northkorea

We pass along this amazing collection of 26 digitally preserved photographs taken in Heijo (now Pyongyang) in the early 20th century.  Thanks to Korea Peninsula Through the Lens for making these photos available to us.  We also thank the USC Digital Library, The Maryknoll Mission Archives, and The Reverend Corwin and Nellie Taylor Collection for [...]

North Korea has again been ranked the second-worst country in the world for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders. The Paris-based organization has consistently ranked the DPRK at the bottom of the world in terms of press freedom for the last decade. “It is no surprise that the same trio of countries, Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea, absolute dictatorships that… Related posts:

1. RSF reports on media in North Korea
2. South Korea steps up blocking of DPRK sites
3. South Korea’s National Security Law making headlines

RT @YonhapNews: Police brace for N.K. provocation ahead of nuclear summit, elections http://t.co/SQsZaI4N

RT @KoreaRealTime: Picture Korea: Lunar New Year and Food Aid for NK http://t.co/6viOxYtP

RT @nknewsorg: Sunny Lee on Chinese views on #Northkorea. Well worth a watch. His paper is also available for download here: http://t.co ...

RT @YonhapNews: (LEAD) Defectors, activists hold rally to condemn rights abuses in N. Korea http://t.co/V4OUZIt6

RT @VOA_Seoul: Joint drills to go ahead in ROK despite concerns about DPRK reaction: http://t.co/2EdkBog7

RT @CSISKoreaChair: North Korea warns South but accepts food aid - NYTimes http://t.co/hglqEpU3

RT @LiberateLaura: NK revisits Cheonan sinking & comes up w/pair of wild theories involving secretly salvaged Dolphin sub. http://t.co/R ...

RT @nknewsorg: #Northkorea bans cellphones? Not according to KCNA - who blame KBS for this false story. Inclined to side w/ KCNA here: h ...

One of Japan’s great regional security muckrackers, Keiji Minemura, elaborates at length in the Asahi Shimbun (English) on the notion of Chinese military planning for crisis on the Korean peninsula.  The Dong-A Ilbo in Seoul compresses Minemura’s report into a spine-straightening headline: “China Can Enter Pyongyang in Two Hours in Case of Emergency.”  Clearly the notion of Chinese intervention in North Korea is alive and well.  What appears to be largely skirted in these analyses, however, is a broader consideration of Chinese concerns for its Northeast (a subject taken on below) or the idea that North Korea might deny Chinese troops access via a few local nuclear strikes on specific mountain passes within the DPRK itself (an unconventional topic taken on in the “conventional” southern context by Peter Hayes and Scott David Bruce at Nautilus).  Today, Bruno de Paiva, an analyst based in Perth, Australia, sketches some of the relevant considerations on China’s northeastern frontier.  De Paiva has previously written for the Australian This is his first essay for SinoNK.com.  – Editor

Beyond OPLAN 0527: Chinese Planning for Disaster Scenarios on the North Korean Frontier

by Bruno de Paiva

With more than a month having passed since the announcement of Kim Jong-Il’s demise and the succession of Kim Jong-Un as the DPRK supreme leader, it appears as if the status quo ante is re-emerging in North Korea. The presence of continuity is particularly clear on the China-DPRK border, where there have been few signs of the kind of instability which virtually every North Korean collapse scenario has, to date, evoked. Given the interest among foreign powers – particularly the US, Japan and the Republic of Korea – in coordinating collapse responses with China, events on the border and China’s response are both seen as especially significant. However, the chasm that appears to persist between China and the US/Japan/ROK in their divergent geostrategic views of the DPRK means that extensive collaboration on disaster scenarios is unlikely to come to fruition.

Neither the ongoing paralysis of coordinated disaster planning nor the ongoing apparent calm on the border, however, precludes a potentially sudden situation of urgency on the northern border. Such a situation, either a Fukushima-like scenario at one of the DPRK’s nuclear facilities or, although unlikely, another sudden currency reform in the DPRK resulting in unrest and an influx in China-bound North Korean refugees, could be a cause of concern for the CCP. Just because Hoeryong is the only city besides Pyongyang to receive a potato ration does not mean that the city’s misery might not spill over into China during destabilizing events.

Military Considerations |  For the CCP, the question in some ways is not so much what happens in North Korea as China’s ability to respond to it by policing the border. As Jende Huang recently described, a nuclear accident at Yongbyon would make deploying elements of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the border a risky proposition. Scott David Bruce paints an even more dangerous scenario of North Korean local nuclear weapons use in the event of war in Korea. However, it is unclear as to how far the CCP has explored the issue of the worst-case scenario of a collapse in the DPRK with nuclear implications.

In a collapse without nuclear implications, the CCP and the PLA would be able to close the China-DPRK border and control the amount of refugees who cross the border, that is, if they allow any North Korean refugees to cross the border at all.

The key issue of the potential disaster scenario as mentioned here is the nuclear aspect. The Shenyang Military Region, which is the People’s Liberation Army area covering the Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces contains four group armies, three military districts and has an estimated 250,000 military personnel. A large of number of those personnel would be able to be swiftly mobilised to the border following news of collapse in the DPRK. While a Chinese army-policed closure of the border risks also temporarily denting China’s international image, it would also lessen, if not halt, the amount of North Korean refugees seeking to cross the border. Doing this would decrease the possibility of unrest within China as well as stop any major interruption to economic development in the northeastern part of the country.

While Shenyang is the headquarters of the northeastern PLA, the day-to-day Sino-North Korean border security and disaster response issues are run from Jilin province. In recent years, Jilin has made numerous moves in strengthening security along and adjacent to the border to address crime and other illegal acts with a DPRK element. Border sensors and video providing 24-hour monitoring are now being used, along with police vehicles equipped with sophisticated communications equipment.  As Thompson and Freeman have pointed out in their extensive study of changes in China’s disaster-relief capacity on the periphery, a civilian emergency response system has also been developed in Jilin, an element which would surely be of solid use in the event of a post-collapse DPRK refugee influx. These developments show that China views the potential of a DPRK collapse as a serious one and is willing to use its rising economy to undertake major investments to mitigate the effects of such a collapse.

The Economic Element |  While multiple justifications are often given for preventing a catastrophe on the northern border, the interruption of China’s continuing economic growth is the most obvious. Northeast China – its eastern boundary almost entirely taken up by the DPRK – is no longer the central engine of the PRC economy, but it is without a doubt partly responsible for China’s robust growth. Daqing Field, the largest oil field in China, though remote from North Korea, is situated in the region’s Heilongjiang province and is crucial to China’s domestic oil output and energy needs, having produced an average of 803,287 barrels per day of crude oil in 2010.

It is not so much a single crisis that the CCP anticipates or fears, but a concentation of crises: a scenario whereby a refugee influx meets with a brewing and combustible labor unrest, for instance, such as was seen in the border city of Tonghua in 2010, or Daqing and Liaoyang in 2002.  Major instability on the border may in and of itself not interfere with activity at the field, but, to put a Chinese spin on a disaster scenario, if workers were to raise demands concurrent to a crisis in the DPRK-PRC border region, the action could instantly decrease the domestic oil supply China has at its disposal. Given China’s high demand for energy sources, a decrease in production at Daqing Field would be a significant issue for the CCP.

Investment in the Northeast region closest to its border with the DPRK has increased sharply in recent years. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, investment in fixed assets in Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin in 2011 respectively increased by 30.2, 33.7 and 30.3 per cent.  While such investments are not all located in border areas, the investment climate in the region – particularly in ports like Dandong and Dalian — would be exposed to severe risks as a result of unrest on the China-DPRK border. An influx of North Korean refugees seeking to flee domestic instability combined with increasing negative sentiments of Chinese citizens in the regions closest to the border, poses tangible risks China’s international image, much like the unrest in Xinjiang province in 2009. Given the treatment of similarly sensitive issues for China’s image, its economy, and security, as well as the prevalence of the DPRK in global affairs, it seems more than likely that the CCP is devoting a fair amount of attention to mitigating any risks that would arise from a North Korean collapse.

REFERENCES

Wan, Z. (2009). ‘Daqing develops new oilfield technologies’, China Daily - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bw/2009/09/21/content_8713980.htm 

- National Bureau of Statistics of China. 2011. Investment in Fixed Assets for 2011.http://www.stats.gov.cn/was40/gjtjj_en_detail.jsp?searchword=Heilongjiang&channelid=9528&record=3

- Global Security. Shenyang Military Region, Shenyang Military Area Command. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/shenyang-mr.htm

- Carla Freeman and Drew Thompson, “China on the Edge: China’s Border Provinces and Chinese Security Policy,” The Center for the National Interest and Johns Hopkins SAIS, April 2011.

Steven Denney is editor-in-chief  of PEAR, Yonsei University’s graduate journal, a leading voice at the Political Cartel (East Asia) blog, and a master’s student at Yonsei University. In his capacity as the Think-Tank Analyst for SinoNK.com, Denney has also compiled a list of recent discussion of North Korea and Sino-North Korean relations for the week just passed.  – Editor

—Victor D. Cha and Nicholas D. Anderson (in the Washington Quarterly) argue that despite opinions to the contrary, North Korea could be in for its own version of the “Arab Spring.”  Amongst other arguments, the authors state the regime destabilization and collapse is hard to predict.

—This CSIS report, a compilation of findings from a 2011 conference focusing on long-term tasks involved in the eventual unification of the Korean peninsula.  The report covers a wide-range of topics, ranging from social security issues to public health.  It includes contributions from CFR’s Scott Synder and Yonsei University’s John Delury.

—Stephan Haggard, at North Korea:  Witness to Transformation, posts on review essays on North Korea, both of which address work that he and Marcus Noland have done.  One, by Charles Armstrong, focuses on the daily lives of the North Korea people, institutions and ideology.  The other, by political scientist David Kang, focuses his attention on how the people perceive themselves – the title of his review is “They Think Their Normal:  Enduring Questions and New Research on North Korea.”

—Andrei Lankov profiles Colonel General Terenti Shytkov, NK’s first leader. Shytkov was the de facto leader of the North from 1945-46 and was responsible for the post-liberation land reforms. He stayed on as a power-behind-the-scenes in his capacity as Soviet ambassador until the outbreak of the Korean War.

—Stephen Haggard posts his in-depth analysis of this year’s annual joint editorial (신년공동사설). The editorial basically functions as Pyongyang’s version of the State of the Union Address in the US.

—Andray Abrahamian speculates about why Ri Chol, head of the North’s Joint Venture Investment Committee, left his post earlier this year.

—The DailyNK reports on the murders of four bureaucrats in Cheongjin, North Hamgyong Province. The source notes that the alleged murders were carried out as acts of rebellion against the government. No other source or media outlet has corroborated the story as of this writing.

—Via North Korean Economy Watch, Kaesong production is up 14% in 2011; employment is expected to increase.  In the same post, this Yonhap news article is linked to, which states that 400 new laborers are expected to work in Kaesong.  As recent reports by the Chonsun Ilbo show, a Korea-China FTA is expected to include the Kaesong Industrial Complex (the recent Korea-US FTA does not); as far as the prospect for reform go, this is significant.

According to KCNA (2012-1-25):

The gross industrial output value grew 1.2 times for twenty days of January this year as against the same period last year.

This is the result of the high-pitched drive waged by all the workers of the country since the first day of this year after receiving with excitement the joint calls of the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the joint New Year editorial for this year and the letter of the working people in South Hamgyong Province.

In the period, the Ministry of Light Industry increased the production 1.4 times and the Ministry of Food and Daily Necessities sharply boosted the production.

Thermal and hydropower stations have increased the ratio of operating the generating equipment.

Much effort is being concentrated on supplying coal to the thermal power plants and chemical and metal plants and developing more coal beds.

The Ministry of Coal Industry produced 12,000 more tons of coal than planned for the 20 days.

Iron mills and steelworks also increased the production.

The freight transport volume increased by 12 percent from the same period last year.

Innovations were made in the production of vinalon and fertilizer by the industrial establishments in the field of chemical industry and in the production of custom built equipment and mining machines by the industrial enterprises of the field of machine industry.

The forestry stations and pit wood stations increased the timber production.

Progress has been reported on a daily basis from the important projects including the building of apartments in Mansudae areas and the Paektusan Songun Youth Power Station.

For the uninitiated, this is about as close as the DPRK gets to releasing economic statistics. Note there are no base numbers–only [some] % increases. Also, despite the measure being officially named “output value”, it is really just a claim of increased physical production.  There is no value (prices) or mention of “services” included in these measures.

Unfortunately without more solid numbers, and the proclivity to ascribe productivity gains to effective propaganda, these reports cannot be taken seriously.

Although we all talk about the DPRK’s GDP and per capita income as if the numbers are solid, the reality is quite the opposite.  In addition to the general lack of information, there are all sorts of methodological problems with assessing the value of the DPRK’s economy.  Here are some helpful sources if you want to learn more:

1. DPRK Economic Statistics Report

2. G. Warren Nutter papers:

- (JSTOR) “Soviet Industrial Growth”, Source: Science, New Series, Vol. 130, No. 3370 (Jul. 31, 1959), pp. 252-255

-(JSTOR) “Industrial Growth in the Soviet Union”, The American Economic Review , Vol. 48, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Seventieth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1958), pp. 398-411

-(JSTOR) Some Observations on Soviet Industrial Growth”, The American Economic Review , Vol. 47, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Sixty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1957), pp. 618-630

3. The North Korean Economy by Nicholas Eberstadt

4. Assessing the economic performance of North Korea, 1954–1989: Estimates and growth accounting analysis

5. Bank of Korea’s assessment fo the DPRK economy in 2010.

6. My North Korean Economic Statistics Page

I received another example of the malicious emails that appear in the mail boxes of North Korea researchers. Always be on the lookout for these attempts to hack into your computer:

From: Ben Watkins [mailto:ben.watkins2@aol.com] Sent: 26 January 2012 08:15 To: [DELETED] Subject: FW:NKorea,contacts with Iran related to nuclear program in secret

North Korea, contacts with Iran related to nuclear program in secret January 26, 2011 5:29AM, EST FULL STORY

© 2012 Daily Cable News Network, LP, LLLP. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us.

ATTACHMENTS: image001.jpg

The areas in bold link to a shady server: Xttp://online.newssupply.net/newsviewer.hta.  I changed the “h” in “http” to an “X” to prevent accidentally linking.

You can read more background on these attacks here, here, here, here, and here.

We prefer not to provide links to closed sites. But for those of you with access to an academic library, two recent review essays on North Korea provide useful introductions to the literature on the country. (Truth in advertising: both reviews address our work, often with useful critical commentary.) We focus here mainly on books [...]

While North Korea has been boring this week, simply churning out its normal churlish statements, China Central Television got a scoop by getting its cameras inside North Korea’s official TV station, Korea Central Television.

And more importantly, they met the network’s biggest star: Ri Chun Hui, the anchorwoman known for her intense delivery of the most important statements by the authoritarian government.

And she seemed charming. She smiled and spoke normally, without the fierce breathlessness she uses to deliver the news.

Ms. Ri, who is believe to have been born in 1943, had been away from the anchor desk for several months last year, raising speculation that she was ill.

Asked about that, Ms. Ri’s response to CCTV suggest that even she is subject to that bias for youth and beauty that exists in media around the world. “My co-workers are all young and pretty,” Ms. Ri said.

Indeed, the time may be coming for her to retire. Ms. Ri said the news needs “someone young and beautiful.”

Some South Korean media outlets in recent weeks have produced stories about spotting younger anchorwomen on the North Korean state TV news broadcasts. Some have suggested the move is in line with the emergence of Kim Jong Eun, who is in his late 20s, as successor to his father Kim Jong Il as North Korea’s leader. That’s probably just speculation, however.

The glimpse inside Korea Central Television that the CCTV report provided was just as fascinating. Like TV studios anywhere, the set from which Ms. Ri reads the news looks much less imposing than the video images produced from its cameras. Martyn Williams has a breakout of CCTV’s pictures at his North Korea Tech blog.

Pictured Above: The DPRK’s two most famous waterways are the Paekma-Cholsan Waterway (see here and here) and the Kaechon-Lake Thaesong Waterway. A third waterway in the Miru Plain is too recent to appear on Google Earth.

 According to KCNA (2012-1-26):

Waterway to Be Built in South Hwanghae Province, DPRK

Pyongyang, January 26 (KCNA) — A gravity-fed waterway will be built in South Hwanghae Province.

It is another gigantic nature-remaking project in the era of Songun as part of the far-sighted nature-harnessing plan of leader Kim Jong Il and the dear respected Kim Jong Un.

The completion of the waterway will help sufficiently irrigate tens of thousands of hectares of farmland and tideland-turned rice fields including those in Ongjin, Kangryong, Pyoksong and other several counties to ensure a safe and high yield of grain.

It will also help save tens of thousands of kilowatt of electricity and make a great contribution to the economic development and improvement of people’s living standard by preventing the damage by flood in the area along Jaeryong River.

A ground-breaking ceremony took place in Haeju City on Thursday.

Present there were Choe Yong Rim, Kim Ki Nam and other senior officials and officials of ministries and national institutions, builders and working people.

South Hwanghae Province is home to at least three large-scale agricultural projects at the moment: Pujiman Tideland Reclamation (Ongjin), Ryongmae Island (룡매도) land reclamation project, and the Sohae-ri-Nunggum Island Tedeland Reclamation.

 

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES) 2012-1-25

A month into Kim Jong-un’s ascension to power, it is reported that food distribution is likely to resume nationwide in North Korea.

Many experts evaluate this as a symbolic measure to propagate the construction of a powerful economy and improve the lives of the people. For the North Koreans, the most apparent and obvious economic accomplishment is the improvement of the food situation. Thus, North Korea is most likely to take action to normalize food rations as its top priority.

According to a statement made by a South Korean government official on January 20, “Kim Jong-un and his leadership will begin the food distribution as a way to prove to its people about changes forthcoming in the new regime.”He also added, “After years of propagation for the building of a strong and prosperous nation, they must demonstrate it to the people with noticeable results.”

The amount of rations to be provided is still unclear. However, the source emphasized that it was very likely for rice rations to resume, especially with the approaching national holidays, such as the Lunar New Year and Kim Jong-il’s birthday (February 16).

He also commented that “the food distribution will be a nationwide movement and the food ration system will go into effect based on the distribution network of available food supply.”

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), North Korea’s food production in 2011 compared to the previous year rose by 8.5 percent, sitting at about 5.48 million tons (of rough grains or 4.66 million tons of milled grains).

The minimum amount of food consumption in North Korea is 5.4 million tons, but a shortage of about 400,000 tons is expected, including the international food aid and industrial food imports. Among the recent years, this marks the largest deficiency in food supply.

However, such shortages can be overcome with additional food imports and distributing mainly rice reserves.

The last national food distribution in North Korea was in 2005, seven years ago.

North Korea is also likely to exert more effort in food processing production to improve the distribution of daily necessities. With relatively little dependence on raw material imports, North Korea is planning to improve the food situation through expanding the food processing production in agricultural, fishery, and livestock industries, with less competition with Chinese products.