Opinion - The Korea Times

A bumpy road ahead for Park

By Andrei LankovThe presidential elections ended with the narrow victory of Park Geun-hye, leader of South Korea’s moderate right.So, it is time to wonder what we should expect from President-elect Park. For example, what is her policy toward North Korea likely to look like?The last five years, the time of Lee Myung-bak’s administration, have been a hard era when it comes to relations between the two Koreas. It was essentially the period of a Cold War, but at some points, tensions erupted into violent confrontations ― most remarkably in 2010, when the North Koreans first torpedoed a South Korean warship and then subsequently shelled a South Korean island.In the last couple of years, most South Koreans have come to perceive the hard line of the current administration as unsustainable and dangerous ― even though it still has some supporters.As a result, while campaigning Park has gone to great lengths on a couple of occasions to distance herself from the so-called “excesses” of the current administration ― she even said that she would not mind participating in a

Dec 30, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Disappearance of generals

By Andrei LankovThe picture is still probably fresh in our readers’ memory: Pyongyang, December 2011. A large black hearse with the coffin of the recently departed Marshall Kim Jong-il slowly moves through the streets of the North Korean capital. Eight people are walking alongside side it ― four uniformed military commanders on the left and four top civilian bureaucrats on the right, with Kim Jong-un (yet to be seen wearing a military uniform) at the head of the civilian line.Well what has happened to these eight people over the last year? Their fate is quite remarkable: all the military officers have lost their positions, while all the civilians remain in place. This is important, not least because one of the few changes which could be observed in North Korea over the last year was a slow, but significant shift of power away from the military and back to the party-state.Let’s have a close look at the generals who held the highest military positions in the land as of late last year. Only one of them is known to be alive, his standing has diminished dramatically.

Dec 16, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Back to personality cult

By Andrei LankovTalk of coming change in North Korea, so loud and audible as recently as August and September, has all but disappeared in the past two months.Signs of the said change have seemingly disappeared as well. For the time being then, it seems that North Korea has returned to its tried and tested track, and is doing its best to follow the course charted by the late Marshall (posthumously promoted to Generalissimo) Kim Jong-il.One of the decades-old North Korean official notions is the principle that the country is always blessed with a great leader, a man with few parallels in recorded human history. Every North Korean leader is supposed to be a genius. This was the way Kim Il-sung was presented in the 1960s and ’70s, and it was also how his son was portrayed when he ascended to the leadership of the country. Now, the new young leader naturally enough finds himself being portrayed with similar attributes.The Kim Jong-un personality cult began in 2010 when the North Koreans were told for the first time that a new genius of leadership had emerged in their lucky country.T

Dec 2, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Different world of jobs in NK

By Andrei LankovWesterners or, for that matter, South Koreans are always impressed when they are told that somebody in North Korea is a medical doctor.It is seen as an embodiment of career success ― like it would be, no doubt, in Seoul, New York or London. However, North Korea is different: the North Korean doctors do not enjoy even nearly the same treatment as their pampered and, frankly, overpaid Western colleagues.In the West, the doctors came to occupy a unique position of well-paid and much revered professionals. Their corporations zealously guard their privileges and raise a hell every time these privileges are threaten in any way. Being a doctor in the West is synonymous with success.Meanwhile, the Communist countries chose the Soviet model of health care. Within this model being a doctor means an otherwise unremarkable white-collar job, in income and social standing roughly similar to that of a high school teacher.Incidentally, this relatively low esteem did not necessarily influence the actual performance of the public health system: the Communist states, in spite of rather

Nov 18, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Slow-down of reforms

By Andrei LankovA couple of months ago, many a North Korea watcher, including my humble self, suddenly found themselves in an exciting situation as strange things began to happen in Pyongyang.When Kim Jong-il died last December, it was widely believed that the new leader in Pyongyang, his son and successor Kim Jong-un, lacked the power base and experience to seriously deviate from his father’s line even if this were his secret wish.However, developments in July and August surprised observers. Suddenly Kim Jong-un began to introduce a rather radical set of new policies. The most attention was given to his willingness to show off his beautiful wife Ri Sol-ju, as well as his explicit endorsement of American music ― which for decades had been damned, along with all other things relating to American culture, as decadent. But more attention should be paid to other things discussed at the time, like say the June 28 measures which envisaged economic reform including dramatic changes in agricultural management.According to the measures, farmers were supposed to keep some 30 percent of t

Nov 4, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Little justice in N. Korea

By Andrei Lankov One of the questions a Korean-speaking visitor to North Korea is likely to encounter in a private conversation with a local is “What happened to the Party and security functionaries of East Germany after reunification?” This question shows one of the most important, and perhaps the defining feature, of the North Korean apparatchik’s collective world view ― a fear of the future. In most ex-communist countries, the collapse of the old regime had little impact on the relative prosperity of the people who lost power. In nearly all post-Soviet states, as well as many states of the former communist Eastern Europe, the ex-nomenklatura quickly reinvented themselves as business leaders and politicians, with only a handful of especially unlucky or notorious personalities being punished for their misdeeds. Astonishing. However, North Korea’s officialdom is worried that the existence of the prosperous South Korea makes their situation different. They believe that a crisis in North Korea will likely lead to unification by the absorption of the North into the South, and t

Oct 21, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Unlikely Dissidents in N. Korea?

By Andrei Lankov Over the last decade or so, we have been sometimes told stories about the North Korean underground, its resistance groups and the samizdat that they publish inside the reclusive nation. These stories appear to be relatively plausible ― after all, we know North Korea is a brutal dictatorship, and many such dictatorships in the past met some internal resistance (or such is what history textbooks usually say). The present author, though, is rather skeptical about such claims. While some small resistance groups are likely to exist, the North Korean state is yet to face anything reminiscent of the anti-communist, pro-democracy movement which developed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in the 1960s and ‘70s. This docility is easy to explain, a fashionable French intellectual once said, “where there is power, there is resistance.” For him, power’s repressive qualities were probably expressed through denying him the right to participate in a talk show on a government TV channel. But when we are talking about real repressive power, it can easily stifle al

Oct 7, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Reforms and nukes

By Andrei Lankov In recent months, it appears increasingly likely that the North Korean government is gradually switching to a reformist path, largely in emulation of China. This is welcome development, to be sure. A reforming North Korea, if it manages to survive and remain stable (two big ifs indeed) in some regards will remain a rather unpleasant place. But this transformation will mean significant improvements for the average person there (and outsiders too). We should not assume that a reformist North Korean government will try, or will be able to, solve all major problems overnight. Among other things, it seems likely that a reforming North Korea will keep nuclear weapons, even though, under a reformist regime, such weapons will constitute a significantly smaller threat for the outside world. While developing their nuclear weapons program, the North’s decision makers largely had two goals in mind. First, they needed nuclear weapons for security (correctly perceiving them as the ultimate deterrent). Second, they saw nuclear weapons as indeed an important diplomatic

Sep 23, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

China-N. Korea economic ties

By Andrei Lankov In late August, a high level North Korean delegation went to China. The country was represented by none other than Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of “Supreme Leader” Marshall Kim Jong-un. While the inner structure of the North Korean leadership remains obscure to outside observers, it seems plausible that Chang is the chief advisor to Kim Jong-un. Therefore, his trip to China is bound to have been highly significant. From what is known it seems that Jang’s trip was not particularly successful. The Chinese did not give him much in terms of financial aid and their investment, real or promised, was much more modest than what their opposite numbers must have hoped for. Nonetheless, the near failure of Jang’s mission once again emphasizes the importance of China for the North’s economy. For a decade China has been the largest trade partner of North Korea and now it controls some three quarters of the small nation’s foreign trade. While talking about economic relations between the two countries, it always makes sense to keep in mind that for China strategic consi

Sep 9, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Rationing system in N. Korea

By Andrei Lankov It was reported recently, that ― obviously, following a reformist drive, the North Korean leaders decided to scale down the rationing system. In order to understand the significance of this change, we must keep in mind that for a few decades North Korea was a society where rationing was taken to a logical extreme. From 1957, it became illegal to buy grain privately. As a result, rice and corn ― major sources of calories in the North Korean diet ― could be obtained only by those with ration coupons. By the late 1960s, free trade in North Korea had all but disappeared. Pretty much anything of value was distributed by the state from then on. In this society, money had little meaning since even a shed-load of cash would not buy much without the requite ration coupons. The distribution of grain, cooking oil, soya sauce and other basic food stuffs has been dealt with extensively. But what of other things, how could a North Korean living under the wise and energetic guidance of “The Great Leader” obtain a suit, a TV set or a bra ― yes, North Korean women wear

Aug 26, 2012By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Read more

A bumpy road ahead for Park

Disappearance of generals

Back to personality cult

Different world of jobs in NK

Slow-down of reforms

Little justice in N. Korea

Unlikely Dissidents in N. Korea?

Reforms and nukes

China-N. Korea economic ties

Rationing system in N. Korea

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