By Andrei Lankov Published: March 23 2008 14:59 | Last updated: March 23 2008 14:59 North Korea is again in the news. The visible success of the New York Philharmonic’s February concert in Pyongyang produced a predictable wave of optimistic expectations. Combined with the talks about alleged “progress on the nuclear issue”, the concert has helped to foster an impression that the soft approach to the country is working and will eventually bring about the miraculous transformation of a destitute rogue state into a reforming nation, akin to China or Vietnam.
However, this sense of optimism needs to be kept in perspective. The North Korean regime has been striving to acquire nuclear weapons for half a century. Pyongyang needs them both as a deterrent against a foreign attack and as a negotiating chip to deploy in order to squeeze important concessions from the outside world.
The incentives that can be offered in exchange for denuclearisation are still not attractive enough. Generous aid is welcome, but the regime knows it can survive without it, as was the case in the 1990s. Of course, an estimated 1m people starved to death during that time, but cognac-sipping Pyongyang leaders have shown a remarkable ability to ignore the suffering of their own people.
For now, Pyongyang is stalling for time. Soon it will become evident that it has no intention of surrendering its nuclear devices. When that happens, the Washington hardliners will predictably get angry and demand a ban on all exchanges with North Korea. Their battle cry will be “isolation and pressure”. Perhaps they will also point to the New York Philharmonic’s trip as having been a mistake or a sign of weakness. They will be wrong.
Indeed, the dream of a Chinese-style transformation in Pyongyang seems to be unfounded. The prosperity of their affluent South Korean neighbours is still largely unknown to most North Kor eans and makes the situation in the North very different from that of China. North Korea’s leaders believe that since Chinese-style reforms req uire an expansion in inter actions with the outside world, these reforms will lead to an East German-style collapse, not a Chinese-style economic boom. So they prefer to keep their people under control and earn cash not by improving their economy but by fabricating an international crisis and squeezing ransom money from the outside world.
However, pressure and isolation will not work either. The US cannot “isolate” the North. China, South Korea and perhaps even Russia, driven by their own priorities, will continue to provide at least some aid, helping to keep the regime afloat. The only real hope is in the form of transformation from below – a revolution.
It will happen, sooner or later, but there are two strategies to speed up the event which should be used simultaneously. First, one should try to provide North Koreans with information about the outside world. The continuous support for radio broadcasts and to fund opposition activities is vital.
Second, there is another strategy to foment dissent – the development of officially approved exchanges, such as visits by academics, hosting concerts and exhibitions. Since such measures require Pyongyang’s consent, they would be impossible to arrange without some compromises. Hardline critics may be right that North Korean officials will portray these visits as a foreigners’ tribute to their “Dear Leader”. However, one should not overestimate the efficiency of this propaganda. I grew up in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and officially approved cultural and academic exchanges were a critical source of information about life overseas and helped arouse serious doubts about the communist system.
Both strategies should be used persistently, irrespective of what is happening on the ever-shifting diplomatic front. One should not dismiss support for broadcast and opposition activities, even when optimists assure everybody that the North Korean regime is about to change itself. (It will never change itself.) On the other hand, the cultural and academic exchanges (as well as humanitarian assistance) should continue even in the midst of another crisis – whatever the hawks say.
Soon it will become clear that North Korea will retain its nuclear ambitions. This should not mean it becomes a no-go area for Western artists or non-government bodies. These exchanges are not a reward for the regime. Their ultimate goal is to influence the minds of the people and bring changes from below – probably in a form that Pyongyang leaders will not like.
The writer is an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul
SEOUL―Chinese police have arrested some 40 North Koreans in a series of raids on a border area in Liaoning province, with others detained as they tried to cross the Tumen River into China, according to authoritative Korean sources.
The arrests come as Chinese authorities step up security sweeps around the country amid spreading protests by Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region and in Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu provinces. Analysts say the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing are pushing China to crack down on undocumented North Koreans, whose suffering will likely escalate further.
Plainclothes Chinese security agents conducted a large-scale raid March 17 on North Korean defectors in Shenyang, Liaoning province, arresting about 40 people, sources in China who spoke to RFA’s Korean service on condition of anonymity said.
Sources in China also reported that four North Korean defectors―one male and three females―were arrested March 5 as they ate in a local restaurant. Chinese border guards meanwhile arrested two North Koreans attempting to cross the Tumen River, sources said.
“North Korean defectors continue to attempt to cross the border,” Kim Myung Chul, a North Korean defector hiding in a mountainous area in China, said in an interview. “Many of them are captured in China, after they have left North Korea but especially in the border areas. Surveillance and border enforcement have been stepped up, and there are many who report the defectors to the authorities.”
Countless North Koreans fleeing poverty and oppression have crossed into China over the Tumen River. Shenyang is a four-hour train ride from the North Korean-Chinese border, and raids there are generally considered unlikely unless someone has tipped off police, residents say.
Sweeps linked to Tibetan crackdown
Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense Forum Foundation in Virginia and an advocate for North Korean refugees, said she believed the stepped-up sweeps were directly related to China’s crackdown on anti-Chinese Tibetan demonstrations that have ripped through western China since March 10.
“The situation in Tibet will have an impact on North Korean refugees living in China,” Scholte said. “I believe the Chinese authorities will initiate a search for North Korean defectors in China, conducting their operations in a manner similar to what they have been doing in Tibet.”
North Korea backs Chinese crackdown
North Korea’s official media have firmly backed the Chinese crackdown. North Korean Central Television (KCTV) and Pyongyang TV, monitored March 19, described the situation as a “violent crime emergency.”
KCTV quoted a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman condemning “the violent crimes including beating, smashing, looting, and burning, currently happening in the Tibet Autonomous Region as a plot organized, premeditated, masterminded, and incited by the Dalai Lama clique, concocted in collusion with outside separatist forces whose aim is to split China and destroy national unity.”
The official Korean Central News Agency quoted Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry as saying the regime "supports the Chinese government in its efforts to ensure social stability and the rule of law in Tibet and defend the fundamental interests of the Tibetan people."
A spokesman also “strongly denounced the unsavory elements for their moves to seek the ‘independence of Tibet’ and scuttle the coming Beijing Olympic Games… Tibet is part of the inalienable territory of China.”
North Koreans suffering more
North Korea counts China as its closest ally and has relied on energy and food from China to feed its 23 million people for years.
Experts say the crackdown on North Koreans in China will aggravate their already escalating traumatic stress and anxiety disorders, which have been well documented by clinicians in South Korea and the West.
A new report by the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics found the overwhelming majority of North Korean defectors suffer from depression and phobic anxiety disorders, related to chronic famine and human rights abuses in North Korea and perpetual fear of arrest in China.
The report, based on surveys of more than 1,300 North Korean defectors in South Korea in 2005, said 51 percent of North Korean defectors in South Korea exhibit symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), while 26 percent suffer from acute PTSD.
“There are two sources of stress that we try to emphasize,” said Stephan Haggard, co-author of the report and a professor at the University of California-San Diego.
“One is the perpetual anxiety they experienced while living in hiding in China, as illegal residents trying to evade the surveillance and crackdowns conducted by the authorities. The other is the starvation, severe human rights violations, and cruelty experienced in political prisoner camps.”
A 2001 study in the international medical journal The Lancet found defectors reported certain traumatic events in North Korea with a high frequency.
Most commonly reported were: “witnessing public executions,” followed by “hearing news of the death of a family member or relative due to starvation,” “witnessing a beating,” “witnessing a punishment for political misconduct,” and “death of a family member or relative due to illness.”
The Lancet study found PTSD symptoms in 29.5 percent of North Koreans in South Korea, compared with 56 percent found among North Koreans in China in a separate study.
Original reporting in Korean by Jungmin Noh, Sookyung Lee and Sungwon Yang. RFA Korean Service director: Kwang-Chool Lee. Translated and researched by Greg Scarlatoiu. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie and edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
