tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2947703317676199052024-03-05T17:19:56.763+09:00Destination PyongyangChristopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.comBlogger110125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-22422674976961270322014-11-07T00:36:00.003+09:002014-11-07T00:36:54.059+09:0020+ Divorces: Gnashed Teeth in SeoulOne of the societally significant outcomes of South Korea’s liberalizing cultural turn in the final decade of the 20th Century and on into the 21st has been the rising tide of divorces involving older couples. Although it remains a minority of overall cases, in 2012 the number of such divorces, which are defined as those involving couples married for more than twenty years, first crossed a watershed, surpassing as it did the number of those involving couples married for less than four years. The difference between the two cohorts continues to expand.<br /><br />According to an article published on October 23 by the Chosun Ilbo utilizing data from the South Korean judicial system, 32,433 of the divorces registered in 2013 were of couples with 20 or more years of marriage under their belt. This figure represented 28.1% of all (115,292) divorces, considerably more than the 27,299, or 23.7%, “sub-4” divorces. In 2012 the two cohorts were less divergent at 26.4% and 24.6% of all divorces respectively, suggesting that what we are seeing is a burgeoning trend. The sense of a paradigmatic shift is reinforced by the point that “sub-4” divorces have been in marked decline since reaching a nadir of more than 40,000 cases in 2003 (when divorce laws were liberalized, inciting an across the board spike in numbers). Conversely, the number of “middle-aged divorces” has shown a relatively consistent upward trend since 2005. <br /><br />Drilling down into the figures, reporter Choi Yeon-jin finds that no fewer than 47.2% of this particular variety of divorce in 2013 was caused (or at least registered as caused) by “differences of personality.” For those familiar with South Korean societal trends, this is not a surprising statistic; it has been apparent in divorce statistics for some years that one or both of some older South Korean couples, people who apparently would not have previously considered seeking divorce due in large part to a lingering stigma attached to both being divorced and being the child of a divorced couple, are now seeking to end dysfunctional marriages.<br /><br />Other causes of divorce among this cohort are considerably less significant: the second highest percentage, 12.7%, of couples put the collapse of their relationships down to economic considerations. A further 7% stipulate bad relations with the family of their partner.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-58331574339428566472014-10-09T04:47:00.003+09:002014-10-09T04:48:08.714+09:00BBC World Service Korean: Still A Golden OpportunityIn recent months, I have noticed a welcome revival of efforts to get the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to support a Korean version of the BBC World Service to target North Korea. In support of the fantastic work being done on this, I've decided to make available the report I wrote on the subject for the BBC back in 2012.<br />
<br />
Some of the details are a bit outdated now, and a second <a href="http://www.eahrnk.org/research/bbc-korea/">report</a> has since been published by the dynamic folks over at EAHRNK, but it remains relevant, and the call to act is as loud as ever.<br />
<br />
Read the report <a href="http://sinonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BBC-WORLD-SERVICE-KOREAN-A-GOLDEN-OPPORTUNITY-1.pdf">here</a>.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-20516714354226412432013-08-22T09:52:00.000+09:002013-08-22T09:56:43.737+09:00The Long March to a Brave New WorldAs regular visitors to Destination Pyongyang will surely have noticed, I have adopted an extremely light posting schedule. The truth is that something had to give: international team for <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/korean/dailynk.php">Daily NK</a>, co-editor of <a href="http://sinonk.com/">Sino-NK</a>, regular contributor to <a href="http://www.nknews.org/">multiple</a> <a href="http://www.koreanquarterly.org/Home.html">publications</a>, occasional appearances in the international media, and a PhD at Cambridge University.<br />
<br />
That being said, when I publish something elsewhere I'll try to post it here as well, and the Twitter feed <a href="https://twitter.com/Dest_Pyongyang">@Dest_Pyongyang</a> will remain as lively as ever!<br />
<br />
Best regards,<br />
<br />
ChrisChristopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-45800277833590647612013-07-11T16:16:00.001+09:002013-07-11T16:16:22.952+09:00Indiegogo A-Go-Go<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSEZYHm6J_868lr5DvSpd1YSsgs7SdleDp1gX5X4EW6OT461Da9TNTEuavotNG4Rd8NZ-0mHNiCArCUweV4WmQv6eJ2k7Nv7VbvQYoEWA17YjIuh6bp-Bnl4P1QDeEIWHabjXtQKE8bM7x/s1600/Content.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSEZYHm6J_868lr5DvSpd1YSsgs7SdleDp1gX5X4EW6OT461Da9TNTEuavotNG4Rd8NZ-0mHNiCArCUweV4WmQv6eJ2k7Nv7VbvQYoEWA17YjIuh6bp-Bnl4P1QDeEIWHabjXtQKE8bM7x/s1600/Content.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-59147561001385972232013-02-11T06:21:00.001+09:002013-02-11T06:21:46.389+09:00Taking the Post Out of Post-TotalitarianYou will not find a defector from any level of the North Korean regime who thinks Kim Jong-il's ruling style was less totalitarian than that of Kim Il-sung. In fact, the majority of those who run away from the upper echelons of the Pyongyang elite think Kim was more so. <a href="http://sinonk.com/2013/02/08/red-box-arguing-against-institutional-pluralism/">Here's</a> why.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-35114241824355644012013-01-25T22:13:00.002+09:002013-01-25T22:13:50.070+09:0022-14=?... The Mystery of the "New Camp"There's far too much groundless speculation about North Korea going on in the world today, even more than we had all become accustomed to. So let me say one thing about <a href="http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/OA26Dg01.html">this</a> link: satellite photos do not confirmation make, and I am reserving judgement.<br />
<br />
However! One thing is for sure: a "completely controlled zone" such as Camp 22 is what British people subjected to the rule of Prime Minister David Cameron might recognize as a "Ronseal deal"... in other words, it does exactly what it says on the tin. That does not include freedom, and they must therefore have gone somewhere.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-2399237380254072072013-01-13T00:29:00.002+09:002013-01-13T00:29:46.115+09:00New Year, Same Old Fog<span style="font-family: inherit;">The endless analysis of the first televised New Year's address by Kim Jong-un means that whoever wrote it achieved his or her aim. <a href="http://sinonk.com/2013/01/04/ancestor-shadows-and-strategic-fog-a-parting-shot-at-the-kim-jong-un-speech/">Here's</a> some more. The take away: </span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Scholars such as Patrick McEachern, the author of Inside the Red Box: North Korea’s Post-Totalitarian Politics, are right to assume that much about North Korea has rusted heavily since the 1970s when, as Suh notes, Kim Il-sung fully consolidated what could legitimately be called his totalitarian rule over North Korea. However, arguably less has changed than many scholars seem keen to believe, and this is why all it takes is <a href="http://sinonk.com/2012/12/20/orbiting-untruths-ignoring-ideology-looking-back-and-re-learning/">a KCNA article to send US policymakers to the bar</a>, and a rhetorically fluffy New Year’s address to get every journalist from London to Lima reaching for the reset button just 19 days after the launch of Gwangmyungsung-3.</span></blockquote>
Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-46535376151661215472012-12-19T10:46:00.000+09:002012-12-19T11:26:36.922+09:00South Korea Goes to the Polls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmGKoGnXEFhyiUBpcbnqo9jEyLYZPoaejOE82yIxD2-UFcIWuGM3fMo0wX7jxd-GEun9uNJcw2M4O9makVFp8lpPgr18nSjzriSDTeMm7GWmZ5jhB9f5uc51zBB7sAEiwPpkweE7j3dwXX/s1600/%E1%84%89%E1%85%A1%E1%84%8C%E1%85%B5%E1%86%AB+(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmGKoGnXEFhyiUBpcbnqo9jEyLYZPoaejOE82yIxD2-UFcIWuGM3fMo0wX7jxd-GEun9uNJcw2M4O9makVFp8lpPgr18nSjzriSDTeMm7GWmZ5jhB9f5uc51zBB7sAEiwPpkweE7j3dwXX/s200/%E1%84%89%E1%85%A1%E1%84%8C%E1%85%B5%E1%86%AB+(1).JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
South Korea has gone to the polls this morning. With the belief appearing to be that if more than 73% of people turn out to vote then "progressive" Moon Jae-in will win, while less than 70% will make it a win for the conservative darling Park Geun-hye, the day's left wing papers ran with exhortations to vote. In the case of Hankyoreh this meant a piece of abstract art extolling the virtues of standing in line in the cold; meanwhile, the Kyunghyang channeled the death of Emily Davison in 1913 instead.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIe_6SbTuCdlNVe-NG0EYerPCYruTfAE5sOXXHuG_0VFd0QFFDQ3o66Q56y_9e__5cRC_lRaBN-pkf7FqbYC6DGugdBjIalqlTWjQDoQzCy0qrfArlqgstVevQKRCUOD2SyRvjzTEiEKfs/s1600/%E1%84%89%E1%85%A1%E1%84%8C%E1%85%B5%E1%86%AB.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIe_6SbTuCdlNVe-NG0EYerPCYruTfAE5sOXXHuG_0VFd0QFFDQ3o66Q56y_9e__5cRC_lRaBN-pkf7FqbYC6DGugdBjIalqlTWjQDoQzCy0qrfArlqgstVevQKRCUOD2SyRvjzTEiEKfs/s200/%E1%84%89%E1%85%A1%E1%84%8C%E1%85%B5%E1%86%AB.JPG" width="148" /></a><br />
I took the temperature of democratic fervor in Jangan-dong at 7AM, and can confirm that it was resolutely lukewarm. However, we can expect it to heat up during the day. Will it reach 73%? currently the statistics suggest not, but we'll see.<br />
<br />
On the right, Mrs. Green shows her dedication to the good fight, perhaps also channeling Miss Davison following her marriage to a Brit? Who knows. Note to the bottom right a statement declaring that Unified Progressive Party candidate Lee Jung-hee is not on the ballot. Just say no to extremist socialism, kids.<br />
<br />
<br />Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-15888581792169250272012-11-27T05:41:00.003+09:002012-11-27T05:41:34.224+09:00Phones, Phones and More Phones?A pithy moment from my latest piece for SinoNK, which you can read more of right <a href="http://sinonk.com/2012/11/25/barriers-to-entry-cellular-telephony-in-the-digital-dprk/">here</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
However, the pain is actually quite a long way short of being over. In a moment of uncharacteristic efficiency, the actual cell phone shop is often directly outside the communications office, but in a moment of karma-balancing inefficiency, it doesn’t open much, carries a limited amount of product and is pitifully understaffed. As a result, queues are long, as are waits. Assuming an individual lives long enough to reach the front of such a queue, he or she is finally offered the opportunity to hand over another $70-$100 and depart the scene with a brand new phone.</blockquote>
Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-68916417670980461292012-11-12T16:11:00.001+09:002012-11-12T16:11:18.361+09:00Can't Get There from HereMad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sunshine policy, and Moon Chung-in is all for it! But I and my good friend Steven Denney are less enthusiastic <a href="http://sinonk.com/2012/11/10/mad-dogs-and-englishmen-moon-chung-ins-vision-of-sunshine/">here</a>.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-31081510978684048662012-10-22T13:40:00.002+09:002012-10-23T14:41:14.116+09:00Let the Chopped Branches Speak<div>
A piece I published at <a href="http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4912&Itemid=179">Asia Sentinel</a> on October 19th, 2012:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
With phrases like “economic improvement measure” swirling around Kim Il-sung Square as short skirts in Pyongyang inspire whispered talk of greater freedom for the masses, 2012 has turned into a year of hope for the DPRK.<br />
<br />
In such circumstances, it is no surprise that the talk of the town this week is an unusually frank, open <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_uSuCkKa3k&feature=g-all-xit">interview</a> given to former Finnish Minister of Defense Elisabeth Rehn by a suave young man named Kim Han-sol.<br />
<br />
Any Han-sol interview was always going to be a point of interest for the international community. As Kim Jong-il’s grandson, he’s nominally close to the center of the family and, as the interview reveals, speaks English like a native. The interview content doesn’t disappoint, either; holed up in an international college in the Bosnian city of Mostar, the young man speaks of a Libyan roommate thrilled by the overthrow of Colonel Qaddafi, of interaction with South Korean friends, of his father’s disinterest in politics, and of his sadness at never “being sought out” by his grandfather.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
It is intriguing, and it is also certainly enough to earn the young man the label “reformist element” and/or “new diplomatic channel to Pyongyang” in certain quarters. However, such talk is misguided; this was clearly not a political message sent from Pyongyang. <br />
<br />
With the Kim Jong-un regime throwing out positive cultural and diplomatic signals left and right, it would of course be easy to cast the Han-sol interview in a such a political light. His eloquently expressed desire for peace and reconciliation with South Korea is pleasant, and fits in nicely with <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/11/the_slick_pr_stylings_of_kim_jong_un">trends</a> emerging from the DPRK itself: the short skirts, high heels, Rocky theme music and Disney characters of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugkFrEErDtE">Moranbong Band’s</a> debut concert on July 6th; the appearance in public life of <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk03100&num=9761">Ri Sol-joo</a> as the charming and homely wife of Kim Jong-un; and the leader’s apparent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/world/asia/kim-family-chefs-redemption-suggests-a-softening-north-korea.html">reconciliation</a> with Fujimoto Kenji, the former sushi chef to Kim Jong-il who left the country a decade ago amidst rumors of espionage. <br />
<br />
However, adding Han-sol to this list is just wishful thinking. The Kim dynasty has always worked on very clear principles, and one of them is that anybody who represents a threat to the leader is to be kept as far away from Pyongyang as possible. As a hereditary dynasty, nowhere is this more important than inside the Kim family itself. First it happened to Kim Il-sung’s younger brother Kim Yong-ju, who was cast into exile in Jagang Province in 1975 as Kim Jong-il worked to “pluck out the roots” of his sole competitor’s power base, and later to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/left-out-in-the-cold-the-man-who-would-be-kim-7561670.html">Kim Pyong-il</a>, Kim Il-sung’s son with former secretary Kim Song-ae and a man who has now been a wandering DPRK ambassador to assorted European countries for 33 years and counting. <br />
<br />
Han-sol’s father Kim Jong-nam is just the most recent of these “branches” of the Kim family to be cut off and cast into the ether. Exiled in East Asia, Jong-nam occasionally emerges to give <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gcce98T7Lw">brief interviews</a> to Japanese news crews, ordinarily in airports or on quiet city streets. A portly and jovial fellow, he espouses a reformist agenda and has come out against the very notion of dynastic succession, but never discusses family politics and claims never to have felt in danger despite giving voice to controversial views. <br />
<br />
Note that women are not subject to the same rules: Kim Jong Il’s sister, the <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01700&num=9889">ailing Kim Kyung Hee</a>, is one member of the elite leading group in Pyongyang, as is his fourth and final wife Kim Ok and his youngest daughter, Kim Jong-un’s sister <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=9079">Kim Yeo-jung</a>. But this means nothing. North Korea is a male-dominated culture to the very core, and its women are no danger to anyone or anything. <br />
<br />
Conversely, it is extremely telling that neither Jong-nam nor Pyong-il appeared at Kim Jong-il’s funeral in Pyongyang last December. Much like the oligarchs of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the reality is that as long as people like Han-sol don’t get involved in central government politics too deeply or too often, they can do whatever they want, and that includes giving interviews to former Finnish government ministers. All Han-sol needs to remember is that if he fails to play by the rules laid out in Pyongyang then the results are sure to be painful. To put it in terms that the young man can relate to, he could end up like Kim Jong-il’s other nephew Ri Il-nam, who was gunned down on a South Korean city street in 1997. <br />
<br />
It is unquestionably the case that an interview for Finnish television in which a member of the Kim clan declares a desire for world peace is to the advantage of the government in Pyongyang, for it gives the DPRK a humane face and lends weight to notions of pragmatism in the Kim bloodline. But that does not mean that Pyongyang was behind the interview itself, or that it was intended to convey a political message to the wider global audience. Kim Han-sol is just what he appears to be; his own man.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-54739140711527398462012-10-08T16:06:00.000+09:002012-10-08T16:06:13.374+09:00Nice Words from Old Friends<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/apr/08/the-journalism-of-north-korea/">Daily NK</a>: Winning hearts and minds since 2005.</span>Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-862648913796663192012-10-01T11:31:00.005+09:002012-10-01T11:31:50.485+09:00A Spinning Ball Is a Tough One to Hit TrueAny tennis player, particularly a relatively bad one like me, will tell you that a rapidly spinning ball is a hard ball to return effectively on the bounce.<br />
<br />
Ditto North Korean economic improvement measures. Is it better to try and hit the ball while it is still in the air, spinning as it has been spinning for the last 60 years, knowing that will result in a weak return that could be pounced upon by one's opponent, or would one be better off letting it bounce before returning it, knowing that this will either result in a fabulous cross-court winner or a disastrous hook over the fence and into the park beyond?<br />
<br />
More on why this matters <a href="http://sinonk.com/2012/09/30/the-risk-of-letting-a-spinning-ball-bounce/">here</a>.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-90620178709169494982012-09-23T00:09:00.001+09:002012-09-23T00:09:25.758+09:00Don't Completely Discount the PossibilitySome musings from over at <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/NI22Dg01.html">Asia Times</a>.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-20794002068411130522012-09-22T19:45:00.003+09:002012-09-22T23:00:46.704+09:00Progressives Love Progress, Right?As I noted in my last post right here at Destination Pyongyang, this December’s presidential election is shaping up to be a fascinating battle, pitting as it does the rightwing dictator’s daughter Park Geun-hye against democracy activist and former human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in, and both of them against the entrepreneurial, philanthropic founder of AhnLab, Ahn Cheol-soo. <br />
<br />
Such a triumvirate does not merely demand that the South Korean citizenry decide who they want to lead their country for the next five years, it also implicitly asks every voter to decide what kind of Republic of Korea they would prefer to live in.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Today, <a href="http://www.khan.co.kr/">Kyunghyang Shinmun</a>, the smaller of South Korea’s two big leftwing newspapers, threw this question into sharp relief, asking a handful of progressive South Korean figures which of the two leftwing candidates, Moon or Ahn, they would support when the time comes to unify behind a single candidate, something that should happen in early October. <br />
<br />
The answer, at least according to author <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_Ji-young">Gong Ji-young</a>, is Moon Jae-in. Gong is a veteran of the democratization fight, a decorated author (a glittering career that includes 2009’s ‘The Crucible/도가니’, the book that was later turned into a stunning film of the same name), and a ‘Power Tweeter’ (aka ‘Power Blogging in 140 characters or less’) with 473,740 followers hanging on her every word. <br />
<br />
In her view, Moon Jae-in is “the people’s candidate.” <br />
<br />
“When Park Geun-hye was the first lady of a dictator, student Moon Jae-in was a resistance fighter being dragged away by the police,” she points out in the piece. “In the 1980s when Park Geun-hye was living out the Chun Doo-hwan era on her inheritance, Moon Jae-in was living the life of a human rights lawyer.” <br />
<br />
“He who can smash the ‘princess leadership’ of Park Geun-hye is not a prince,” she goes on. “It is the power of the workers, in particular the laborers. Therefore, the opposition candidate to Park Geun-hye is not Ahn Cheol-soo, it is Moon Jae-in.” <br />
<br />
Her analysis of Park and Ahn is, while polemical and a little overblown, basically sound. Park is indeed the daughter of Park Chung-hee, South Korea’s de facto founding father and poster boy for trampling the human rights of the masses in the pursuit of breakneck economic growth; equally, Moon is indeed a democracy activist turned human rights lawyer, much like his ideological forebear, the late President Roh Moo-hyun. <br />
<br />
But what is far harder to understand, what calls into question Gong’s vision of South Korea’s future in toto, is the rationale behind her rejection of Ahn Cheol-soo. <br />
<br />
“Ahn’s very biggest weakness is obviously that he is a member of the elite,” she says. “For the opposition to have to worry about choosing Moon or Ahn is fantastic, but Ahn is deep within the elite… a member of the elite’s elite.” <br />
<br />
“I know very well how much sincerity Ahn has,” she concedes. “Nevertheless, that is different to going to the prison to actually meet the people at the bottom and the people who are in jail because they don’t have 5,000 won.” <br />
<br />
Gong’s sentiment is echoed in the piece by leftwing playwright and director <a href="http://www.criticalstages.org/criticalstages/156">Lee Yun-taek</a>, who notes, “If Ahn Cheol-soo is a man who flies, then Moon Jae-in is a man who walks.”<br />
<div>
<br />
“Where Ahn Cheol-soo is the son of a rich family and Park Geun-hye is the daughter of a president, so Moon is the man in the ragged school uniform from the urban poor,” he adds. <br />
<br />
It is surely true that Moon has a better grasp of those things that really hurt the people on the lowest rungs of society. It is also surely a point in his favor that, as Gong says, “Moon is a man who will listen to anyone, no matter who they are.” </div>
<div>
<br />
But by the same token, are the South Korean voters to accept that Moon has never run a company, never exported a car, steel girder or MP3 player when he is standing for the right to lead one of the world’s most advanced export-oriented nations? <br />
<br />
I admire Moon Jae-in, and much of me would like him to win. His vision of a more equitable society speaks to the soul of anyone who has one, while his apparent honesty and disinterest in the lure of power is like a shot in the arm for a South Korea (and a Destination Pyongyang) rendered weary by five corrupt years of President Lee Myung-bak. <br />
<br />
But for all that, is he the ideal man to run the whole show? And if he is, from whence does his legitimacy stem? South Korea is lucky enough to be home to some of the finest shipbuilders, steel, cars, chemicals and electronics manufacturers on earth. It is a nation that can also lay claim in the best possible way to being Adam Smith and Napolean’s mythical “nation of shopkeepers.” For what reason is "<a href="http://junotane.com/2011/09/03/ahn-to-enter-seoul-mayoral-race/">a medical doctor, professor, self-taught computer entrepreneur, and corporate leader</a>" Ahn Cheol-soo not a good person to run such a country, as Gong Ji-young and Lee Yun-taek apparently believe? </div>
<div>
<br />
<a href="http://junotane.com/2011/09/03/ahn-to-enter-seoul-mayoral-race/">Ahn is</a> a man who is, one can rightly say, "representative of everything mainstream Korea dreams of becoming.” Not only that, he is a progressive with a businessman's mind and a businessman who has succeeded in the cutthroat world of South Korean society while retaining a moral and ethical compass. Can progressive veterans of the 1980s learn to love this man? It's a new challenge, and one that Gong Ji-young is apparently unwilling to take. </div>
Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-43252023668392272842012-09-20T16:28:00.001+09:002012-09-20T16:35:31.599+09:003-Way Election Battle Fun Is Go!Yesterday, entrepreneur-turned-professor Ahn Cheol Soo finally declared his candidacy in the upcoming 18th South Korean presidential election. Although one could argue that the extended period of indecision which preceded the declaration doesn't bode well in terms of Ahn's decisiveness in the face of nasty, brutish and short Northeast Asian politics, it certainly did all us election watchers a favor because now we only have to follow the mud-slinging for three months or so before it's all over.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
What is particularly noticeable about the field at this point is that it does actually offer a genuine choice. This is something that will be rather unfamiliar to people more accustomed to observing the machinations in Washington or any of a number of other western capitals, where there is about as much choice as there is in Pyongyang. Take the UK as an example; although David Cameron has lurched to the right somewhat since coming to power, he was more-or-less indistinguishable from Gordon Brown when Britain went to the ballot box in May 2010.<br />
<br />
This being Destination Pyongyang, we ought to take North Korea policy as evidence of this broad choice. Handily, it is as stark in this arena as in any other.<br />
<br />
First of all, ruling Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun Hye is offering the notion of 'Trustpolitik'. A softer version of incumbent Lee Myung Bak's angry refusal to deal with North Korea until it agrees to pursue what the international community wants, including, perhaps not unreasonably, an apology for the 2010 Cheonan sinking and Yeonpyeong Island shelling, Park does at least propose to talk with all Kim Jong Eun's men, but she has also made it clear that progress must be incremental and premised on reciprocal acts of goodwill from Pyongyang.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic United Party has chosen former Roh Moo Hyun chief-of-staff Moon Jae In. Moon, who has yet to mark himself out as something more than a dyed-in-the-wool Roh man, has vowed to roll back the years and resume the provision of large-scale, practically unconditional aid to the North. The only imponderable here is whether there is the broad political will to do such things on the scale of old when the policy's philosophical underpinnings took such a beating last time.<br />
<br />
Last but not least, there is also Ahn. Unaffiliated with any particular party so not beholden to any of them (at least in principle and at least for the time being), Ahn didn't say anything of any merit about North Korea while declaring his candidacy, but that is mostly because he didn't say anything of any merit about anything.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, however, he did recently move to position himself politically by releasing a book, "Ahn Cheol Soo's Thoughts." Although it had more than a hint of "Who, me? I'm not running for office, goodness me no, I merely want everyone to know my political leanings. Lo, I have penned this little pamphlet" to it, the book was useful for discerning Ahn's start point on North Korea.<br />
<br />
It's quite simple; Ahn wants to be all things to all men. In essence, he thinks Lee Myung Bak is all stick, Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun were all carrot, and that what is needed is a middle ground approach featuring aid and assistance alongside criticism and pressure on human rights.<br />
<br />
A pleasing place to start, obviously, but there is an obvious question. Namely; will North Korea allow Ahn to continue down such an ideal path if he ever gets to the point of implementation? Past precedent would tend to suggest probably not.<br />
<br />
Coincidentally, there was some other good news this morning as, for probably the last time until December 20th, the two extremes of the domestic media managed to agree on something.<br />
<br />
Both the conservative Chosun Ilbo and liberal Hankyoreh concluded in their 'Ahn declaration' editorials that, since the founder of AhnLab has decided to enter the presidential race almost absurdly late in the day, he is now duty-bound to hurry up and tell the people of the country what he intends to do if they elect him. My advice is that you enjoy this moment of synchronicity, for we are unlikely to see another one like it for quite a while.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-14813691139491441962012-08-30T16:46:00.000+09:002012-08-30T16:52:48.437+09:00All Aboard the Bicycle Express<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>They Want to Ride Their Bicycles |</b> It rapidly becomes clear to anyone paying a visit to non-Pyongyang urban North Korea that bicycles play an important role in daily life. In percentage terms, anecdotal evidence has it that 70-75% of families have one. Thus, it is not excessive to say that the country has become a nation of cyclists, at least in the cities.<br /><br />This is as true down in Kaesong as it is anywhere else. Indeed, in a recent piece released by Chosun Exchange, <a href="http://chosonexchange.org/?p=1686">this very city was cited as one place that has enjoyed a particularly impressive increase in bicycle ownership over the last decade</a>, to the extent that streets “that were a few years ago dominated by pedestrians are now clogged with bicycles.”</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is the piece’s sensible presumption that this growth in bicycle ownership must be due to the positive influence of the 50,000+ North Korean workers employed by (at last count) 123 South Korean enterprises in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/world/asia/07kaesong.html">Kaesong Industrial Complex</a> (KIC). It could scarcely be otherwise, given that roughly 15% of the city’s residents are employed in this way.<br /><br />This analysis of causation in Kaesong is obvious, and reasonable. After all, Kaesong is reliant on the KIC, so it is to be assumed that most of the bicycles on the streets are being bought with money earned from it.<br /><br />Indeed, the city has little else going for it. For one thing, it lies at the center of North Korea’s farming heartland; for another, it has limited alternate industrial infrastructure; third, it is in a militarily controlled zone, meaning that the documentation needed to visit it is more difficult to obtain than for any other destination bar the capital and Sino-North Korean border cities; while fourth, but by no means least, the city has been without revenue generated from tourism for some years, since a short-lived boom turned to spectacular bust upon the shooting of a South Korean visitor to Mt. Keumgang by a North Korean guard in the summer of 2008.<br /><br />However, Kaesong does not enjoy purchasing power primacy, in bicycles or anything else. To put it another way, there are visibly expanding cycling communities in other cities, too. For example in Nampo, a city I saw earlier this year with my own eyes.<br /><br />Expropriation: the Great Equalizer | But why, one would be right to ask, is Kaesong not streets ahead of all other North Korean cities, including Nampo, if the KIC pays each worker more than $67 per month plus bonuses while North Korean companies, well, don’t? Perhaps inevitably, it is because the KIC doesn’t either. In truth, the state expropriates somewhere between 80% and 90% of all the wages paid to workers in the KIC. These wages are paid in hard currency to the authorities, and they then redistribute a portion of that money to the workers themselves, along with a curious array of foodstuffs in lieu of a certain amount of the remainder.<br /><br />Therefore, if workers are indeed fortunate enough to receive 20% of the money that is sent north in exchange for their labor rather than the more pessimistic 10%, then they are on average paid a basic wage of $13.40 per month. If they luck out and only get 10%, then that means $6.70.<br /><br />Yet in spite of the wages and the outright theft by those above, people still want to work in the KIC. Part of the appeal is that it provides additional products to workers that can be sold in the market to add income. This includes the snacks that are given out by the companies, the foodstuffs that are given to the workers by the state in lieu of public distribution, and, to a modest extent, the products that are liberated from the KIC and then sold on. In total, this is all worth having, and renders low headline wages somewhat meaningless.<br /><br />But some or all of the above is true in any joint venture company operating in North Korea to a greater or lesser extent, and that’s the point. There is a growing number of such companies in almost every region of the country (350 according to some counts). No exact information on the take-home pay in many of these enterprises is available (and, given that there is no collective bargaining going on, there may well be substantive differences anyway), but <a href="http://www.nkeconwatch.com/2012/07/30/north-korea-presents-favorable-conditions-to-foreign-investors/">this dispatch</a> from the Joint Ventures and Investment Committee itself provides the basics of the official line at the time of writing. As below:<br /><br />The minimum monthly wage for workers in North Korea was set at €30 or about 42,000 KRW. In addition, foreign companies must pay €7 to each employee separately as social insurance. Overtime pay also needs to be paid and at the event of work related injuries or illness, the company is responsible for handling the situation with its board of directors.<br /><br />Thus, thanks to the fact that the state expropriates most of the wages of KIC labor, workers in the two sorts of company end up in a roughly comparable position in purely wage terms. It is not altogether clear whether other conditions are comparable, though in conversations with various defectors with experience of both the KIC and joint venture companies, I have heard repeatedly that it is not possible to live on joint venture company wages alone, so in most cases some degree of alternative distribution is presumably going on as well.<br /><br />Then, what does Nampo, our earlier example, have to offer in this area that might match the effect of the KIC and make bicycle ownership there equally common? Well, the South Korean-funded Pyeonghwa Motors Corp. and the nearby Daean North Korea-China Friendship Glass Factory, to name but two.<br /><br /><b>Provincial Strategies of Survival |</b> Thus, while it is the case that the KIC is the biggest single foreign-invested entity in North Korea, the wages paid by all joint venture companies in the country are of a roughly similar standard and, contrary to popular misconception, there are actually quite a lot of those joint venture companies around. The KIC has 123 companies paying 50,000 people, which is, in toto, larger than any other single joint venture. But that is the only difference, a difference of degree.<br /><br />Neither Kaesong nor Nampo are particularly exceptional, then. At the end of the day, each urban area in North Korea has its own ways of surviving. Kaesong has the KIC, yes, but Nampo has cars and glass (and port services), while Wonsan used to have the Moranbong ferry to and from Niigata, but is now linked to the somewhat revived Mt. Keumgang tourist zone and has its own somewhat more modest joint venture companies (and port services), while North Hamkyung Province has the highest concentration of joint ventures overall, and only 2 million residents in total. No wonder <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=8005">Prof. Stephan Haggard expects that particular region to be so dynamic in the future</a>.<br /><br />Obviously this doesn’t mean that any urban center in North Korea is rich, but it does mean that every urban area is surviving and, for a significant number of people, $13 per month is not an astonishing amount of money. We should not forget that joint venture company wages are not even radically higher than those of the modest number of persons lucky enough to enjoy success in the market, or supply the market, or sit in Party, military and administrative chairs that allow for rent-seeking.<br /><br />Thus, while a job in the KIC might be something to envy, and Kaesong might be a relatively good place to live, it is not the only place that is seeing inexorably rising levels of bicycle ownership. There is more than one way to buy a bicycle, it would seem, even in North Korea.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">* This piece first appeared on <a href="http://sinonk.com/2012/08/28/pedal-primacy-on-the-bicycle-in-kaesong/">www.sinonk.com</a> on August 28th, 2012</span></div>
Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-50269606703186847822012-08-16T23:37:00.000+09:002012-08-16T23:47:11.622+09:00Is Jang Sung Taek Going to Walk the Walk?At some point in the second half of the 1980s, Hwang Jang Yop and Jang Sung Taek met. Hwang had called on Jang, then a newly elected candidate member of the Chosun Workers' Party Central Committee, to discuss his concerns about the state of the North Korean economy, which he had already begun to worry was in an uncontrollable downward spiral. Hwang was not an economic hand, and felt helpless.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div>
“Comrade Jang,” Hwang is said to have begun. “What are we going to do? Our nation is going bankrupt!” <br />
<br />
However, Jang seemed surprisingly indifferent. “There’s no need to worry,” he responded flatly. <br />
<br />
“What do you mean?” an incredulous Hwang bounced back. His voice was as composed as ever, but there was unmistakeable concern on display, too. “By whatever measure you choose to look at, our economy is failing!” <br />
<br />
“I said don’t worry,” Jang declared again. “And I said it because we are already bankrupt.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Many Korea watchers have long seen Jang Sung Taek as one of the most astute, capable figures within the North Korean elite, and many of those who dealt with him in Seoul in 2002 firmly support this assessment. As such, it is hardly surprising that he would be among the first to realize that the North Korean model of socialist economics was a failure, characterized as it was (and to an extent remains) by unrealistic state economic targets, the mis-allocation of increasingly scarce resources and entirely meaningless exhortations to greater feats of Stakhanovite labor.<br />
<br />
To that extent, it should also have come as no surprise that Jang was the one who travelled to China on Monday as head of a joint committee of North Korean and Chinese officials charged with making a success of the Hwanggeumpyong-Wihwa Island and Rasun Special Economic Zones (SEZs). <br />
<br />
With a coterie of around 50 officials, far more than any simple economic delegation has need of and closer to the number one would expect a national leader to travel with, Jang certainly looked the part; debonair and sharply dressed, he moved confidently from airport to waiting car. In short, his own man; by no means a messenger dispatched by the office of Kim Jong Eun.<br />
<br />
A full list of the identities of the 50 officials adeptly clinging to the tails of his perfectly tailored suit may never make it into the public domain, but those who have contrived to appear on camera with the bespectacled bigwig make sense in the context of a bilateral economic dialogue; Ji Jae Ryong, North Korea’s man in Beijing, and Ri Gwang Geun and Ri Cheol, two members of the cosmopolitan elite that contribute to the Joint Investment Committee. <br />
<br />
In addition, with an agenda of meetings today and tomorrow that North Korea appears to hope will lead to Zainichi-Korean and international [and no doubt South Korean, post-Lee Myung Bak] involvement in the Hwanggeumpyong SEZ project, there is a clear overseas agenda, making the presence of Kim Sung Nam of the International Dept. of the Party and Kim Hyung Jun of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs equally logical.<br />
<br />
[On an attendant note, we would be wise to feed the idea of attracting Zainichi-Korean investment into our analysis of the future course of rapidly warming North Korea-Japan relations.<br />
<br />
Though the idea that Zainichi-Korean business people with memories of having their businesses expropriated at the first sign of success during past moments of brief 'reform' would actually be willing to, as it were, “buy the same horse twice” may be baffling, the fact is that Jang is nothing if not persuasive and pure-blooded nationalism is nothing if not a good way to cover for the absence of raw economic logic.]<br />
<br />
All of which is fortuitous, since Jang will need every ounce of his charm, every able associate and every single piece of luck on offer if he is going to turn two pieces of modest arable land in the Yalu River estuary into economic powerhouses with a chance of salvaging the broader North Korean economy.<br />
<br />
And it is this that he claims to want; when Jang came to South Korea at the head of an economic delegation back in 2002, he reportedly had tears in his eyes as he called on Sunshine Policy-era Seoul to support the North Korean economy. Not for his own sake, he said, but for the sake of the North Korean people who were suffering so profoundly. <br />
<br />
Was Jang bluffing, using appeals to deep-seated nationalist emotions to fish for assistance? Or did he really mean it, despite all the horrific things he has helped to perpetuate both before and since? It seems to this writer that he may now have been given a chance to prove it one way or the other.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-84777758485322727232012-08-10T12:06:00.001+09:002012-08-10T12:11:53.489+09:00Hyperbolic North Korea Reform Claims Debunked<div class="tr_bq">
Yesterday, Radio Free Asia ran a <a href="http://www.rfa.org/korean/in_focus/economy-08082012101853.html">story</a> that caused a bit of a furore, claiming as it did that North Korea has officially abandoned its state distribution (or 'rationing', if you prefer) system. Full text below <span style="font-size: x-small;">(translation Destination Pyongyang)</span>;</div>
<blockquote>
<b>North, Announces Discarding of Socialist Planned Economy</b> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Seoul- Moon Sung Hwee moons@rfa.org</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
It has emerged that North Korea has officially introduced its ‘new economic management system’ and announced the abandonment of the planned economy and public distribution.<br />
<br />
However, free education and healthcare will remain untouched as the authorities assert that the ‘new economic management system’ is not the same as ‘reform and opening’.<br />
<br />
Moon Sung Hwee in Seoul has the story.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
So far only mentioned in information from domestic South Korean government sources, the shape of North Korea’s economic reform is finally emerging. The North Korean authorities have officially promulgated the implementation of a ‘new economic management system’ to labor organizations, people’s units and individual factory enterprises, according to inside sources.<br />
<br />
One such source from Yangkang Province said, “Starting on August 6th, there have been lecture meetings in every worker’s organization, people’s unit and factory enterprise about the ‘new economic management system’. In these meetings, they have been describing the concrete facts about the ‘new economic management system’ and its implementation.”<br />
<br />
According to the source, lecturers have been dispatched from the Central Party to each worker’s organization to organize the lectures on the ‘new economic management system’, and explanatory documents have been sent to the regional Party arms for dissemination in meetings in individual factory enterprises and people’s units.<br />
<br />
The source said that the basic contents of the ‘new economic management system’ are that the state will not set the plan or say what items are to be produced; individual enterprises will produce what they wish and decide for themselves the price and by what means production is to be sold, meaning that North Korea is discarding the planned economy that has been the cornerstone of its socialist system.<br />
<br />
Notably, production equipment and materials, fuel and energy issues are to be dealt with not by the state but through deals done between factories and coal mines, power stations etc; however, individuals may not establish their own factory enterprises and enterprise Party cadres are to still be employed and made unemployed by the Chosun Workers’ Party.<br />
<br />
A source from North Hamkyung Province claimed, “According to the ‘new economic management system’, production, sale, income and distribution are to be decided by the factory enterprises themselves. The only ones who are to continue receiving state distribution are state administrators, educators, medical sector workers; the distribution system for everyone else is to be scrapped.” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In the agricultural sector the ‘new economic management system’ is to be introduced this autumn, with production divided 70-30 in favor of the state according to the plan and any over-fulfillment also going to the agricultural workers.<br />
<br />
In terms of timeframe, North Korea has simply said “from now”, but the source personally understood this to mean as soon as each factory enterprise is prepared, with each facing a different situation.<br />
<br />
This deliberate vagueness may also be related to the fact that declaring a concrete start date would have incited inflation in the jangmadang, causing widespread side effects. Therefore, the authorities have tried to minimize internal conflict and ensure smooth implementation of the plan.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, according to sources, the reason why lecturers emphasized the continuation of free education and health care was to point up the fact that the ‘new economic management system’ does not mean ‘reform and opening’ as suggested by the imperialist powers; rather, it means ‘our style socialist economic policy’.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.</span></blockquote>
The story obviously piqued the interest of a lot of people in South Korea and elsewhere. Perhaps this was because it said exactly what so many of us would really like to hear. Unfortunately, however, the sad truth is that it also contains inconsistencies, especially in terms of this point, which even the South Korean government felt compelled to <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=9659">point out</a>;<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A Ministry of Unification official explained, “Were they to officially abolish the distribution system, the bedrock of a socialist planned economy, North Korea would be rejecting its own self. They will not be able to officially abandon it.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The official continued, “At the time of the 2002, July 1st economic management improvement measures, North Korea discontinued the distribution system alongside increasing prices, but at no time was it ever written down that they were officially abandoning it.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A second anonymous government source added, “North Korea is suffering real difficulties in terms of distribution due to the food crisis, but is continuing to provide distribution to Pyongyang and the like. They have not institutionally abandoned the distribution system.”</blockquote>
Most North Korea watchers probably agree with the above sentiment; namely, that the government of North Korea will not unilaterally declare the abandonment of its de facto wartime rationing system. Possibly not ever, but certainly not now when there is still nothing concrete, and state-led, to replace it. This is because state distribution is not merely symbolic of North Korea's socialist system; it is also a tool of state control. As Daily NK president Park In Ho keeps pointing out, if it were to be abandoned, the resulting loss of state control would be far greater than the economic gains the regime would generate from doing so. Ergo, what would be the point in such a declaration?<br />
<br />
These logical doubts were buttressed this morning by a [North Korean] former Daily NK reporter, who told me by phone that none of his contacts inside the North have heard a word about reform, or "개선 (improvement)", in People's Unit meetings to date. The only people who are known to have received information from the state about economic changes are cadres and the local people in those few areas being used as test beds for agricultural "improvements" (see, it is easy to slip into the right register!).<br />
<br />
Therefore, we can say this: we need to keep watching the situation on the ground, since Party cadres have already been told what is on the cards and some things are set to change to some extent. However, we also need to stop over-egging the pudding.Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-51013596061333227922012-08-01T17:49:00.001+09:002012-08-01T22:52:35.795+09:00When Is Page One Not Page One?Yesterday, Geoffrey See unleashed Chosun Exchange's <a href="http://chosonexchange.org/?p=1650">take</a> on a controversial <a href="http://www.nkeconwatch.com/2012/07/29/dprk-denies-economic-and-international-policy-changes/">statement</a> released by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) on July 29th, in which the CPRF declared that there is to be no "reform and opening" in North Korea.<br />
<br />
The analysis was excellent, primarily because it went beyond simple restatement of the original Rodong Shinmun copy.<br />
<br />
One thing it missed, however, was perhaps important: that the original statement actually appeared on page 5 of the paper version of Rodong Shinmun. It only appeared on the front page of the web version, which is for international consumption.<br />
<br />
Can you imagine making global news out of something published on pg. 7 of the New York Times? Pg. 15 of The Guardian? No. Simply, this statement was shoved up the international agenda online for emphasis to the outside world, but it should not have been taken as much of an indication of policy. At best, think of it as what Kim Jong Il would have called "<a href="http://sinonk.com/2012/06/05/chris-green-on-10-principles/">wrapping Chosun in a fog.</a>"<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div>
Nevertheless, Geoffrey did a great job of unpicking the core contents such as they were, recognising the following: 1) that the statement itself was aimed at South Korea and its impending election (all CPRF statements target the South; hence, "Those obsessed by showdown can not properly see through the essence like a half blind."); but more importantly 2) that it rejected notions of reform and opening primarily because they "conflate political and economic reform", while simultaneously 3) pointing out <i>not</i> that change is impossible <i>per se</i>, but that whatever change does come must be seen to stem from the endless victories derived from the peerless leadership of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.<br />
<br />
Indeed, it could even be read as a statement of the intent to change <i>more</i> rather than not to change at all, as can be inferred from the following key paragraphs (translation by KCNA);</div>
<div>
<div>
<blockquote>
As far as “signs of policy change” are concerned, there can not be any slightest change in all policies of the DPRK as they are meant to carry forward and accomplish the ideas and cause of the peerlessly great persons generation after generation, to all intents and purposes. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The DPRK is putting forward new strategic and tactical policies in keeping with the changing and developing situation in each stage of revolution. The puppet group is describing it as a “policy change” and tried to give impression that the present leadership of the DPRK broke with the past. This is the height of ignorance just like a deaf person saying in his favor. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
As far as “attempt at reform and opening” is concerned, the DPRK has never left any field unreformed in socialist construction but always kept its door open.</blockquote>
It is true that nobody is about to stand on a podium in Kim Il Sung Square and talk about the irrelevance of the colour of a cat to the act of catching mice or declare that the nation's founding fathers were "only 70% right, 30% wrong". But we already knew that, because the existence of the Mt. Baekdu bloodline forbids such things; Kim family legitimacy is rooted in its infallible revolutionary heritage, and therefore even when past decisions are being reversed the context has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary or, worse still, due to an admission of fault on the part of a past or present leader.<br />
<br />
From this perspective, Geoffrey points to the concept of "개선 (improvement)" as the mot du jour, one that symbolises this definitive need to couch all moves toward change in the language of continuance, but he might just as well have chosen "부흥 (revival, reconstruction)" or analysed the way the North has gently moved its slogan output slightly in the direction of economic revitalisation rather than toward the taking of an alternate path outright.<br />
<br />
And is this not what we are seeing? As symbolised by the <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=9545">6.28 Policy</a>, the North appears to be engaged in modest, piecemeal, unconvincing, poorly thought out, totally reversible and almost certainly inadequate change couched in the language of "주체 (Juche)" and "선군 (Military-first)".<br />
<br />
Conversely, becoming a third rate parody of China or South Korea is firmly off the agenda, no matter how much Chosun Ilbo might want to see the existence of a <a href="http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/07/28/2012072800222.html">방한파</a> (loosely, "faction of those with experience of visiting South Korea"), which it feverishly imagines being led by Jang Sung Taek and basing some kind of master plan for North Korean reform on a single October 2002, 9-day, 18-man economic observation tour of places like Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Heavy Industries.<br />
<br />
Really, such statements should not be taken as newsworthy, especially when they have been plucked from deep, deep in the recesses of the paper copy of Rodong Shinmun. The important information is to be found on the ground, not in the rhetoric.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-29025951613069182982012-07-26T12:01:00.001+09:002012-07-26T12:13:38.820+09:00Pictures Worth a Thousand WordsNothing says, "Lee Young Ho, who the hell is he? Power struggle? What power struggle?" like an image of Kim Jong Eun and his wife strolling out in front of a literal who's who of regime heavyweights. Just look! There's Choi Yong Rim, Kim Young Nam, Choi Tae Bok, Kim Kyung Hee, Jang Sung Taek, Choi Ryong Hae and more. <br />
<br />
Quote: "The gang's all here! So stop talking about coups, would you. No chance."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO2OREq38tp11Ihbgsvfp5FnKFwFQo4jbJMigKj1lvig-RtXm6ai90kLPLWTXFhTiG0SL5mQIDFy12SDDAicv76hNrZCxXfGT3GZNy9ObkjGS98viJphCooKstxfCBZqKT4IIfLKNuxjwG/s1600/DNKF00009586_6.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO2OREq38tp11Ihbgsvfp5FnKFwFQo4jbJMigKj1lvig-RtXm6ai90kLPLWTXFhTiG0SL5mQIDFy12SDDAicv76hNrZCxXfGT3GZNy9ObkjGS98viJphCooKstxfCBZqKT4IIfLKNuxjwG/s400/DNKF00009586_6.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">© Rodong Shinmun</span>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But then, does anything say "This is a Party-centered system and don't you forget it" like standing in shot clapping calmly as Supreme People's Assembly Presidium Permanent Chairperson Kim Young Nam and Cabinet Prime Minister Choi Yong Rim, the two top civilian administrators in the regime, cut the ribbon on a new resort built off the backs of military labor? No sir, nothing.<br />
<br />
Quote: "Yoo hoo, we might be moving toward reforrrrrrmmmmmmmmm... Can we have some aid, please?"<br />
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1vqhaIzxf1o4jOf7JVYUmw-lAoWlR64pho6Nf4R-OekNBMvp3MR5CGfacbYebQH1G4chBe4M62LfeeVI5Gds6545F16vvDpmK2isPezr8myC75-ZSVBovhwmwtHihHxv-IDKYl6u-dNfB/s1600/2012-07-26-00-006.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1vqhaIzxf1o4jOf7JVYUmw-lAoWlR64pho6Nf4R-OekNBMvp3MR5CGfacbYebQH1G4chBe4M62LfeeVI5Gds6545F16vvDpmK2isPezr8myC75-ZSVBovhwmwtHihHxv-IDKYl6u-dNfB/s400/2012-07-26-00-006.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">© Rodong Shinmun </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-15188151433007757342012-07-26T01:24:00.000+09:002012-07-26T01:26:36.576+09:00Kim Jong Eun, Back with a Fresh Disney Move<div style="text-align: center;">
Webster’s Third New English Dictionary </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
“<i>Public Relations</i>” </div>
<br />
Definition:<i> The business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution. </i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
… </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Dictionary of Chosun Urban Slang </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">[Kim Jong Eun-era edition] </span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>“Disney Move” </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Definition: <i>An extremely simplistic and practically meaningless PR activity done in order to change the prevailing opinion of one or more sections of the international community in the hope of being able to enjoy the public relations benefit engendered by the activity while at the same time avoiding having to do something much harder and more sincere later on. </i> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
…<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
As even the vast majority of those who do not follow North Korea must now be aware, Kim Jong Eun attended a performance of the Moran Hill Orchestra in Pyongyang on July 6th. There, he bore witness to a range of things: women wearing short skirts and what the South Korean media subsequently described as “kill heels”, electric classical instruments picking out the theme song to macho Hollywood epic ‘Rambo’, and a raft of animated characters including Mickey Mouse dancing around on stage while clips from Disney films rolled by in the background.<br />
<br />
This display of idiosyncratic modernity caused a virtual tidal wave of media interest, with much of it concluding that it portends broader social and possibly economic change.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At the very least, as veteran North Korea watcher Prof. Hazel Smith of the Cranfield Institute in the UK mused in <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/11/the_slick_pr_stylings_of_kim_jong_un?page=full">this</a> Foreign Policy piece some days later, "It looks like the way they're presenting themselves is based on some professional [international] advice… Plenty of other countries have done this, but I never thought North Korea would." <br />
<br />
Or, to put it in the Destination Pyongyang lexicon of the new era, this was a Kim “Disney Move”. <br />
<br />
Admittedly, we cannot entirely rule out the idea that a much more profound message was being conveyed to Washington and the wider world by the on-stage antics of Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger et al. However, the key element of the definition of a Disney Move holds true: Kim Jong Eun’s image-makers employed a fundamentally meaningless PR stunt to intimate the idea of change, without having to actually change anything.<br />
<br />
That this particular Disney Move was so successful is evidenced by the response it got. <br />
<br />
“If we take into account the fact that Kim Jong Eun was said to have personally organized the creation of the Moran Hill Orchestra, this tolerance of a contemporary and revealing image in the public domain might represent a more pragmatic and liberalized view towards the arts under Kim's new leadership,” Cambridge University student James Pearson mused in <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/NG12Dg01.html">this</a> piece, one of the more rational of the crop. “Keen to show that North Korea is a ‘strong and prosperous nation’, perhaps the youthful face of the new regime is more in touch with how it is perceived from the outside.” <br />
<br />
And since this Disney Move was so successful, it will come as no surprise that it is not the only one. The regime has also clearly been looking across the Sea of Japan, for it emerged this week that Fujimoto Kenji, the Kim family’s private chef for a number of years and for a long time one of the only semi-reliable sources of information on Kim Jong Eun available anywhere, has returned to North Korea, where his wife and children remain, at the invitation of Kim himself. <br />
<br />
This news was met with a degree of incredulity from some quarters. In one article <a href="http://www.nknews.org/2012/07/what-is-behind-sushi-chefs-decision-to-return-to-north-korea/">here</a>, author Gianluca Spezza was moved to wonder what possessed Fujimoto to agree to it. <br />
<br />
“Fujimoto has since 2001 been living in hiding and had often claimed to fear for his life,” Spezza noted, adding that “it is safe to say that during the last ten years, part of the myth of Kim Jong Il being an eccentric, alcohol-loving dictator frolicking amidst millions of starving citizens was accentuated by books like the ones written by Fujimoto,” before concluding that “The reality is that most people in his shoes would probably chose not to go back.” <br />
<br />
However, Spezza is barking up the wrong tree, and not just because Fujimoto’s safety is not in question (his return is very public, and since Japan is the home of the pro-North Korea ‘Chongryon’, I am confident that if North Korea had ever truly wanted to kill him since his departure more than ten years ago, they could have done so. Just look at what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Han-yong">happened</a> to Yi Han Yong).<br />
<br />
As noted in the definition at the start of this article, a Disney Move is "<i>An extremely simplistic and practically meaningless PR activity done in order to change the prevailing opinion of one or more sections of the international community in the hope of being able to enjoy the public relations benefit engendered by the act while at the same time avoiding having to do something much harder and more sincere later on</i>.” <br />
<br />
Ergo, the Fujimoto return is a Disney Move because it attempts to improve the Kim regime's reputation while avoiding confronting the issue that really consumes Japanese interest, the abduction of multiple Japanese citizens from sites on the country’s west coast in the 1970s and 80s by North Korean agents. In this it is similar to the July 6th Disney Move, which employed Mickey Mouse to divert the fickle U.S. public’s attention away from what commonly consumes their interest in North Korea, such as it is; the nuclear issue.<br />
<div>
<br />
The calculation in Pyongyang seems to be that what Mickey Mouse and Rambo can do for Kim in the United States, so Fujimoto’s return to Pyongyang can do for him in Japan. In other words, as the ever-erudite Joshua Stanton of blog One Free Korea put it <a href="http://freekorea.us/2012/07/23/north-korea-increases-public-executions-and-collective-punish-hey-look-its-snoopy/">here</a>, “North Korea Increases Public Executions and Collective Punish…. Hey, Look! It’s Snoopy!” </div>
</div>Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-22894704925891437412012-07-23T12:31:00.000+09:002012-07-31T21:18:11.513+09:00North Korea 2012: More Reclusive, More OpenNorth Korea is 7.75% more reclusive than it was in the same period of last year, new statistics released today reveal. <br />
<br />
The news of increasing reclusiveness was revealed at an event this morning to commemorate the release of the latest report from the South Korean state-run Hermitage Foundation, “North Korea 2012: Outlook for Introspection”. <br />
<br />
The statistics were taken from analysis of headlines and reports carried by the five major international newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and Mainichi Shimbun) between January 1st and June 30th, 2012.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div>
According to the analysis results, the phrase “North Korea” and “Hermit Kingdom” appeared in headline articles in the five publications on a combined total of 243 occasions in the first six months of 2012, a rise of 7.75% over the same period of 2011 (225 occasions), strongly indicating that Pyongyang is retreating further into its shell. <br />
<br />
In addition, the words “Kim Jong Eun” and “educated in Switzerland so really knows capitalism” were published a total of 230 times, an increase of 53% over the 2011 total (108 times), indicating that North Korea is also much more willing to engage in economic reform and opening than it was a year ago. <br />
<br />
Speaking about the findings, Brian Rain, who heads the Hermitage Foundation, commented, “Our new report conclusively proves that North Korea is going to become more reclusive going forward, which should allow it to really come to terms with the outside world and address its economic shortcomings.” <br />
<br />
For more information about the report, click <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2012/07/23/86/0401000000AEN20120723002200315F.HTML">here</a>, or, perhaps, <a href="http://www.theonion.com/">here</a>.</div>Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-78119099961351439052012-07-18T14:39:00.000+09:002012-07-18T14:42:06.340+09:00Did You Say Military-first Was Dead?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Anyone who thought that the dismissal of V.
Mar Lee Young Ho on Sunday meant the end of the Military-first Policy and imminent
launching of “reform and opening” ought to be feeling pretty silly by now. First
Gen. Hyon Yong Chol made rank and then, just 24-hours later, Gen. Kim Jong Eun parachuted
in over almost every other officer’s head (everyone alive, at least) to become
Mar. Kim Jong Eun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Prof. Leonid Petrov apparently thinks “Mr. Youngman is
panicking,” and is hoping to buy himself some authority with the latest move. Frankly
I don’t know whether that is true or not, but I do know one thing; anyone still
predicting the end of the “Military-first” political line is a fool.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For a start, there’s nothing to “end”. The
truth of the matter is that the ‘Military-first political line’ is neither a philosophy, an ideology or a theory. Rather, it is a simplistic political slogan, one that even the accomplished
propagandists of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the almighty Chosun
Workers’ Party have largely abandoned the idea of turning into anything more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">At best, it is a shallow and ineffectively implemented policy of prioritizing military over civilian expenditure. At the end of the 1990s, this manifested
as strengthening the military to lower the risk of invasion during a time of national
weakness. In the early and mid-2000s it meant prioritizing soldiers in the
distribution of goods and state services, and by the end of the 2000s it came
to mean, in essence, justifying any suffering that couldn’t be blamed on the
weather on the need to develop nuclear weapons and missiles.</span> Now, it appears to mean little more than “all the achievements of Kim Jong Il."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It’s a simple phrase for simple people, employed solely to justify
the decisions of the leadership, decisions which the regime takes not in the service
of the military or the people, but in the service of keeping themselves in
power at all costs.</span></div>Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294770331767619905.post-25000829114689484612012-07-16T22:26:00.002+09:002012-07-18T14:40:21.093+09:00Ri Takes a Hit from the Regime<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Kumsusanology, which, much like Kremlinology, one might define as the study of an entire ruling elite based on extremely flimsy evidence, is <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=9516&cataId=nk01700">back</a> with a vengeance. Yesterday, Politburo Standing Committee member, Politburo member, Party Central
Military Commission Vice-chairman and Army Chief of Staff V. Mar Ri Yong Ho was cast into the
wilderness by the assembled Politburo, for reasons that experts have spent much of today trying to analyse without giving away the fact that they don't actually know.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Among the more prominent of these commentators, in English at least, has been Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group. Wisely, he tried not to sell the farm, instead offering a modest</span> takeaway; that Ri
was purged to both circumscribe his power and as a warning to others not to go
too far in their own pursuit of influence.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“A dictator has to put mechanisms in place
to prevent coups and challenges to his power,” he rightly pointed out in <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9402269/North-Korean-army-chief-relieved-of-duties-over-mystery-illness.html">one</a>
or, more likely, all of the pieces to which he contributed. “This will not only have been aimed at this
individual but it will also serve as a signal to others.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Clearly, Pinkston is hedging. After all, just about the only thing we can be sure of here is that removing someone from all
his positions of power in one fell swoop is guaranteed to end his challenge to the leader's power. From this perspective, he isn’t
teaching us much. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But in a sense that’s fair enough. After all, at the
risk of repeating myself: nobody actually knows what Ri did to deserve his shock culling. At least Pinkston has the
balls to sit on the fence and avoid siding with one or another of the various <i>reasons</i> that are in circulation. Conversely, one wonders how and according to what evidence the following conclusions were reached (courtesy of <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/north-korea-relieves-army-chief-ri-yong-ho-of-all-posts.html">Bloomberg</a>);<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“The firing of Ri means the end of the
country’s hawkish military-first policy putting the troops before any other
policy objective, and possibly the beginning of governance more focused instead
on improving the economy.” (Prof. Yang Moo Jin, University of North Korean Studies)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Ri Yong Ho was most likely fired for
resisting the Workers’ Party leadership, mainly on mobilizing soldiers for
economic initiatives. The party is on board with Kim Jong Un’s decision to
improve the economy through flagship construction projects over bolstering
military might.” (Dr. Cheong Seong Chang, Sejong Institute)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Which is not to say either is wrong, of course. That's what makes Kumsusanology so much fun, you see. There are no answers. Not today, at least.</span></div>Christopher K Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026849113091529993noreply@blogger.com0