Latest Prediction of North Korean Perestroika Ends Badly
Ah, North Korea’s perestroika movement. I remember it like it was three months ago:
Other symbols of Western capitalism are sprouting up — including a beer commercial on state TV and a convenience store that reportedly was visited in April by leader Kim Jong Il. [MSNBC, July 20, 2009]
Predictions of North Korea’s imminent reform are as frequent and as unrealized as predictions of North Korea’s imminent collapse. I’m still betting that the latter will precede the former. I’m also betting that collapse (more likely, in the form of a coup or other dramatic internal power shift) will be catalyzed by the development of a clandestine market economy that’s necessarily dependent on widespread official corruption, in spite of the regime’s best efforts to crush it.
For most, however, the reaction was a big “WTF,” a contrast between the cost of a bottle and an average North Korean’s monthly salary, and a contrast to the hunger that prevails in most of North Korea beyond the limits of Pyongyang. One site even went to the trouble of talking to actual North Koreans to get their impressions.
Those few who really did see the appearance of commercials on North Korean television as (a) significant, and (b) encouraging have been duly proven wrong, as all believers in North Korean perestroika eventually are:
Mr. Kim “was enraged,” according to a source quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap TV network, when he saw the North’s network broadcasting commercials for state enterprises ““ and wanted to know where they came from.
Kim said he believed the commercials “were the prototype of China’s early reforms,” said the source, and feared they might lead to Chinese-style capitalism. His remarks seemed to indicate his deep suspicion of the type of reforms carried out by China in recent years as the Communist giant shifts toward capitalism.
Among the commercials that reportedly upset the North Korean leader was one for a beer with the brand name of Taedonggang, meaning the Taedong River, which runs through the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Appropriately, the commercials featured frothy mugs of the brew, hailed as “the Pride of Pyongyang. [Christian Science Monitor, Don Kirk]
As always, there are questions that I wish at least one reporter would have asked. Where do you suppose North Korea got the rice and barley, which seem to be in such short supply? And what do you suppose happened to the leftover mash?