northkorea

According to the Choson Ilbo:

Chinese President Hu Jintao told North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in strong terms to reform the North’s failed socialist economy and open up the country, a senior South Korean government official said Wednesday.

He made the call during a meeting when Kim visited China last week, using rather more direct terms than Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had used during Kim’s last visit in May, according to the official. Wen told Kim, “I’d like to introduce to you China’s experience in the reform and opening drive.”

But the official quoted Hu as saying, “Socialist modernization is based on China’s three-decade-long experience in reform and opening. Although self-reliance is important, economic development is inseparable from external cooperation.”

According to a Chinese official, Kim too directly used the terms “reform and opening”  this time. He reportedly told Hu, “Since its launch of the reform and opening drive, China has achieved rapid development.”

Up until recently, top Chinese leaders had regarded the terms as taboo words at bilateral summits for fear of upsetting North Korea’s delicate feelings, but Wen first broke the taboo in May, and Hu in his advice to Kim even used language such as “enterprise,” “market mechanism” and “external cooperation.”

A diplomatic source in Beijing said China’s insistence on talking about reform shows how concerned China is with the North’s mismanagement of the economy.

China’s business media made upbeat observations about the North turning toward reform, quoting Kim as saying he was “deeply impressed” after touring major cities in China’s northeastern region such as Changchun, Harbin and Jilin.

In an editorial Tuesday, the Global Times, a sister newspaper of China’s official People’s Daily, wrote, “Living in the shadows of South Korea, Japan and the U.S., North Korea has to wrap itself up tighter in order to fend off military threats, and threats of political and cultural infiltration. North Korea’s opening-up will help relieve tensions in Northeast Asia. But, the knot does not only lie on the North’s side. Other countries in this region must redouble their efforts to untangle the knot.”

It is unclear whether Kim will listen. The North Korean leadership is afraid of any reform that could weaken its stranglehold, and at the moment tight control is essential if the regime is to officially establish Kim Jong-il’s son Jong-un as his father’s heir.

Kim has paid lip-service to the Chinese economic development model before. After returning from a trip in the early 2000s, he introduced some timid elements of the market economy but swiftly clamped down when markets became too brisk and a new class of successful businesspeople began to look like a threat to his regime.

Han Ki-bum, a former deputy director of the National Intelligence Service in charge of North Korean affairs, in his doctoral thesis quotes Kim as telling economic officials in June 2008, “If you think I’m talking about reform and opening as if I were going to introduce the market economy you’re completely mistaken.”

At the moment, Kim apparently wishes to stick it out, but the North’s dire straits amid international sanctions will make it difficult to ignore Chinese demands.

At the meeting, Hu pointed out that economic cooperation between the two countries would be a “win-win strategy” where “the government takes the initiative, enterprises play a leading role, and the market mechanism is set in motion,” according to the South Korean official.

“That means that if China gives the North something, it should also pay in return,” a South Korean security official speculated.

Read the full story here: Hu ‘Told Kim Jong-il It’s Time for Economic Reform’ Choson Ilbo 9/2/2010

According to the Choson Ilbo:

The United States is offering $750,000 in emergency aid to North Korea to help aid recovery from devastating floods.

The U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights, Robert King, told VOA Wednesday that the money will be given to three U.S. non-governmental organizations — Samaritan’s Purse, Global Resource Services, and Mercy Corps.

He said the organizations will use the money primarily for medical supplies and will fly the aid into Pyongyang beginning later this week.

Read the full story here: U.S. Offers Flood Aid to N.Korea Choson Ilbo 9/2/2010

According to the Wall Street Journal:

That’s a headline we never expected to write—especially in the context of the United Nations Development Program’s scandal-ridden operations in North Korea. In 2007, the U.S. mission to the U.N. shined a light on the U.N. agency’s record of gross mismanagement while operating in that rogue dictatorship, including large sums of money that vanished after being transferred to Pyongyang and dual-use technology shipped to the North without U.S. export licenses.

These abuses came to light thanks in part to a whistleblower by the name of Artjon Shkurtaj, an Albanian-born accountant who served as chief of operations for all U.N. operations in North Korea in the mid-2000s. Mr. Shkurtaj was outraged at the violations he saw and after two years of trying to get his superiors at UNDP headquarters in New York to take corrective action, he took his information to the U.S. mission to the U.N.

The UNDP responded by firing him and taking every opportunity to malign his integrity. When Mr. Shkurtaj complained, a UNDP-sponsored investigation found that his firing had not been in retaliation for blowing the whistle. What a surprise. The U.N. bureaucracy and its diplomatic coterie also circled the wagons and attacked the U.S. mission for daring to raise the subject.

Now, more than three years later, Mr. Shkurtaj has been substantially vindicated. On Tuesday the U.N. Dispute Tribunal ordered the UNDP to pay its former employee $166,000 in compensation for its failure to give Mr. Shkurtaj the opportunity to respond to its adverse findings against him. Judge Memooda Ebrahim-Carstens ruled that the UNDP violated Mr. Shkurtaj’s “due process rights, damaged his career prospects and professional reputation, and caused him emotional distress.” She let stand the UNDP’s finding that the firing had not been retaliatory.

Beyond Mr. Shkurtaj’s case, the judge’s 24-page opinion is worth reading for its inside look at the imperious manner in which the U.N. bureaucracy operates. The infighting and buck-passing are world-class—even in the office of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who presents himself as a reformer. The ruling in Mr. Shkurtaj’s case suggests that the Dispute Tribunal, established a little over a year ago, is serious about its mandate to be “independent, professionalized, expedient, transparent and decentralized.” The panel has already clashed with Mr. Ban’s office over other rulings.

The finding also vindicates Mark Wallace, the U.S. official who led the charge for transparency at UNDP despite hostility from the media and from Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, and with very little support at the State Department.

At yesterday’s daily press briefing, a spokesperson said that the U.N. is “studying” the panel’s latest decision. It’s possible the Secretary-General will decide to appeal. If Mr. Ban were truly serious about cleaning up his own house, he would write Mr. Shkurtaj a letter of apology, thank him for having the courage to alert the U.N. to instances of wrong-doing, and give him his job back.

Past posts which reference the UNDP can be found here. 

Read the full story here: Hooray for the U.N. Wall Street Jounral 9/2/2010

SK official: Terms 'economic reform' & 'open drive' no longer taboo for Chinese officials when mtg w/NK. http://bit.ly/c1fFMD

L.A. resident Cooke Sunoo on recent NK visit: Handler Mrs. Kim waited until final dinner to cut loose w/song. http://bit.ly/aysBVa

Defectors @dailynken: Propaganda proclaims NK a tax-free state; reality is more like 20-30%. http://bit.ly/9Q3unm

Russian theory Cheonan hit seabed, tangled w/net & perhaps dredged up mine (not torpedo) could cloud SK Pres visit. http://bit.ly/dd6jmZ

Defense Sec Robert Gates only willing @foxnews to put NK on indirect terrorist sponsors list. http://fxn.ws/aALHZZ

SK Catholics: Don't get too excited about Kim Jong-il 8/26 whistle stop visit to Jilin Sacred Heart of Jesus church. http://bit.ly/9hN5Tk

Victor Cha @TheEconomist: Latest Kim Jong-il visit a sign that China will stick w/NK to "the bitter end." http://bit.ly/9uOlyW

Ahead of Euna Lee 9/28 book drop, @lisaling-@lauraling set for 9/23 joint signing event in hometown of Sacramento. http://bit.ly/amY3vf

Två år efter att ha sluppit ut ur Nordkoreas tortyrkamrar är CIA-agenten Evelyn Salt tillbaka på jobbet. Tillvaron är fridfull. Hon tänker dra sig tillbaka från fältarbetet...

Now that China and North Korea have gotten their stories (mostly) straight about Kim Jong Il’s five-day trip to northeast China, a small mountain of evidence exists which is worth analyzing. 

Visions on the First Day of Class

In Pyongyang, KCNA is now promoting a new story about the year 1960 describing how young Kim Jong Il (all of 19 at the time) started the school year by ascending a hill, whereupon he was seized by a vision of a strong Korea:

Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) — On September 1, Juche 49 (1960) General Secretary Kim Jong Il began studying at Kim Il Sung University.

That day, he climbed Ryongnam Hill on the campus and recited a poem “Korea, I Will Glorify Thee” reflecting his will to add luster to Korea, true to the intention of President Kim Il Sung.

Since then, all his revolutionary activities have been oriented towards a grand goal of demonstrating the dignity and honor of the nation all over the world by turning the country into an invincible one.

The story, having reminded us of the profundity of youth, then morphs into the standard hagiography that freezes Kim Jong Il in time as a historical figure:

Among his “energetic ideological and theoretical activities” Kim is praised for having “newly expounded the position and role of the leader in the revolutionary struggle and proved the originality of the President’s revolutionary ideas” (emphasis added). Does North Korean revolutionary theory allow for collective leadership? Ever since Brian Myers deconstructed juche’s hallow nature, no one seems courageous enough to discuss the ideological traps the regime has set for itself. 

Encouraging nuggets in the piece indicating an interest in reform (lauding Kim’s “clear understanding of the changed situation and the requirement of the revolution”) coexist along with deadeningly orthodox praise (among Kim’s “tremendous achievements in all fields” are included “grand monumental edifices built throughout the country”). These kind of bifurcated statements from Pyongyang which both suggest reform and hammer home the Kimist conservative line will probably continue. 

In a separate piece, Kim Jong Il’s first day of class at Kim Il Sung University (where, as existing photographs indicate, he tended to sit in the back row) is now being interpreted as his “assumption of leadership” at the university in the same breath that songs praising the new successor are discussed. Youth, so long as they are the fruit of Kim Il Song’s loins, seem to be capable of any precocious feat.

But much of the discussion of youth masks the deepening age of the central leadership of the DPRK. Ri Yong Su, who participated in yesterday’s fake celebration of Kim Jong Il’s “leadership” of Kim U. in 1960, is a good example. Ri is the head of the Democratic Youth Leage; he has held the same position since at least the 1980s, when he was arguing for a very orthodox interpretation of the student “chaos” caused in Tiananmen Square in China and the fall of East Germany. I have bumped into Ri, figuratively speaking, more than a few times in the archives of the East German state. He is not a reformer, and he has certainly not forgotten the lessons of 1989 and 1990. To imagine that entrenched North Korean bureaucrats and socialist elites can simply turn their backs on four or five decades of orthodoxy and are willing to blindly follow the Chinese model merely because they like the smell of RMB is a misguided one. 

Bracing for Change

Evidence collected by Haggard and Noland suggests that North Koreans know that their system is bound to change in some fashion when Kim Jong Il relinquishes power, but this KCNA editorial (also from September 1) seems to imply rather openly that big changes are on the way:

Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) – Rodong Sinmun Wednesday in a jointly signed article calls upon all the people to make redoubled efforts, planting their feet on the ground and looking at the world. It says:

Planting one’s feet on the ground and looking at the world means doing anything by oneself in one’s right senses, learning everything worth learning and introducing whatever beneficial to suit one’s actual conditions and bringing everything to the level of the world’s latest science and technology.

The slogan of the Workers’ Party of Korea “Plant Your Feet on the Ground and Look at the World!” serves as a revolutionary and militant banner clearly indicating the shortcut to reaching faster the eminence of a thriving socialist nation in conformity with the trend of the times and requirements of the reality of the DPRK….

The Korean people could take a firm hold on the eminence of CNC by their own efforts and with their own technology by planting their feet on the ground even under the situation where everything was in short supply…

Perhaps, in spite of the mandatory caveats, the soft Chinese reports that North Korea is finally ready to be “inspired by the Chinese example” of economic reform might prove to be correct. At the very least, editorials like this represent an attempt by the North Koreans to create a bit of flexibility for themselves, assuming that anyone reads Rodong Sinmun seriously anymore.

For its part, the Chinese press has gone into full-throated encouragement mode, as in this Huanqiu Shibao editorial entitled “The World Should Encourage North Korea to Open Up and Reform” and this short Huanqiu item on why investors should be bullish about the “internationalization” of Rason port in extreme northeast Korea. China Southern Broadcasting is sending a group of journalists to North Korea, following on the heels of a sports delegation from Beijing that just returned. The Chinese Embassy in North Korea, whose head travelled up to Jilin to meet with Kim Jong Il, is now reporting on a raft of cooperative meetings, such as yesterday’s get-together of PLA Shenyang-area brass with North Korean diplomats in Pyongyang. And behind all the solicitousness toward the North Koreans lies a sometimes-expressed apprehension toward Japanese power and a knowledge that North Korean collapse would bring Japan into play again on the Korean peninsula, traditionally not a situation with positive outcomes for China. Finally, as if to emphasize the benign nature of the DPRK, a group of North Korean dancers served as the centerpiece of an extended photo opportunity in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This is quite a striking photo gallery. Fear not the handbag!

UN tribunal orders UN anti-poverty agency to pay 14 months salary to whistleblower on North Korea http://bit.ly/9sxrBJ

by Aidan Foster Carter, East Asia Forum, 2 September 2010. Kim Jong-il headed to China at the end of last month less than four months after his last visit. This timing was the more surprising since it meant he missed Jimmy Carter. The former US president arrived in Pyongyang to secure the release of a [...]

Chinese President Hu Jintao told North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in strong terms to reform the North’s failed socialist economy and open up the country, a senior South Korean government official said Wednesday.

He made the call during a meeting when Kim visited China last week, using rather more direct terms than Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had used during Kim’s last visit in May, according to the official. Wen told Kim, “I’d like to introduce to you China’s experience in the reform and opening drive.”

But the official quoted Hu as saying, “Socialist modernization is based on China’s three-decade-long experience in reform and opening. Although self-reliance is important, economic development is inseparable from external cooperation.”

According to a Chinese official, Kim too directly used the terms “reform and opening”  this time. He reportedly told Hu, “Since its launch of the reform and opening drive, China has achieved rapid development.” (Chosun Ilbo)

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/09/02/2010090200647.html

The United States is offering $750,000 in emergency aid to North Korea to help aid recovery from devastating floods.

The U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights, Robert King, told VOA Wednesday that the money will be given to three U.S. non-governmental organizations – Samaritan’s Purse, Global Resource Services, and Mercy Corps.

He said the organizations will use the money primarily for medical supplies and will fly the aid into Pyongyang beginning later this week.

On Monday, South Korea’s Red Cross offered $8.4 million in aid to North Korea’s Red Cross to help with the flood recovery. If the offer is accepted, it will be the first major aid from Seoul after the sinking of one of South Korea’s warships in March blamed on a North Korean submarine attack. (Chosun Ilbo)

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/09/02/2010090200991.html

The U.S. says that whether or not progress is made on the current situation on the Korean Peninsula is up to North Korea.

In a daily news briefing Wednesday, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that it will be up to North Korea to “demonstrate that it’s prepared to cease its belligerent behavior, live up to its obligations and begin to take actions associated with the 2005 joint statement.”

He said if the North is “prepared to demonstrate a willingness to act more constructively, then the U.S. will respond appropriately and be prepared for further engagement.” (KBS World)

http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/news_In_detail.htm?No=75378

China’s special envoy for Korean peninsula affairs Wu Dawei, who is on a visit to Japan, has said that Beijing plans to put forward “new proposals” to the countries involved in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.

Wu, who chairs the six-party talks involving Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, said that China needs to discuss the proposal with these member states and wants to hear their views about it, Xinhua reports.

Wu made his comments after meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, but did not elaborate on what measures would be proposed by China to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiations, which have been suspended since December 2009.

Japan reportedly agreed to China’s proposal, saying that the stability and peace of the Korean Peninsula were in the interest of all parties concerned, and vowed to continue to push forward the six-party talks. (North Korea Times)

http://story.northkoreatimes.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/08aysdf7tga9s7f7/id/679512/cs/1/

U.S. experts on Korean affairs predict that a resumption of the six-party nuclear talks in the near future is very unlikely.

The head of the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute, Jack Pritchard, predicted that China’s attempts to jump-start the talks could come up short.

Pritchard said that ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could die at any time and that plans for succession have yet to be set. He said that due to this, Pyongyang is placing an emphasis on maintaining its regime through nuclear weapons rather than discussing an end to its nuclear program with international parties.

Michael Green, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that the talks would most likely not be resumed in the near future, even if the U.S. and China agree to resume the multilateral dialogue. (KBS World)

http://twitter.com/KBSWorldRadio/statuses/22753657725