Kim Jong-un 'wants 14 Gaeseong-like towns'

North Korean diplomat defector's book about Kim Jong-un, “Password from the three-story secretariat: Thae Yong-ho's testimony”/ Yonhap

By Oh Young-jin

Thae Yong-ho, a senior North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea in 2016, says in his memoire that North Korea wanted 14 industrial parks like the one set up at the border town of Gaeseong as example of inter-Korean business cooperation.

"Thanks to the Gaeseong Industrial Park, the city has become more prosperous and better controlled than any other place," Thae says in his book, "Password from the three-story secretariat _ Thae Yong-ho's testimony." It is Thae's first book, and has been released ahead of the June 12 North Korea-U.S. Summit in Singapore.

The three-story secretariat is the center of power where Kim works, comparable to Cheong Wa Dae or the White House. It came to be known to the public when Kim received President Moon Jae-in's envoy, Chung Eui-yong, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Thae quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as saying that Gaeseong did not need any control over Gaeseong because about 50,000 North Korean workers reported like clockwork every day.

Thae said that "Build 14 industrial parks like one in Gaeseong" was Kim's order.

The Gaeseong complex was opened in 2004 as the result of the late President Kim Dae-jung's “sunshine” policy of inter-Korean reconciliation.

It is said that before it was opened, the North had worried that the Gaeseong industrial town would serve as conduit for outside forces to move in and destabilize the reclusive state.

Instead, it had helped Gaeseong, which lacked discipline as a border town, turn into a model city, because the residents realized that the communist party was the hand that fed it, not the South Korean money that poured into it.

The Gaeseong complex served as cash cow, providing tens of millions of dollars for the North, with critics claiming the North used the money to develop its nuclear weapons and missiles.

It was closed when South Korean firms pulled out under government instruction when the North tested a long-range missile and tested what it said was a hydrogen bomb.