Opinion - The Korea Times

North’s party meeting — place for show

By Andrei Lankov It is widely known that in the next few days a major gathering of party officials will take place in Pyongyang. This news is being greatly discussed in the international media. However, a careful look through the publications clearly indicates: most authors seemingly do not have a clue about the type of gathering which they are talking about. Journalists usually describe it by vogue terms like “party meeting” or “convention.” Well, these statements are true in a sense ― after all, if the U.S. Senate can be described as a “meeting of political heavyweights from the countryside,” then why not? Yet, plain mistakes are manifold. For example, media talk about the coming “party congress.” It is wrong: the “party congress” is an official expression, a name of a peculiar North Korean party/state institution and “party congress” is not what is going to happen this time. One major newspaper informed us that this is going to be the “largest party meeting in 44 years” (completely wrong). So, facing this havoc, the current author, being above all a professor

Sep 6, 2010By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Huge gap between Koreas

Right now, some 20,000 North Korean refugees are residing in South Korea. This is not a big group if one compares them with 670,000 defectors who fled from East Germany in 1961-1989. However, merely a decade ago, in 2000, the number of defectors barely exceeded 1,000. Few people doubt that the fate of refugees can help us to predict what will happen to Korea after its unification. Unfortunately, the recent news and statistics do not bode well for the future of a unified Korean state. Indeed, the recent reports confirm that refugees are by no means successful economically. In January 2010, a study, commissioned by a South Korean government agency, found that the unemployment rate among the defectors reached 14 percent. In a country where the average unemployment rate — at least by an official tally — is merely 2 percent, it is a staggering figure. Their income is not too high, either. In January 2010 an employed refugee made about 1.3 million won a month (barely more than $1,000) — roughly 50 percent of the nationwide average. Partially, it is a

Aug 29, 2010

Andrei Lankov

Hard lives of defectors

By Andrei Lankov Approximately 20,000 North Korean defectors are living in South Korea nowadays. Frankly, this number is not particularly large: in comparison some 689,000 East Germans defected to East Germany between 1961-1989, and the number of defectors/refugees from other Communist countries was also counted in the hundreds of thousands. North Korean refugees are very dissimilar from the refugees from Eastern Europe who crossed over to the western borders in large numbers during the Cold War. Until the mid-1990s escape from North Korea was almost impossible, but things changed when North Koreans began to move to China which became the major stopover for nearly all refugees. Now the community of illegal North Korean refugees in China is estimated to be around 30,000-40,000. These people are usually members of the underprivileged social groups who once lived in areas of North Korea which are close to the border with China. People of the borderland areas began to cross over to China in large numbers in the mid-1990s (an illegal crossing is not difficult since the bord

Aug 15, 2010By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Botched currency reform

By Andrei Lankov Korea Times columnist When last November North Korean authorities launched a currency reform, the journalists rushed to give their (almost uniformly negative) appraisals of this act. He rush is understandable: indeed, public needs fresh news. However, it usually takes months, if not years before the results of any major policy decision became obvious. Alas, by the time when unbiased appraisal becomes possible, few journalists are willing to re-visit the issue. It seems that the dust sort of settled down by now, so it is perhaps a time to discuss how the 2009 currency reform impacted the North Korean economy. The reform itself can be described as both usual and unusual. It was usual since similar reforms have been conducted by the North Korean government and, for that matter, other communist governments a number of times. The reform’s goal is simple: to reduce the amount of cash available and annihilate private savings which were created by the activities outside the officially sanctioned state economy. By doing so, the communist state rewarded its loyal w

Aug 1, 2010By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

Workers Party Conference

By Andrei Lankov Korea Times Columnist So, on June 26 the KCNA, the official North Korean wire agency reported that the ruling Korean Workers Party (KWP) is going to hold a Party Conference in Pyongyang this coming September. This is big news, since the conference itself is a very unusual event. Essentially, it is a downsized version of the Party Congress which is supposed to discuss urgent strategic issues. The last time a Party Conference was convened was in 1966, 44 years ago. Generally speaking, in the last few decades the North almost completely jettisoned even the vestiges of the formal quasi-democratic rituals which exist in other communist states. The party Congress, which is supposed to meet every five years, has not convened even once since 1980, and even the KWP Central Committee has not held formal meetings since 1993. There must be a mighty good reason to hold the conference now, and it is almost universally expected that it is for one purpose _ the appointment of Kim Jong-il's successor. The name of the successor has not been ma

Jul 4, 2010By Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov

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North’s party meeting — place for show

Huge gap between Koreas

Hard lives of defectors

Botched currency reform

Workers Party Conference

Top 5 stories

Andrei Lankov

Read more

North’s party meeting &#8212; place for show

Huge gap between Koreas

Hard lives of defectors

Botched currency reform

Workers Party Conference

Top 5 stories

North’s party meeting — place for show