How to Build a Juche-based Torpedo

On Tuesday, North Korea tried once again to present evidence contradicting the findings of the international investigation team into the Cheonan incident, this time by offering to give a sample of one of its torpedoes, which the National Defense Commission(NDC) says are made "with steel alloy materials by the working class in the Juche way", or, to put it in the much more entertaining Yonhap way, "Juche-based torpedoes," to the international community.

Since it will obviously act to neither confirm nor deny North Korea's guilt in and of itself, it is best to ignore the offer of a sample. Further to which, no-one, least of all me, wants to get into the question of what features a torpedo would have to include if it were to be considered a Juche-based torpedo.

However, what I do want to pause over is today's Daily NK report, which responds to the NDC refutation with a claim from an inside source that the "No. 129 Factory" in the north-eastern coastal city of Chongjin makes torpedoes with aluminium, and that this is so well-known that;

Even ten-year-old kids in Songpyong-district boast of the fact that our No. 129 Factory produces torpedoes,” adding that it is common knowledge in the area around the factory that aluminium is used for this purpose.

If true, the NDC claim is a bare-faced lie. I'm inclined to think this is probably the case, given the timing of the offer and North Korea's history of propaganda nonsense and disinformation half-truths, but The Daily NK story is not verifiable and that is a problem.

Furthermore, based on the prima facie evidence presented in the report, an objective thinker would rightly pause to question the claim about local people's knowledge of the factory's operations, since it is not logical to imagine that a child of ten in any country would know what a torpedo was made from, even if it were being made in his metaphorical backyard.

But it is possible in this case as a result of "83 Processes". This is the name given to the part of the "7.1 Measures" of 2002 whereby munitions factories and other state enterprises were given permission to use the leftover materials from the industrial processes they are designed to perform to produce other light industrial products for sale on the open market, and the profits used to prop up the, mostly loss-making, enterprise itself, and probably a number of venal Party hacks into the bargain.

In the case of the "No. 129 Factory" in Chongjin, this happens to mean kitchen implements. Aluminium kitchen implements.

As my colleague Park In Ho noted when I spoke to him about the article this afternoon, people think that North Korea's munitions industry is very secretive, but that is not true. They know what is being made, and that is due to "83 Processes".

So while I do not really believe that the average ten-year-old boy running the streets of Songpyong-dong in Chongjin necessarily does know what is being made, or more pertinently from what it is being produced, it is important to note that the route by which he could reasonably find out is there, and there is nothing unduly secret about it.

Did the Chongjin source who proffered this story exaggerate? Well maybe, but don't let that get in the way of the central claim, which is more reasonable than the article at first glance makes it appear.

The Calibre of South Korean Politicians

This article is one that didn't make it onto The Daily NK English page. As an example of extraordinary, willful xenophobia and undisguised nationalism delivered with no apparent sense of irony, it is splendid. As an example of the thinking of a national lawmaker in the 21st Century, it is quite disturbing.

(For those with the chops, check out the Korean version here)

Talking about Kim Jong Il’s latest visit to China, a former Democratic Party lawmaker, Jang Sung Min told a radio program this morning, “A lot of people criticize it for being to beg for the investiture of the crown prince or for food.”

Speaking on a Peace Broadcasting Company show, Jang went on, “There are some in Seoul diplomatic circles who criticize the fact that North Korea, which claims to be an independent state, would undertake dependency and tribute diplomacy, as the Chosun Dynasty did in the 17th and 18th centuries. The North is a new version of a vassal state, which has thrown away its national self-respect.”

He went on, “Some also say that in terms of his visits to the historical sites of the anti-Japanese colonial movement, Kim Jong Il is misusing our ancestors’ noble spirit for national liberation to establish the hereditary dynasty of the Kim family.”

“It is a national comedy and a hilarious move by the Kim Jong Il royal family, to lead national diplomacy in the exact opposite direction to Juche or the independence that they claim.”

“People in Seoul diplomatic circles think that the Juche ideology based on North Korean self-reliance or independence has already been demolished if his visit is related to the Kim Jong Eun succession issue and food aid,” he concluded.

(Translation by Kwon, E.K.)

What I dislike is that this man, a former lawmaker, is basically advocating for the Juche ideology in its "national independence and self-reliance" format.

By stating that Kim Jong Il should not be visiting the Chinese in this way, he is saying a lot about the South Korean relationship with the U.S, too, and furthermore betraying his considerable, ingrained xenophobic nationalism.

The fact is that national self-respect has nothing to do with independence, or an absence of foreigners on one's soil per se. That is the stuff of Kim Jong Il and Osama Bin Laden, and is reprehensible.

Instead, national self-respect has everything to do with a harmonious, adult presence in the international arena. That doesn't just mean hosting the Olympics or World Cup or G20 meeting, it means being aware of obligations and meeting those which it is possible, or ethically desirable, to meet.

North Korea has indeed thrown away its national self-respect; on this most people to the right of Han Sang Ryeol are happy to agree. But it did that when it sacrificed the wellbeing of its people for the chance to possess nuclear weapons, when it started using brinkmanship and threats as a means of extracting aid from the international community.

Whenever that was, it was not when Kim Jong Il snuck out of Pyongyang in the dead of night to go and visit a middle school in the Chinese countryside.