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In northern Seoul, not far away from the picturesque peaks of Mt. Bukhan, there is a medium-sized government office.
Every weekday morning, all five stories of this office are buzzing with activity. There are large cars parked outside, and inside one will find dozens of smartly dressed young bureaucrats rushing back and forth with files in hand. There is a small army of young secretaries, tirelessly typing, mailing and making coffee.
But what is the mission of the office in which all these people toil all day long? The office is known as, "The Bureau for the Five Northern Provinces." It was created by former President Syngman Rhee to be the nucleus for the future government of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.
It is often overlooked that the two Korean states technically do not recognize each other. From the official South Korean point of view, North Korea does not exist (and vice versa). In Seoul, North Korea is officially nothing more than five northeastern provinces that have been taken over by communist rebels, to be liberated at an appropriate time.
Once upon a time, such legal fictions were taken seriously. These days they are long gone, but the South Korean government still maintains a symbolic office whose sole mission is to emphasize South Korea's alleged sovereignty over territories currently run by Pyongyang.
The ROK government appoints governors to the five provinces "occupied by the self-proclaimed communist gangsters" (admittedly, this term is no longer in vogue in Seoul). These governors have offices at the aforementioned bureau, of course.
Interestingly enough, the North Koreans have more than fully reciprocated. Since the 1960s, the North Korean government has maintained an administration specifically tasked with dealing with South Korea. While its South Korean equivalent has long abandoned any real attempt to position itself as an embryonic administration to be put in place after the liberation of the North, the North Korean government still behaves as if their shadow bureaucrats will one day take over in Seoul.
North Korea's reserve administration for "southern Korea" was created around 1960. It initially consisted largely of South Korean communists who had fled North during the Korean War. Many such idealists perished in Kim Il-sung's bloody purges, but some survived to remain as mid-ranking bureaucrats. Some of these bureaucrats were selected to have the extra job of being would-be administrators of South Korean counties and towns.
Compared to the South Korean agency, the North Korean version is much more elaborate (at least on paper). While the South Korean government limits itself to appointing provincial governors and county magistrates, the North Korean government has a number of appointees for virtually every South Korean county, town and city.
Typically, they have a would-be party secretary, head of the local People's Committee (to be unanimously elected after the triumph of North Korean-style democracy in the South), head of the local police and a few other officials.
Of course, South Korean communists who fled north around the time of the Korean War are now long dead. They have largely been replaced by their children and grandchildren, so this "reserve administration" still consists of people whose direct male ancestors once used to live in South Korea. Tellingly, however, some key positions in this agency (like say Seoul City Secretary) are reserved for "pure-bred" North Koreans, who are considered to be more reliable.
Twice a year, reserve officials are called to attend study sessions where they have access to classified materials about the areas they are supposed to run. Therefore, a future police chief of Mokpo has a fairly good idea about the city's demographics, economy and topography.
In a curious twist, reserve officials even get promoted as time goes by. An acquaintance of the present author began his career as a shadow departmental head in a city council, but eventually made it to shadow head of the city's reserve People's Committee. Of course he had a day job as an industrial manager in North Korea, but he was paid a small additional salary for his part-time shadow activities in the reserve administration.
What should we make of all this? Of course, this can all be seen as a sign of the incurable aggressiveness of the two Korean governments, but this is not actually the case. Neither side takes such bureaucratic fiction seriously any more. Bureaucracies have a strange inertia to them, and disbanding these bizarre structures would be tantamount to conceding that unification is not going to happen.
Therefore, the combination of ideology and vested bureaucratic interest makes sure that these peculiar zombie agencies are still alive and well.
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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