128 132 120 115 104 99 100 88 80 76 80 69

60 39 42 40 35 35 26 29 20

0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Annual trend in South Korean postgraduate dissertations on North Korea topics, 2000-2019. | Source: RISS

157 Koh, “Pundan 70nyŏn,” 43. 158 Koh, “Pundan 70nyŏn,” 43.

69 The main driver of this growth is precisely the availability of information and insights from

defector-migrants; that is, resettled North Koreans as both a source of evidence – as the

respondents – which makes up the majority of the work in this category – and as the producers

of knowledge – as the researchers. Thanks in large part to this trend, there is now a comparative

abundance of research both in the South Korean language and also, increasingly, in English.159

Contemporary projects that involve resettled North Korean respondents tend to take one of

three forms: (1) large-n surveys; (2) small-n surveys; and (3) ethnographic and anthropological

research.

Large-n surveys are relatively few and far between, and inaccessible. They include ones

conducted by the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) and state-run Korea

Institute for National Unification (KINU). These are a de facto part of the defector-migrant

resettlement process, which includes an extended period of NIS questioning and debriefing

followed by twelve weeks in a government resettlement center in either Andong or Hwasong,

both located in rural areas of Kyŏnggi Province, the region that surrounds Sŏul. These surveys

include interviews with every incoming North Korean arriving in South Korea. Quantitative

methods are used to analyze these data and make claims about trends in North Korean military

affairs, society, economy, public sentiment, etc., and/or comparative claims about the

populations of North and South Korea. The conclusions for the most part remain outside the

public domain.

One of the few large-n surveys whose results (though not the data sets upon which those results

are based) are freely available are the annual surveys (pukhan it'aljumin silt'aejosa) conducted by the

159 It should be noted that although the number of survey and interview-driven research projects has increased exponentially in recent years, there has been little work done on North Korean cultural identities. Where ideology and politics are analyzed at all, it is from the production perspective with reference to North Korean literature, theater, music, broadcast and print media, etc. The reception and resultant impact upon self-understandings are infrequently addressed.

70 state-funded Hana Foundation.160 The surveys are by no means exhaustive, and concerned more

with resettlement in South Korea than the minutiae of life in the North. They use a weighted

scale to draw conclusions about the defector-migrant population from a randomized sample of

between two and three thousand (it was 2419 in 2015; the size of the sample varies slightly each

year dependent upon response rates). The resulting annual publication used only to be available

in Korean, but in 2015, for the first time, it also appeared in English.

The second group are the small-n surveys with reduced sample sizes that analyze the identity,

knowledge, preferences, opinions, and/or values of either the defector-migrant population or

limited reference populations in the border region or in North Korea itself. Small-n survey

research projects are much more common than the large-n variety. The reasons for this are

obvious: cost, access, and time. Unlike the information that for the most part languishes under-

explored in NIS and KINU databases, small-n survey questionnaires and data sets are usually

publicly made available (eventually) through the Korean Social Science Data Archive, a non-

profit organization that charges a small annual administrative fee but otherwise does not limit

access.161

Surveys at this scale are conducted with purposive (i.e. targeted, non-random) samples

numbering in the tens, hundreds or low thousands. As is the case in this thesis, projects often

combine a structured survey with semi-structured or unstructured interview methods to generate

greater causal leverage – in other words, to make the results more credible. Circumspection

about credibility of results demands that a restricted selection of analytical methods be used and

160 The annual surveys and several supplementary surveys of sub-divisions of defector-migrant society are available via the Hana Foundation website: https://www.koreahana.or.kr/eGovHanaMain.do. Another form of large-N survey is the work of demographer Pak Kyŏngsuk at Sŏul National University, who used demographic data from the UN census and elsewhere to draw conclusions about the development of North Korean society through the famine and post-famine era. See: Pak Kyŏngsuk, Pukhansahoewa kuljŏldoen kŭndae: in'gu, kukka, chuminŭi sam 북한사회와 굴절된 근대: 인구, 국가, 주민의 삶 [North Korean Society and Its Refracted Modernity: Population, State and the Lives of the People] (Sŏul: Sŏul National University, 2013). 161 KOSSDA (Han'guk sahoe gwahak charyowŏn 한국사회과학자료원) charges a small annual fee for access to its library of survey data.

71 conclusions be drawn at lower statistical certainty due to the higher margin of error that comes

with smaller sample sizes.

Small-n survey projects have been done primarily on North Korean economic development

(specifically marketization, or shijanghwa) and cultural infiltration across the country’s northern

border with China. Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland use two surveys with a combined

sample of 1646 people (1346 from one survey conducted in China, 300 from another conducted

in South Korea using different questionnaires) to investigate North Korean state-society

relations in the era of marketization.162 Yang Munsu and Kim Pyŏngyŏn use a sample of 876

(672 surveyed in 2004-5 and another 204 in 2009 on different questions) to look at trends in the

development of the North Korean economy in the “marketization” era.163 Kim Pyŏngyŏn uses a sample of 361 – 227 residing in Hanawŏn (implying very recent escapees from North Korea) and a further 134 interviewed at Sŏul National University (who, Kim notes, all escaped DPR Korea between 2007 and 2011) – to review the make-up of the informal North Korean economy.164

Kang Wŏnt'aek et al. use a sample of 848 people, 344 resettled North Koreans and the

remainder from South Korea, to parse the similarities and differences in youth (ages 18-39)

attitudes toward unification.165 A very rare example of this type of research involves North

Korean citizens who have not left the DPRK permanently at all; they intend to return to their homes in the country. Saramgwa saram: Kim Chŏngŭn-sidae 'Pukchosŏn inmin'ŭl mannada is derived from a purposive sample of just 100 North Koreans legally visiting China.166 The research uses a

162 Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2011). 163 Kim and Yang, Pukhan kyŏngjeesŏŭi sijanggwa chŏngbu, 2012. 164 Kim Byung-yeon, Unveiling the North Korean Economy: Collapse and Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 96. 165 Kang Wŏnt'aek et al. Nambukhan chŏlmŭn sedaeŭi t'ongilgwan 남북한 젊은 세대의 통일관 [Political Attitude of South and North Korean Young Generation: A Comparative Analysis] (Sŏul: Sŏul National University Press, 2015). 166 Kang and Pak, Saramgwa saram. The same survey project also yielded a series of articles published by Chosun Ilbo. Published in the form of thematic articles over three days (July 7, 8, and 9, 2014), the survey was done in cooperation with the Center for Cultural Unification Studies between January and May 2014 in Dandong and Yanji. All 100 participating informants were in China on official visas issued after Kim Chŏngŭn came to power: four received their permits in 2012, 53 in 2013, and a further 43 in 2014. Most were in China in order to visit family or close acquaintances, and most also planned to work for between six months and one year before returning to North Korea. For a translation and summary of the articles, see: Christopher Green, “Chosun Ilbo Surveys 100 North

72 structured survey to garner opinion on a range of subjects including South Korea, culture, and

prospects for unification.

Third and finally, there are the projects that do not use surveys as a method at all. Instead, these

rely on interviews and ethnographies to garner detailed information about very small samples of

people. This particularities research cannot be used to create generalizable predictions about any

referent population, although that does not make the research any less interesting.

Examples of this type of project include Kim Sŏk’yang’s work with twenty former residents of

Hoeryŏng for her volume referenced in the previous chapter, Hoeryŏngsaramdŭl kiŏksok iyagirŭl

tŭllyŏjuda.167 My work with Steven Denney and Brian Gleason interviews a sample of ten, and the

analysis is qualitative.168 At the far end of the spectrum are those projects that have samples of

one, such as the work of Myonghee Kim, who wrote about education for North Koreans in the

resettlement process through the experiences of one female in her 30s who struggles (but

ultimately succeeds) to learn English.169 In all cases, semi-structured interviews were used

without structured surveys, with quotations from respondents used to highlight themes and draw

out patterns.

Though different academic disciplines and individual researchers will invariably advocate their

preferred method(s), it is obtuse to declare a preference, or indeed to suggest that an ideal form

might exist for research using evidence drawn from North Korean defector-migrants. Each scale

and method outlined here has positive and negative aspects. The trade-offs involved are not

unique to North Korean studies, either; they transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Koreans,” Sino-NK, July 28, 2014. http://sinonk.com/2014/07/28/chosun-ilbo-surveys-100-north-koreans/ (last accessed January 10, 2017). 167 Kim, Hoeryŏngsaramdŭl kiŏk sok iyagirŭl tŭllyŏjuda. 168 Christopher Green, Steven Denney and Brian Gleason, “The Whisper in the Ear: Re-defector Press Conference as Information Management Tool,” report, KEI Academic Paper Series, March 12, 2015. http://keia.org/publication/whisper-ear-re-defector-press-conference-information-management-tool (last accessed February 21, 2017). 169 Myonghee Kim, “A North Korean Defector’s Journey Through the Identity-Transformation Process,” Journal of Language, Identity and Education 15, no. 1 (2015): 3-16.

73 Large samples have the advantage of aggregating the opinions of many people, thus in principle

ironing out individual biases. In this way, outlying viewpoints are able to find their proper weight

and not be over-emphasized in results. On the other hand, due to the limited amount of detail

that is often extracted through a survey involving a large sample, there is the risk of asking

questions that do not in fact measure what they purport to measure, which results in misleading

outcomes. That is one reason why adherents of ethnographic and anthropological work say that

their preferred method is better at getting at “the truth.” With prolonged exposure to the

researcher, they claim, respondents will be more likely to act naturally and mean what they say.

Both arguments can be justified.

While smaller sample sizes reduce the burdens of cost and time, there are pertinent limitations,

not least among these being high social barrier to entry. Researchers invariably face problems of

access. It is not easy to build the social networks necessary to enter migrant North Korean

communities and bring together groups of defector-migrant respondents. There is a database of

all resettled North Koreans in South Korea, but it is managed by the state (Ministry of

Unification) and inaccessible to the public for security and other reasons.170 And moreover, while a small sample obviously means fewer respondents, each respondent must still be compensated for his or her time. This is not unusual in survey research – to not compensate participants for their time and travel costs would be inappropriate – but rising demand for data and isolated cases of seemingly excessive remuneration have also led to price inflation.

Moreover, due to a welcome rise in living standards among some parts of the defector-migrant community it has become hard to acquire broad samples of the community. One runs the risk of over-representation of relatively deprived groups in the community, such as day labourers. There are some among the defector-migrant community who regularly participate in various forms of

170 It is used by the Hana Foundation, which is a quasi-government body funded by the Ministry of Unification. The Ministry of Unification selects its board of directors.

74 survey, as one would expect in the case of a small community amidst increasing public interest

and scrutiny. This can make the process of responding to surveys into a learned skill, with some

routinely navigating between the world of resettled North Koreans and academia, translating the

codes of one into the codes of the other. This is in a sense an important service, but it comes

with the risk of misrepresentation and error. Nor, finally, is it a simple matter to bring focus

groups together, an unfortunate reality that deprives researchers of the benefits that such

interactions can produce.171

Concluding Remarks

In this chapter, I have investigated North Korean studies in South Korea and the English-

speaking world. I have examined structures, showing how the research environment has

developed since the founding of two separate Korean states in 1948 and the devastating war of

1950-53, and looked in detail at the particularly rapid growth since the democratization of South

Korea in 1987. I have also looked at just some of the people who have been involved in the

field’s development to date, and at the problems that the field faces, beginning with the anti-

communist slant of early decades and continuing with the tendency toward South Korea-

centrism that incorrectly establishes the study of North Korea as sui generis and to be conducted

by ethnic Koreans alone. I noted also the existence of chronic funding challenges that afflict

institutions of North Korean studies. Finally, I also looked specifically at survey and interview-

based research projects in Korean Studies. Using examples from the literature, I showed what

should be possible and what has been accomplished thus far.

In the next chapter, then, I investigate the contemporary social context of North Korea research

in South Korea. After setting the scene, I go on to respond to extant critiques of survey and

171 This was true in my research, where focus and small groups yielded invaluable insights that I do not believe would have emerged any other way, and is corroborated in Jay Song and Steven Denney, “Studying North Korea through North Korean migrants: lessons from the field,” Critical Asian Studies, May 5, 2019 (published online).

75 interview projects; that samples of defector-migrants are not useful for understanding North

Korea because they generate biased responses, and the result is few meaningful insights. In addition to refuting these deterministic claims, I also explain how this research project seeks to ameliorate the risks that underpin those critiques, working towards an imperfect balance of positive and negative forces to deal to the extent possible with the various limitations of this kind of research design.