Chaos Conquers North Korea
I had really wanted to publish a Q&A with Professor Andrei Lankov this morning, but since Yahoo’s e-mail service has gone from bad to worse, it’s simply not possible for me to even open up my e-mail to pull up his responses. So spread the word: Yahoo! mail stinks.
Meanwhile, there’s a wave of fresh evidence, most of it via the Daily NK, to support Lankov’s thesis that North Korea can’t control the spread of chaos or the erosion of its economy and society. Now, those trends appear to be accelerating.
Earlier this year, we read about severe floods that are said to have flooded 15-20% of North Korea’s cropland and caused massive damage and loss of life. The floods affected a belt of land approximately South of the red line on this map (click for full size). Note that because the farm land in that part of North Korea is its most productive, the actual crop losses are probably much more than 15-20%.
The floods may also be having a spillover effect in other regions of the country, particularly the barren Northeast, which has always depended on other areas for its food supplies. The Daily NK, in the context of a story on the spread of child sexual exploitation in the North, also reports that the food situation in the northeastern regions is worsening. You will recall that the transporation system and food supplies in those areas were already tenuous before the floods, that the electrical supply has been disrupted by possible sabotage, and that several outbreaks of disease have been reported there in recent years.
In North Hamkyung province, the civilians are lacking three crucial necessities: rice, water and electricity. “Due to the paralysis of transportation methods in North Hamkyung, they are not even able to receive the minimum supply for flood victims. Other regions are able to receive the partial amount of the supply for flood victims given by the South, but North Hamkyung is suffering the most out of all provinces.
This report seems to indicate (seems, because it’s not that well translated) that authorities in Chongjin have tried to reassert control over food supplies and supply rations to some of the more vulnerable people — which is obviously a good thing — but at the expense of market-traded food supplies that fed a lot more people. On top of it all, Sinuiju has lost its water and power supplies, meaning that every part of North Korea is now undergoing some kind of disaster.
There has been a continuance of water shortage in Shinuiju since July. The newsletter stated that, “There has not been a single drop of water in the entire city of Shinuiju. Only after September 9 were the civilians able to receive some tap water, but the tap water supply only runs from 3:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. for one hour.
“The people in Shinuiju are not able to go to sleep because they are waiting to receive the water. The electricity is provided for five hours each day, but due to the low electric pressure, they are not even able to use the water pump.
Finally, this report claims that students in North Korea’s technical college have also lost their rations; at the time of the report, many hadn’t eaten for 10 days. Even North Korea’s public education system, which had been one of its rare successes, is dissolving as hungry kids skip school.
This is the strongest collection of evidence of a reemerging food crisis since the end of the Great Famine. This time, we could actually prevent the next one — even in the “closed” counties (see map) where international food distribution was never previously allowed.
If Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard are right about the regime’s dire economic condition — and no one knows more about the North Korean economy than they do — an offer by the international community to create an independent network to distribute food to the people would be an offer Kim Jong Il couldn’t refuse. And since that’s been an elemental part of how humanitarian relief has been conducted everywhere on earth in recent decades, it doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable demand. It might be the closest North Korea will ever get to a “soft” landing.
Just imagine the nightmare that reconstructing this broken country will be. There will be a tremendous temptation to invite the Chinese in to help, which will naturally translate to overpowering Chinese influence on the far northern regions, possibly even “occupation zones.” If we’re to prevent that, we need to be prepared to fly humanitarian relief supplies into the North, although I emphatically believe that all of the armed forces that protect them should be South Korean.
One of the reasons why I support non-permissive engagement with the North Korean people — broadcasting; smuggling in newspapers, leaflets, books, VHS tapes, radios, cell phones; building connections between organized exile groups and discontented North Koreans — is that the system is changing, for better or for worse. Unquestionably, post-revolutionary North Korea will be a chaotic place with hideous social problems. To some degree, we can mitigate that chaos and shape a better future for Korea by building the foundations of a civil society now. The way we could begin to do that is to begin explaining ideas like pluralism, democracy, economic freedom, and tolerance to its people now.
See also:
* It looks like Comrade Chung is moving toward capturing the leftist UNDP’s nomination for president. At this rate, he’ll be nominated just after Lee Myung-Bak’s inauguration, which would suit me fine.
* Did North Korea just admit to having a uranium program … again? I’d like to see whether they’ll show us the centrifuges.
8 Responses
-
Pingback: DPRK Forum » A dry run across the DMZ
Funny, on the 2nd map, the red areas are in proximity of the gulags…
Tuesday Morning Greetings Joshua Stanton,
Must express here my continued appreciation for all that you and your fellow Korea “bloggers” do to keep a close eye on the situation in the realm of the Kim family regime. On the surface, a dictator always appears invincible until his last five minutes. Yet due to the persistent efforts such as yours, those who have the conscience and are blessed with the means, can prepare for the challenging tasks of spiritual and material assistance to the people in the north once the scourge of the Kim family regime has been lifted from their brows.
Rambling along, I note that I have long kept an eye on Chung Dong-young, as he impresses me the same as a peripheral figure named Daniel Ortega caught my attention when, in the war of many parties against the Somoza regime in Nicaragua in 1979, mainstream media attention was focused on the romantic figure of Comandante Zero.
Chung was much on my mind in my several discussions with youthful Koreans about the appropriate Korean response to the hostage crisis in Afghanistan; my views then could be put on a sign in my very limited Korean as follows:
ì´ìˆœì‹ …대조ì˜
í•œêµëŒ€ìž¥ë¶€ 몇 시쯤 ì„œì‹œê² ì–´ìš”?
넘겨씩사람 몇 시쯤 ì•‰ì‹œê² ì–´ìš”?
ë…¸ë¬´í˜„â€¦ì •ë™ì˜
If as I expect, the political “left” in free Korea for the December elections coalesces around “comrade” Chung, there may be a spiritual moment of truth in the Korean political process. It would be well if during the campaign and later, the “post-386” generation in Korea, while still venerating learning, finds a much more skeptical attitude toward the university (liberal arts and social sciences) professoriate and the attitudes that they breed. As for the “386 generation”, it is hard to imagine they will change the basis of their secular “religion†until they have had their noses (physically?) rubbed in Camp 22 and other such locales.
I would add “information†to “chaos†as the bringers of regime change in North Korea and liken the increase of both to the way winters erode rocks over time; water getting in the cracks and slowly breaking small pieces away as it freezes and expands over and over again.
Clearly the lack of food distribution and basic services and the dramatic increase in bribery and lawlessness – which in turn has an incestuous relationship with outside information coming across the border and airwaves – has altered the way average North Koreans now view their leadership; with much less respect.
I don’t see any soft landing options for North Korea.
I also cannot imagine a soft landing situation. There are so many things working against it – from the personality cult to the increasing harshness of the rule over the last couple of decades – to especially the mind-boggling deprivation they have suffered since losing the Soviet-funded welfare system.
The regime – and those small percentages of the society it has needed to maintain control – cannot survive reform. They have good reason to fear massive slaughter once the people rise up in sufficient numbers to crumble the regime. They will hold on as long as they can having painted themselves into a no-win corner.
And it is no-win.
No matter how much aid we give them, we will never give them enough, given their inability to reform, to keep them away from collapse forever. Maybe it will be the death of Kim Jong Il that sparks the revolution. Maybe it will be the intolerable recurrence of abnormal living conditions and borderline starvation or starvation. Maybe it will be one too many crack downs.
At some point, the scale will tip too far to be reversed —- even by massive international intervention, and the regime will go down.
As One Free Korea notes, we can work to influence how it goes down. For example, we can try to prep the people, and any leaders we can identify for afterward, on the idea that America and Western-influenced society is not pure evil – so they will not be so resistant to help when the end comes and we start helping build a new beginning…..
But, the end will come. The international community can only help delay that end – and help continue the suffering —- but the collapse will come.
That is why I support both prepping the people for that end and helping bring it about through subversion. Let’s get it done before another two or three generations have to suffer living in hell.
(I also noted that these reports give me hope my prediction NK would not live to see 2009 could turn out correct. The flip-flop in the Bush policy gave me grave doubts about it……but maybe it is already too late…..)
Some people helped me out by googling for the NK collapse prediction.
At least for the first time that page from Oct 2006 showed up on my top site traffic count.
http://usinkorea.org/blog1/?p=200
I noticed near the end I must have been feeling very brave, because I said NK would make the run toward collapse within 12 months (and thus the 2 year mark I started with would have to be the completely gone one).
I doubt collapse will start in fast motion by Oct…..
But I have renewed confidence the collapse is more than a real possibility by the 2009 point (or there abouts….)