Contemporary Political Society

Vol. I, No. 1 (Summer 2011): pp. 41-63

Geopolitics and the Obstacles to Reform in North Korea

John Linantud

Bob Beatty

Over the past thirty years economic and political change has been profound across the

globe, especially within Asia in countries such as China, Vietnam, Mongolia, and

South Korea. Not so in North Korea, where a rigid state-led system has controlled all

facets of the country for over half a century. The maldevelopment of North Korea in

the context of a globalizing and interconnected world is stark. This paper will place

domestic political reform in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the context

of regional geopolitics, with the primary argument that geopolitical tensions continue

to allow the ruling Kim family and Korean Workers' Party to largely ignore normal

pressures of domestic accountability and regime legitimacy. The paper will also

discuss a North Korea historical context and development of a unique state system

that has resulted in regime reliance on external crisis to buttress internal order.

Keywords: Communism, Democracy, Korea, Repression, Geopolitics, Northeast Asia

Introduction

The primary goal of this paper is to place recent domestic changes in the Democratic

People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in the context of regional geopolitics. The

purpose of this endeavor is to complement, not necessarily contradict, informative

analyses that focus almost exclusively on internal variables and treat external

constrains in a perfunctory manner.

The accomplished scholar Andrei Lankov (2007, 85, 4316-20), for instance, writes

that his review of the DPRK is "not about international politics, but still concludes

that the "cynical" actions of other states have allowed the regime to survive two

decades of famine, and failed and subpar economic reforms, without changing its

core values and basic hostility to civil society, democracy, the rule of law, and free

markets. In this case Lankov clearly understands the international barriers to

meaningful reform, but chooses to explore other problems that he believes have

escaped our attention. Other recent works, including several that have greatly

informed this paper, also focus not on geopolitics but singular US policies, foreign

trade and aid, or internal variables like ideology, institutions, the Kim dynasty, and

the Workers Party (Park 2009; Lim 2009; Kim and Lim 2009; Haggard and Nolan

2007).

The shared problem with these studies is perspective: unfortunately, we cannot

assume that scholars and students, especially those new to the field or who focus on

political economy, fully understand how international politics hobbles

comprehensive reform in North Korea. It is therefore necessary to review and reset

these geopolitical parameters.

By examining external influences on internal problems, this paper adds to the

growing body of scholarship that has applied the complex and evolving theoretical

background of geopolitics to comparative politics. In a fundamental sense, this

method aims to explain select elements of domestic affairs, in this case the barriers to

reform in The DPRK, by reference to exterior variables, which in this paper include

geography and the regional balance of power.

Prior applications of this background outside East Asia have explored the

paradox that war, violence, fear, and uncertainty may under certain conditions lead

to political and socioeconomic progress (Porter 1994, xiii-xx). Likewise, recent works

have identified an overall positive relationship between national security problems

and the political and socioeconomic development of East Asian states, including the

Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Taiwan. In such cases the paradox unfolds if

pressure for war forces regimes to not only take the necessary steps to build political

order, but also invest in industrial development and socioeconomic reforms to win

popular legitimacy and loyalty (Linantud 2008; Stubbs, 2005; Doner et al. 2005; D.

Kang, 2002).

Still, the relationship between conflict and nation-building in developing

countries is clearly neither linear nor sufficient, since war may destroy or bankrupt

states, or lead to counterproductive regimes and regime changes. This paper

therefore adds to the application of the geopolitical background to East Asia by

exploring why North Korea is an exception to the paradox. In sum, geopolitics has

reduced, rather than magnified, the onus on the regime to engage and provide for

ordinary people. Any scholar of reform must recognize and account for this

unfortunate reality.

The balance of this paper proceeds as follows. Part II compares North to South

Korea to establish the failures of DPRK nation-building by conventional standards.

Part III reviews the permanent war footing of the regime, including the legacy of the

Cold War and how the societal structure, largely based on the cult of personality

surrounding former president Kim Il-sung (“The Great Leader”) and and current

president Kim Jong-il (“The General”) serves to buttress and cultivate the internal

legitimacy of the Kim Dynasty. Part IV explains how geography and international

politics work to the advantage of the regime and disadvantage of ordinary people.

Finally, Part V offers some concluding thoughts.

Battle for Legitimacy

Our focus here is not the differences between the DPRK and other communist

regimes, like China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba, but the gaps between North and

South Korea and their implications for the Workers Party. In this regard the well-

known satellite image of East Asia immediately captures the conventional

maldevelopment of the North. Only the capital Pyongyang rivals the lights of China,

Russia, Japan, and especially South Korea. Even if one possessed little or no

knowledge of East Asian history, politics, or economics, the Earthlights suggest that

something is amiss.

Figure 1: North Korea, 2006

Source: NASA 2006.

North Korea's socioeconomic statistics are also revealing. First is the fact that

international institutions of record do not report many standard indicators because

of the perceived unreliability of available data. The United Nations (UN), which

admitted the DPRK in 1991, does maintain permanent missions inside the country.

But the respected UN Human Development Report, first published in 1990, has yet

to calculate an Index score for North Korea. This type of omission is normally

reserved for new or failed states, or states wrought by internal conflicts, like Somalia

or Iraq (United Nations 2010).

Figure 2: Economic Profile

Population 22,757,275

GDP per capita $1,800 (2009 est.) rank 196 of 230 states

GDP real growth rate -0.9% (2009 est.) rank 200 of 215 states

Exports ($) $1.997 billion (2009) rank 132 of 224 states

Exported Commodities arms, minerals, metallurgy, manufactures,

textiles, agriculture and fishery

Export-Import Partners China, South Korea (2008)

Transparency International

Corruption Perceptions Index

unranked out of 178 states

Heritage Foundation Economic

Freedom Index

179 of 179 states

Sources: Central Intelligence Agency 2011, Heritage Foundation 2011, Transparency

International 2010.

Second, data available from the US Central Intelligence Agency suggests a level of

national poverty more akin to Sub-Saharan Africa than Northeast Asia. In terms of

globalization, the Europe-based corruption monitor Transparency International does

not include the DPRK in the Corruptions Perceptions Index, which tallies surveys of

the international business community. The pro-free market American think tank

Heritage Foundation, however, does include North Korea in its latest rankings of

business climate, but only in last place.

Figure 3: Life Expectancy at Birth in Korea

Source: World Bank 2011.

The World Bank does report estimates of life expectancy in the DPRK.

Unfortunately, the contrast to the rival South over the last generation suggests a

genuine human tragedy. Not only has the North fallen behind, it has actually

suffered a net decline since the mid-1980s and only recently begun to reverse a

contraction that started in the early 1990s. South Korea, by contrast, claims life

expectancies among the highest in the world.

The catastrophe is clearly associated with the floods and famine of the middle

and late 1990s. At a geopolitical level, however, Figure 3 indicates the extent to

which the DPRK also failed to adapt to the loss of Soviet (USSR) and Soviet-Bloc aid

― most importantly oil and machine parts required for electricity, food production,

and food rationing ― since the onset of Gorbachev's reforms in the mid-1980s and

the dissolution of the USSR itself in 1991. If North Korea depended that much on the

USSR, then it is reasonable to conclude that its Cold War claims of economic

sovereignty were essentially a farce.

Much like international institutions, scholars have limited information. The

country has no opposition party, independent media or public churches, or opinion

polls. Only high-ranking officials are thought to enjoy unlimited access to the

internet. There are few elite interviews with foreign media, or North Koreans living

or travelling abroad as diplomats, soldiers, businesspeople, artists, academics,

athletes, and laborers. Finally, only a small number of foreign diplomats, scholars,

aid workers, expatriates, tourists, journalists, and missionaries have spent time in the

country. In general, scholars rely on defectors, migrants, and itinerant workers in

South Korea and the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China (Freedom

House 2010).

Figure 4: Political Freedom and Repression in Korea

Note

Freedom House average scores of political and civil rights range from 1-7; 7

designates the maximum level of repression.

Source

Freedom House 2011.

The political gap between the two Koreas is also profound. In the South, reform

away from anti-communist dictatorship and military-dominated government has

passed numerous benchmarks over the last three decades in terms of presidential

politics, starting with a relaxation of restrictions on the political opposition in the

early 1980s; the 1987 victory of government candidate Roh Tae-woo, the last career

general to serve as president, in a free election; the 1992 election of Kim Young-sam,

the first career civilian president in a generation; the 1997 election of left-liberal Kim

Dae-jung, a former political prisoner and the first opposition candidate to ever win

the presidency by the ballot; the 2002 election of left-liberal Roh Moo-hyun; and the

2007 election of right-conservative and current president Lee Myung-bak, who is the

second opposition candidate after Kim to be elected president. The peaceful transfers

of executive power between government and opposition through elections in 1997-

2007, whether Right or Left, is a significant indicator of the consolidation of

democracy. Moreover, democratic institutions absorbed the convictions of former

military presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo in 1996, and the

impeachment and failed removal of President Roh in 2004. At present, the only

factor that prevents South Korea from a Freedom House rating of 1, the maximal

assessment of political and civil rights, is the National Security Law(s) designed to

protect the state against internal subversion.

By contrast, the DPRK over the same time period continued to be governed by

the Workers Party, which has held a monopoly on the authority of state since

independence in 1948. Furthermore, the only transfer of executive power has been

the 1994 ascension of Kim Jong-il after the death of his father Kim Il-sung. Like its

neighbor and ally China, North Korea has therefore retained authoritarian one-party

rule while other East Asian states have shifted to democracy.

For our purposes, however, what stands out is the continuation of repression

despite the advance of democracy and wealth in the South. Indeed, Figures 1-4

indicate the extent to which Pyongyang has lost, or should have lost, the political

war of nation-building and socioeconomic development against Seoul. The ruling

Workers Party, for instance, no longer controls information thanks to cross-border

migration and trafficking of videotapes, radios, and print media about life abroad

and in the South (see section IV). South Korea has also built a burgeoning global

profile in science, popular culture, and even international security. South Korean

war zone deployments like Iraq after 2003 can be explained away by Pyongyang as

lackeyism toward the US, but incidents like the rescue of crewmen held by pirates

off Somalia are harder to dismiss. According to a 22 January 2011 report by John

Glionna of the Los Angeles Times, the South Korean military not only rescued the

crew of a South Korean vessel, but also assisted a Mongolian ship in the same

vicinity. North Korea, by contrast, has cultivated a global reputation as a pariah and

rogue nuclear state.

Permanent War Footing

One would expect such gaps between the two Koreas to raise the internal pressures

on the North to implement genuine reforms in order to retain popular legitimacy

and loyalty. To understand why they have not, we must review the public war

footing of the DPRK and its foundations in wartime regime change at the hands of

foreign powers, nuclear threats, and a national ideology and identity that casts the

DPRK as superior to its neighbors rather than in need of reform.

Cold War Unresolved

The Korean War of 1950-1953 was the first and arguably most destructive and risky

proxy war since 1945, but it ultimately failed to unify Korea under a single state. By

the winter of 1950-51, the conflict had escalated into a massive but localized

confrontation between South Korea and US-led UN forces against North Korea,

China, and the USSR. Seoul changed hands four times, and Pyongyang twice,

between the initial DPRK attack in June 1950 and the final UN recapture of Seoul in

March 1951. By the truce of 1953 North Korea had lost 600,000 civilian and 406,000

military dead and missing, China 600,000 killed and 716,000 wounded, South Korea

1,000,000 civilian and 217,000 military dead and missing, and the US and UN about

37,000 and 4,000 (Millett 2011, under Korean War: Battle Casualties; CHEN 2004;

Weathersby 2004).

For the DPRK, the immediate lesson was that the outside world, in particular the

US, was hostile and potentially overwhelming: Americans robbed it of victory, so US

troops must leave Korea or be defeated in war for communist unification to occur;

only Soviet and Chinese intervention saved the North from extinction, but neither

could expel the Americans from the peninsula; finally, dependence on Russia or

China made the DPRK vulnerable if either sought to sacrifice it for better relations

with the US, Japan, or South Korea. Given the opaque nature of the regime, there is

little concrete evidence that it has truly discarded these lessons even today.

Instead the state seems to revel in warlike paranoia. Kim Il-sung, for instance,

purged suspected pro-China and pro-Soviet factions throughout the Cold War. It can

even be argued that the Kims' suspicions of all foreigners, as much as Confucian

values or a Korean dynastic traditions, explains why they refuse to relinquish power.

The Kims also pursued a revolution in the South until the advent of Soviet

reform under Gorbachev. In the late 1960s and 1970s, operatives tried to not only

foment guerilla war, but to kill President Park Chung Hee. When Park was finally

shot by his own aide in 1979, Pyongyang could not take advantage. The last known

decapitation plot came in 1983, when agents attempted to assassinate President

Chun in Burma. Since 1983 the North has continued to conduct espionage and

infiltration (Linantud 2008).

Today's nuclear politics originated in the war as well. The possession of arsenals

by the US and USSR prior to 1950 did not prevent the outbreak or conventional

escalation of the conflict. But the fear of nuclear exchanges clearly produced key

turning points, starting with the US decision to abandon unification after the final

recapture of Seoul. Over two years of attrition followed in which the communists,

convinced that the expulsion of UN forces was still possible, consistently tried and

failed to regain Seoul despite US nuclear capabilities. At the same time, the US

considered nuclear attacks to break the stalemate prior to the truce (Jackson 2005).

Depending on one's perspective, in the decades since the truce the US arsenal

has either deterred or threatened the North. If one assigns only defensive intentions

to the DPRK, its tests of 2006 and 2009 created a deterrent independent of its

protector China. In terms of proliferation, however, they also expanded the ranks of

regional nuclear states that already included the US, Russia, and China; moreover,

they may have established a precedent for Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to

acquire their own nuclear deterrents independent of the US.

The war, and unresolved status of unification, have also provided fodder for

pro-regime and anti-American propaganda that has become especially crucial for

generations who do not possess first-hand memories of the conflict. The final scene

of the National Geographic documentary Inside North Korea (2007), for instance, takes

place among people who have regained their vision after surgery performed by a

foreign doctor. One by one the newly sighted North Koreans rise to thank Kim Il-

sung and Kim Jong-il and vow to pass on the love of the Kims to future generations,

with one man even pledging to use his restored vision to kill Americans.

This spectacle qualifies as Orwellian (1949) on at least two grounds. The first

concerns people whose love of the Kims, and status as essentially brainwashed

subjects to the Kims' cult of personality, is real. The second concerns people who

may know better but nonetheless act on the assumption of encompassing state

surveillance and fear of punishment. The problem is that any real pressure for reform

from within the current leadership, or from below, would likely come from this

second group.

At this point we turn to iconoclast B.R. Myers (2010). Based on knowledge of the

language, film, television, literature, and art, Myers argues that the ideological

foundation of the DPRK, and the cult of the Kims, is a racist and hermaphroditic

(mother-father) version of nationalism cultivated by decades of isolation and

propaganda. The apparent goal of this ideology is to block rationality, reason, and

self-awareness in favor of childish delusions about the moral purity of the DPRK, the

tributary status of virtually all foreigners, the great fear and awe the nation inspires

in its enemies, the longing and respect it engenders from South Koreans, and, yet, a

vulnerability to the outside world that requires endless sacrifice and obedience.

Myers reasons that many North Koreans have internalized the narrative and as

such are genuine supporters of the regime regardless of their everyday quality of life

and growing realization that South Korea has become an affluent society. He also

ventures that we should see North Korea as more fascist than communist, which is

profound given that the two infamous fascist states, Italy and Germany, were

destroyed not from within but from without by war.

On the Ground in Modern North Korea

Americans are generally unwelcome. Yet one of the authors of this paper, albeit

under the constant supervision of government minder, was able to visit in the

summer of 2009. Even under restrictive circumstances, observations were made to

support the argument that North Korean society and culture is set up with the

primary, if not sole, purpose of perpetuating the rule of the Kim dynasty and the

Korean Worker’s Party. This is done via the use of the cult of personality around the

Kim’s and aura of governmental omnipresence through the inability to escape the

images, deeds, and words of Kim il-Sung and Kim Jong-il.

One of the first observations in North Korea is of the ongoing work campaigns,

which the regime uses to encourage economic diligence rather than material

rewards. “150 days of hard work” was the campaign in 2009, in which all citizens

were expected to work feverishly to push their country to what they called, “further

greatness.” North Koreans said that people needed morale boosting during this

period, so groups of schoolchildren were sent out into the streets to sing or play

music. Many of the bands were led by young student conductors, with the teams of

students alongside marching and chanting propaganda slogans, starkly reminiscent

of similar tactics from China during the Cultural Revolution in 1967. Also, during

this particular campaign, every Friday all white collar workers nationwide were

instructed to leave their offices and engage in manual labor such as cleaning up their

streets, painting buildings, and repairing roads.

One of the key themes that the North Korean government stresses in its internal

propaganda and socialization is that of unity and the banding together against

outside enemies. The government has decided that a physical representation of this

desired trait can be shown through Arirang, the mass performance of song, dance

and gymnastics staged in the national stadium every night for six weeks every

summer. With over 100,000 performers, it involves over thirty different

performances (or chapters) detailing the tale of Korea, from ancient roots to Japanese

invasion to the rise of the Great Leader to the building of the current Juche-based

society to a future of reunification and happiness. Each chapter involves several

thousand dancers and/or rhythmic gymnasts performing highly choreographed

routines, framed by a backdrop of massive mosaic pictures created by 18,000 very

well trained schoolchildren holding colored cards. However, the power of Arirang

lies far beyond the performers and people watching in the stadium. The

performances are beamed out via television to millions across the nation, and

Arirang Clubs exist in schools across the nation. In the North Korean narrative,

Arirang is a summation of the state itself: a demonstration that the North Korean

people are of one mind, striving together for what they believe to be the strength and

happiness of the whole nation under their unique system. Arirang is staged for

domestic purposes, but it’s possible to see in the 2005 Daniel Gordon film, State of

Mind.

The official reverence demanded for former president Kim Il-sung and the

regime are visibly pronounced in Pyongyang. Hundreds of monuments, billboards,

plazas, buildings, murals, and banners dedicated the leadership and wisdom of Kim

Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and the Korean Workers Party fill the city. One monument, The

Tower of the Juche Idea, honors the official principles of self-reliance and

independence. Another features a towering 65-foot bronze depiction of Kim Il-sung.

Built in 1982 by edict of Kim himself, it is largest statue of any recent political leader

in the world. A steady stream of North Koreans visit the statue daily and perform a

ritual that involves bowing and the placing of flowers at its base.

The North Korean government combines reverence for Kim Il-sung and Kim

Jong-il with the functional purpose of reminding citizens that its government is

always watching. At every site throughout Pyongyang, government officials

recount when the Great Leader (Kim Il-sung) had visited, where he had walked, and

what he had said to help the people there become “better citizens”. And, because all

citizens must wear a pin with Kim Il-sung’s visage on it, nobody can realistically

escape the gaze of the Great Leader.

The most palpable representation of the official reverence for Kim il-Sung is at

Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where Kim’s body permanently lies in state. The size of

Kumsusan dwarfs the mausoleums of Mao, Lenin, and Ho Chi Minh and a visit

there by is treated as one of the highest honors bestowed by the state upon its

citizens. Visitors are required to walk over automatic shoe-cleaning machines before

they stand and bow before a fifteen foot gold statue of Kim. After that they enter the

“Hall of Lamentations,” featuring large walls covered with bas-relief murals

depicting people mourning over the death of Kim. In this room a narrator intones

via headphones about the “pain felt deep into humankind’s core” at the death of the

man who “provided light, guidance, hope, wisdom, and strength to all of

humanity.”

After the Hall of Lamentations, visitors are led through a portal consisting of

massive blowers that remove any dust particles from visitors, and then proceed into

the room to visit the “Eternal President of the DPRK” lying in a glass-domed

sarcophagus. The North Koreans present, at least in the visit observed in 2009, wept

in grief and bowed at the head, feet, and sides of the Great Leader. The overall effect

is clear: The state presents Kim Il-sung not only as former head of state, but as a

religious icon.

Kim Jong-il also is seen in much of the propaganda, but it is clear that the North

Korean regime feels the need to constantly remind citizens that Kim Jong-il is in

charge and watching them. North Korean newspapers, magazines and billboards

are full of pictures of “The General” touring factories, farms, military facilities,

public buildings and construction sites. During these visits he provides “field

guidance,” or what the North Koreans call, “on-the-spot consultation,” These words

of advice that Kim Jong-il utters at every visit are immediately reported in the news

and also make their way onto the walls near where he gave the advice.

North Korea’s isolation and the government decreed societal centrism of Kim Il-

sung and Kim Jong-il are real and palpable to any visitor, even through the

limitations of a short visit. Although not perfect, the North Korean regime has been

successful at keeping out outside information that could challenge the primacy and

immediacy of the propaganda promoted nationwide by the government. And,

importantly, married to the quasi-religious status afforded to Kim Il-sung and Kim

Jong-il, is the concomitant ubiquity of the two Kim’s, which serves as a constant

reminder to citizens that their government is always watching.

Poison Shrimp among Whales

North Korea's prospects for reform are tantamount to the more well-known Curse of

Oil. According to this theory, developing economies dominated by oil exports often

accumulate wealth without substantial investment in the free market, private

property, or broad socioeconomic development. The curse applies to the degree that

national elites become more accountable to foreign importers than their own

populations for political authority and prosperity (Handelman 2011, 47-8).

A similar curse comes not from oil but the combination of North Korean

geography and regional international relations. In a more cooperative and less

nationalistic climate, physical location could be a blessing because the DPRK

possesses warm-water ports on the Sea of Japan and significant mineral resources.

The problem is the eternal realpolitik among regional states and both Koreas. Russia,

Japan, China and the US all invaded Korea in the 20th century, but none was able to

achieve its maximal goals because of the apparent impossibility for one state to

dominate the peninsula. In addition, the demonstration effects of open war in 1950-

53 suggest that international conflict, state destruction, and externally-imposed

regime change are legitimate worst-case scenarios in the event of a future conflict.

Given regional investments in military capabilities, the next war could be even more

destructive than the original.

The upshot is that the US, China, Japan, and even South Korea believe they need

North Korea to exist more than they need it to undergo unpredictable change. This

external preference for the status quo, regardless of the misery of ordinary North

Koreans, is associated with three overlapping dynamics ― Chinese protection,

regional fear of chaos, and tolerance of negative behavior ― that have provided the

leadership in Pyongyang with near immunity from conventional internal pressures

for reform.

North Korea as Chinese Asset

Post-Cold War realpolitik centers on China-US relations. The US prefers to avoid

another war with China in general and over Korea in particular, but still maintains a

garrison in South Korea. China does not seek war either, but the question of

German-style unification dredges up the same problems of encroachment as 1950,

and any backtracking after six decades of opposition to a single, democratic, and

pro-American Korea might appear to be a dreaded "sign of weakness" in its rivalry

with the US and larger quest for global influence and status. Nor may China be able

to ally with or neutralize a unified Korea, especially if Seoul (presumably) asks

Washington to maintain a troop presence and acts as a beacon of democracy and

quasi-Westernization into China itself. China is also wary that a united peninsula, or

even a bolder DPRK, might inflame separatism in Yanbian (Freeman 2010, 152-56).

For Japan, a single Korea may also press the issue of the disputed Takeshima/Dokdo

islands. Furthermore, Seoul has pledged to work toward a nuclear-free peninsula,

but should the North's arsenal survive unification, the new Korea might be tempted

to keep the weapons. A unified and nuclear Korea would raise the pressure on Japan

to follow suit, and a nuclear Japan would push China into apoplexy.

But if North Korea is a troublesome ally, with nuclear weapons the latest

complicating factor, it still has tangible value beyond abstract power calculations:

China could someday, even decades from now, need help in war outside Korea, just

as Soviet Russia could have once needed help against the US or Japan. As Beijing's

ally, Pyongyang might be expected to threaten, harass, and even strike China's

enemies in a conflict over Taiwan, disputed islands in the South China Sea, the

Diaoyu/Senkakus, or some other location. These scenarios are unlikely, but the

DPRK's ability to project power, which include WMD, missiles, submarines, surface

ships, warplanes, and special forces ― even if underfunded and in some disrepair ―

still poses a threat to South Korea, Japan, and regional US bases (International

Institute for Strategic Studies 2010, 411-13).

China therefore wants to keep its ally intact, authoritarian, and economically

viable enough to not become a permanent ward or source of refugees (Lee 2009).

Economic possibilities once centered on the Sinuiju and Rason zones near the mutual

border. Sinuiju, in the far northwest along the Yalu River and Korea Bay, has not

prospered even though an estimated 70-80% of North Korean trade with China

passes through the adjacent Chinese city Dandong (Kim W. 2008, 222). China

already enjoys easy access to the Yellow Sea and a naval base in Dalian, so helping

Sinuiju develop is not a strategic priority. But Rason, and the nearby ice-free port

Najin, sit below the three-way DPRK, China, and Russia border that blocks

unfettered Chinese access to the Sea of Japan. This section of Korea therefore holds a

similar strategic import as Myanmar, China's closest ally in Southeast Asia. China

desires a world-class navy, and Myanmar provides access to the Indian Ocean.

Likewise, Rason-Najin would provide similar access to the northwest Pacific. Russia

and South Korea, however, have explored a new line to connect the Trans-Siberian

Railway through Rason to South Korea, which would streamline trade and perhaps

political ties between Russia, both Koreas, and Japan (Kaplan 2010; Bauer 2009; Kim

W. 2008).

The Chinese interest in Rason is therefore more strategic than economic. On 17

January 2011 the nationalist South Korean newspaper Chosunilbo reported that

Chinese troops had entered Rason and possibly Sinuiju. If accurate, the report could

indicate nothing more than a temporary effort at border control and the protection of

Chinese property and citizens. If Beijing ever does assume long-term responsibility

for the internal security of the DPRK, it would probably limit itself to the border and

Rason-Najin, and leave the rest of the country to Pyongyang.

North Korea as Vortex1

The problem with Pyongyang is almost two decades of indications that the DPRK

could disintegrate into a WMD-laden failed state. Vacuum of authority in Korea is

intolerable to regional powers, but the question of who or what would fill the

vacuum could destabilize the entire region. Kaplan (2006) has captured the most

spectacular version of this worst-case scenario. A failing and starving North Korea

lashes out at South Korea, perhaps with nuclear weapons, triggering South Korean

and American military and humanitarian action and luring China, Russia, and Japan

to intervene and seek leverage over the emergence of new political authority.

This bleak vision presents a clear opportunity for interested states to plan for

such an event before it happens, just as they have tried to control the DPRK's nuclear

ambitions. But the Six Party talks have established an uninspiring precedent, in

particular their degeneration into a forum for "nuclear blackmail" by which North

Korea uses the WMD issue to extort just enough aid and relief to keep the regime

afloat. An easier way to avoid a similar reckoning over a failed state is to contain the

DPRK militarily, help the regime survive with trade and humanitarian aid, and hope

for the best.

The failed state scenario came as a surprise after decades of tight central control.

As the Kang and Rigoulot (2005, 710-16) account of the Yodok camp explains,

mountainous terrain and poor roads alone form an impediment to movement in any

direction on foot, which is a critical factor for a populace with few private cars or

boats. For illegal migrants, the southern border was and is the essentially impassable

DMZ with South Korea. That left the northern bridges and seasonal freezes of the

Yalu and Tumen river borders with China and Russia for escape. The assault began

during the famines and transition to Kim Jong-il in the mid-1990s, and depended

partly on the attrition and corruption of border police. Another significant factor,

however, was the sheer determination of people to escape starvation or participate

in cross-border trade and other interaction. A recent estimate reports 12,000 migrants

resettled in South Korea via China, and 100,000-400,000 in China itself, despite

Chinese and South Korean efforts to discourage asylum seekers. Others move back

and forth across the border at will (Park 2009, 544 n. 4).

Reports of military personnel engaged in organized and petty crime have

begged the question of whether the state has also lost its monopoly of violence. To

date there is no indication of cross border insurgents along the northern frontier.

Military loyalty, however, remains critical. Despite its own propaganda, the

leadership probably knows that a US attack or invasion in unlikely as long as China

balances American power. Since the most cosmopolitan segments of society reside in

1 From Gregory Henderson, Korea: The Politics of the Vortex (Harvard University Press, 1968).

Pyongyang, the immediate role of loyal armed forces is not external defense but to

put down a People Power or coup in the capital. In 2004, there was a deadly

explosion at a train station on the border after Kim Jong-il passed through after a

visit to Beijing. The incident may have been an assassination plot from within the

government. Shortly thereafter, the state banned cell phones (Lankov 2007, 1386;

Smith 2005).

Tolerance of North Korea

The regional fear of change also applies to South Korea. From a realistic perspective,

its national interest in stability and economic viability in the DPRK mirrors China's.

Conventional explanations of why the government and population have not been

more aggressive in pushing for unification since the end of the Cold War have

centered on the idea that Seoul does not want the responsibility of assimilating

millions of people unaccustomed or hostile to South Korean culture, close ties with

the US, democracy, and free markets. The geopolitical explanation, by contrast,

centers on the sheer volume of risks and unknowns regarding the posture of China

and ripple effects of unification on regional stability. Compared to the worst-case

scenario of outright war, the status quo of division over unification could remain

preferable to Seoul even in the unlikely event that Pyongyang reconciles with

Washington or commits to comprehensive reform.

The conservative stance of all external actors therefore leaves the initiative for

internal reform to the DPRK. Unfortunately, the regime's actions have belied its

interest in nation rebuilding after the famine. The most obvious obstacle to reform is

the chance that North Korean brinksmanship or an accident involving WMD, missile

launches, or terrorism, even if Pyongyang believes such acts to be purely defensive,

may provoke a preemptive or retaliatory strike by South Korea or the US that

devastates the North or starts a new war.

A revealing and related pattern is that the DPRK has knowingly put foreign

investment and humanitarian aid at risk by continuing to develop and test nuclear

devices, redirect aid to the Workers Party, and reject oversight. Still, China and

South Korea have remained engaged via aid and investment, even though the Lee

Blue House has pledged to take a harder line against unreciprocated gestures (Park

2009; Lee 2009; Haggard and Noland 2007, 130-371).

Other acts indicate that the DPRK has acted to deliberately subvert broad-based

socioeconomic development. In 1977, Kim Il-sung explained to Erich Honecker:

The higher the standard of living climbs, the more ideologically lazy

and the more careless the activity (Myers 2010, 430)

The Kims' commitment to sabotage their own people's material comfort was

probably confirmed by the democratization of affluent South Korea after the death

of Park in 1979. Whatever their motivation, the Workers Party and military prefer to

raise cash through the arms trade and global black markets for drugs, counterfeit

dollars, and other goods rather than price and currency reforms, foreign investment,

and export manufacturing that could transform society (Haggard and Noland 2007,

3263-300).

North Korea has in fact sabotaged the two special zones that were financed by

South Koreans and designed to enhance bilateral ties and integrate the DPRK into

the regional economy. In 2008 Seoul suspended trips to Mt. Kumgang after guards

killed a tourist. Kaesong, which combines South Korean investment and

management with North Korean labor, has been subject to not only commercial

pressures but also repeated demands and threats from the DPRK over political and

diplomatic issues (Kim and Lim 2009; Nanto and Manyin 2008).

Northern border towns that could develop into unplanned special zones have

nonetheless created what Smith (2009, 231) has termed “marketisation without

liberalisation,” or entrepreneurship without the rule of law, that is vulnerable to

arbitrary actions by the state. In 2009 the regime tried to ban all foreign currency and

revalue the won, which stripped small businesspeople of their savings and

reportedly engendered vocal opposition and unrest (Freedom House 2010).

Finally, the DPRK has diverted domestic food production to the Workers Party

and blocked nascent market forces and foreign trade in strategic provinces close to

the capital or South Korea, even at the cost of child malnutrition. One of these provinces

is South Hwanghae, which overlooks the contested waters where in 2010 the DPRK

torpedoed the Cheonan and shelled Yonpyong (Smith 2009).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the tortured state of international politics in East Asia must change for

North Korea to feel the pressure for internal development. Without these external

changes North Korea must be analyzed and evaluated with caution. The DPRK has

shown itself to be complicated and dangerous. The regime has so far survived the

economic and political reform movements that are transforming other countries

throughout the world. Ironically, the changes that have transformed the world –

from the fall of the Soviet Union to the democratization of Eastern Europe to the

current revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa – are used by the North

Korean regime to buttress their internal argument that their system is under attack

from outside forces, intent on destroying what makes the DPRK unique. Part of this

equation is that the cult of personality surrounding the Kims, along with the

collective ethos of the society, have robbed most people of the critical thinking skills

that would be needed not just to question the regime, but also to enter the global

economy if they ever were to be “freed.” Many in China and South Korea look at the

psychological backwardness of North Korea and fear the chaos and costs associated

with any sort of rapid change. Also, with the succession of Kim Jong-un into power,

there is little guarantee that North Korea won’t continue to value crisis over stability,

and the Korean peninsula will remain in a state of semi-permanent crisis. It is

probable then that the world will continue to have to interact with a North Korea

that views the benefits of stability and peace in starkly different terms than the U.S.,

South Korea, and China.

References

Bauer, John W. 2009. "Unlocking Russian Interests on the Korean Peninsula."

Parameters 39, 2 (Summer) 52-62.

Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook (USA). 2011. "Korea, North." Accessed

16 January. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-

factbook/geos/kn.html

Chen Jian. 2004. "In the Name of Revolution: China's Road to the Korean War

Revisited." In The Korean War in World History, edited by William Stueck, 93-125.

Lexington, Kentucky, USA: University Press of Kentucky.

Doner, Richard F., Bryan K. Ritchie, and Dan Slater. 2005. "Systemic Vulnerability

and the Origins of Developmental States: Northeast and Southeast Asia in

Comparative Perspective." International Organization 59 (Spring) 327-61.

Freedom House. 2010. Freedom in the World - North Korea. freedomhouse.org.

___ . 2011. "Country ratings and status, FIW 1973-2010 (Excel file)." Downloaded 7

January. freedomhouse.org.

Freeman, Carla P. 2010. "Neighborly Relations: the Tumen development project and

China’s security strategy." Journal of Contemporary China 19, 63 (January) 137–57.

Gordon, Daniel. 2005. A State of Mind, A Documentary. New York: Kino Video.

Haggard, Stephan and Marcus Noland. 2007. Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and

Reform. New York: Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.

Handelman, Howard. 2011. The Challenge of Third World Development. New York:

Longman.

Heritage Foundation. 2011. "Index of Economic Freedom." Accessed 16 January.

heritage.org/index/Ranking.

International Institute for Strategic Studies. 2010. "Chapter Eight: East Asia and

Australasia." The Military Balance 110, 1 (February) 377-440.

Jackson, Michael Gordon. 2005. "Beyond Brinkmanship: Eisenhower, Nuclear War

Fighting, and Korea, 1953-1968." Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, 1 (March) 52-

75.

Kang, Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot. 2005. The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in

the North Korean Gulag. New York: Basic Books. Kindle edition.

Kang, David C. 2002. Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and

the Philippines. New York: Cambridge.

Kaplan, Robert D. 2006. "When North Korea Falls." Atlantic Monthly (October) 64-73.

___. 2010. "The Geography of Chinese Power." Foreign Affairs 89, 3 (May/June) 22-41.

Kim, Suk Hi and Eul-Chul Lim. 2009. "The Kaesong Inter-Korean Industrial

Complex: Perspectives and Prospects." North Korean Review 5, 2 (Fall) 81-92.

Kim, Woo-Jun. 2008. "Cooperation and Conflict among Provinces: The Three

Northeastern Provinces of China, the Russian Far East, and Sinuiju, North

Korea." Issues and Studies 44, 3 (September) 205-27.

Lankov, Andrei. 2007. North of the Dmz: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea. Jefferson,

North Carolina, USA: McFarland & Company. Kindle edition.

Lee, Julia Joo-A. 2009. "To Fuel or Not to Fuel: China’s Energy Assistance to North

Korea." Asian Security 5, 1 (February) 45–72.

Lim, Jae-Cheon. 2009. "Institutional Change in North Korean Economic

Development

Since 1984: The Competition Between Hegemonic and Non-hegemonic Rules and

Norms." Pacific Affairs 82, 1 (Spring) 9-27.

Linantud, John L. 2008. "Pressure and Protection: Cold War Nation-Building in

South Korea, South Vietnam, Philippines, and Thailand." Geopolitics 13, 4

(October 2008) 635-56.

Millett, Allan R. 2011. "Korean War." In Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Accessed 8

February. britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/322419/Korean-War.

Myers, B.R. 2010. The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It

Matters. Brooklyn, New York, USA: Melville House. Kindle edition.

Nanto, Dick K. and Mark E. Manyin. 2008. Kaesong North-South Korean Industrial

Complex. Updated 14 February. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research

Service. fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34093.pdffas.org/sgp/crs/.

NASA (United States). 2006. "Visible Earth." Last modified 8 June.

http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/ve//1438/earth_lights.gif.

Orwell, George. 1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel. New York: Plume Harcourt

Brace Centennial Edition, 2003.

Park, Yong-Soo. 2009. "The political economy of economic reform in North Korea."

Australian Journal of International Affairs 63, 4 (December) 529-49.

Porter, Bruce D. 1994. War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern

Politics New York: Free Press.

Smith, Hazel. 2005. "Crime and economic instability: the real security threat from

North Korea and what to do about it." International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 5

(August) 235–49.

___. 2009. "North Korea: Market Opportunity, Poverty and the Provinces." New

Political Economy 14, 2 (June) 231-56.

Stubbs, Richard. 2005. Rethinking Asia's Economic Miracle: The Political Economy of

War, Prosperity and Crisis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Transparency International. 2010. "Corruption Perceptions Index." Last modified 26

October. transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi.

United Nations. 2010. "Table 1: Human Development Index and its components."

hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Table1_reprint.pdf.

Weathersby, Kathryn. 2004. "The Soviet Role in the Korean War: The State of

Historical Knowledge." In The Korean War in World History, 61-92.

World Bank. 2011. "Quick Query." Accessed 7 January.

http://databank.worldbank.org/ddp/home.do.