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It finally happened: the North Korean press has reported that the Masik Sky Resort has become operational.
The opening of yet another moderately sized ski resort does not appear to be major event in world terms, but if one looks at the coverage it has gotten in the North Korean media it is world news.
The North Korean media has presented this project as a major endeavour of the North Korean state and its people. A rather randomly chosen statement of the project says, quoting Kim Jong-un's letter to the builders: ''This is a miracle that can be performed only by officers and men of the People's Army, the fighters of death-defying implementation who move mountains and fill in the sea if it is the Korean Workers Party's order and instruction."
The North Korean people have been repeatedly urged to replicate the alleged selfless work of the workers on the Masik construction site. Similar rhetoric has earlier been reserved only for projects in heavy industry like, say, power plants and steel mills which traditionally produced exaltation in the minds and hearts of Stalinist economic planners.
In an ironic twist, North Korean propaganda has frequently described the feats of the builders in military metaphors. The construction of the resort (ostensibly aimed at attracting rich Western tourists) was routinely compared to yet another battle against the U.S. imperialists and their puppets.
However, why was the resort featured so prominently in North Korean propaganda? To an extent, this might reflect the personal interests and tastes of the young North Korean leader who spent his youth in Switzerland (and perhaps was impressed by Switzerland's world famous mountain resorts).
Indeed, many actions of the North Korean government in the recent two years have appeared to be driven by the personal tastes of the young strongman with his rather unorthodox background. The visits of Dennis Rodman are good examples of such a trend, since apart from Kim Jong-un and perhaps a handful of his buddies, nobody in North Korea has ever heard of this controversial personality, let alone shown any interest in the man.
On the other hand, the Masik Pass campaign reflects a feature that has been recurrent for decades: the regime's desire to find a wonder technology (or marketing trick) that will bring the country a large amount of foreign currency while not creating unnecessary political problems. Of course, this technology or marketing trick is also not supposed to require any significant change in the social structure.
Essentially, the major economic goal of the Masik project is to lure rich Western tourists into North Korea. It is assumed that these people will come with pockets full of dollars and euros, and then promptly leave having spent a few days and a few thousand dollars in the comfortable seclusion of a mountain resort.
This indeed might work, but only to some extent. Since North Korea, being a remote country with little or no tourist infrastructure and grossly underdeveloped transportation links is not going to attract enough foreign students to make a difference. It would be far more advisable for the North Korean leadership to pay attention to South Korea in their search for foreign investment. Indeed, it is only South Korea and China that have any compelling reason to invest in North Korea, though these reasons are much more political than economic.
However, North Korea's leadership is not very enthusiastic about Chinese and South Korean money. Indeed, as pointed and direct criticism of trade with China while Jang Song-thaek was being purged have demonstrated, the North Korean government is very suspicious of its giant neighbour and would like to limit interactions with Beijing. It goes without saying that South Korea is seen as a threat as well.
This has led the North Korean leadership to design schemes to facilitate inflows of Western money, and the Masik Ski Resort seems to be one such scheme. Most likely it will fail, but it will take a few years before North Korea's leaders realize the bitter truth: if they need money, they should not entertain pipe dreams about rich Western tourists or giant Western corporations coming to North Korea. Rather they should find ways to make their country more attractive for Chinese and South Korean investors.
Given the deep suspicion that Pyongyang has of both Beijing and Seoul, such realignment is not going to be easy. Nonetheless, these are the only places from which investment capital and perhaps aid can be found.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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