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News coming from North Korea seems to indicate that Kim Jong-un is seriously contemplating market-oriented reforms in North Korea ― doing something that his late father was dead against.
The last two years have been marked by a number of political decisions pointing in the same direction. In agriculture, farmers are now allowed to work in household-based teams and keep 30 percent of their harvest, and in industry, central planning is to be partially abolished. Private entrepreneurs, far more successful and numerous in North Korea than most people imagine, are not harassed by the state anymore. In general, all this, and other policies are similar with what the Chinese government did in the late 1970s in the early days of Deng Xiaoping.
It has been argued that Kim Jong-un, being a graduate of an elite Swiss school, must have a natural inclination to reform his country ― unlike his father who spoke no foreign languages and travelled very little. However, this logic is not as persuasive as it might appear: policies are determined by real interests, not by personal inclinations and Kim Jong-un has now good reason to pursue policies that his father had every reason to avoid at all costs.
There was indeed a very rational reason for the late Kim Jong-il not to embrace the seemingly attractive option of Chinese-style reforms. Korea is a divided nation, one nation rich, one poor, and the gap between them being the world's highest between two countries that share a land border. Implementation of Chinese-style reforms is liable to make North Korea far more open to outside information, and the North Korean population would likely learn much more about South Korean prosperity.
In China, the discovery of American or Japanese success did not produce a comparable impact because for the average Chinese person these countries are foreign, with a completely different culture. In the case of North Korea however, the fabulously wealthy South Korea was once an underdeveloped and poorer part of a colonial Korea.
The spread of such information is potentially destabilizing for the regime in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il obviously believed that in a divided country, market-oriented reforms would lead to East German-style collapse, rather than a Chinese-style economic boom.
Of course, since the late 1980s, the North Korean system has been gradually disintegrating from below. The private economy now produces 30-50 percent of GDP, and the once formidable surveillance system is in disarray, with knowledge of the outside world steadily seeping in.
However, the late Kim Jong-il was old and probably realized that if he did not touch the system it likely had at least a decade's life in it. For someone in their sixties, this was a fair bet.
Kim Jong-un is young. If he follows his father's policy of doing nothing, then he will have virtually no chance of repeating his father's greatest political achievement, i.e. die in his own bed while at the apex of power. Even if the system lasts for another twenty years, this will not be enough for the new leader who has only just passed 30.
The young Kim is like somebody on the third floor of a burning building, it is very risky to jump out the window, and the chances of dying from the fall are indeed high. On the other hand, the fire is closing in, and if you stay put you will have but a few minutes of life before you face certain death.
Kim Jong-il, due to his advanced age, did not face such a choice. Continuing our less than perfect metaphor, he knew that he would die anyway before the flames got him. But his son faces a different choice, and it seems to make more sense to jump, even though the chances of survival are at best uncertain.
So it seems that Kim Jong-un has made his decision. He has opted to take the plunge and try to reform his country, taking the political initiative, even though he must surely understand that reforms are fraught with the real danger of his country collapsing under him.
We as outside observers should welcome this change. A reforming North Korea will remain a rather unpleasant place. It will remain nuclear and will treat its people with remarkable brutality. However, it will still be a less desperate and dangerous place than the North Korea of the past. Let us therefore hope that the young leader will continue with his reforms and will survive his risky experiment.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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