Open Sources, April 10, 2014

~   1   ~

YONGBYON JUST KEEPS GETTING SCARIER: OFK readers will remember the day the North Koreans blew up the cooling tower of their 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon to feign compliance with George W. Bush’s Agreed Framework 2.0. This was the modest pinnacle of Chris Hill’s diplomatic career, and came even as North Korea was submitting false declarations about its nuclear programs, denying the existence of a (since revealed) uranium enrichment program, and submitting samples of aluminum tubing and documents that were smeared with … enriched uranium.

(Meanwhile, as North Korea was reneging, Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, allowed a shipment of North Korean tanks to land in Ethiopia in violation of UNSCR 1718, did nothing about the revelation that North Korea built a nuclear reactor in Syria, and — most distressingly of all — lifted the potentially crippling financial pressure on North Korea’s accounts at Banco Delta Asia.)

At the time, a debate waged about whether the cooling tower was even essential to the operation of Yongbyon or whether its destruction was mere media theater. Later, during the Obama Administration, the North Koreans resolved that debate by laying down a network of underground pipes as an alternative cooling system, connecting it to a nearby river, and restarting the reactor.

Unfortunately, last summer, the river flooded and moved eastward, away from the intake and outlet for this system. Writing at 38 North, Nick Hansen warns of a significant risk that flooding could block — or cause the river to bypass — the system, which would probably cause the reactor’s graphite core to catch fire before the North Koreans could shut it down. Yongbyon is a small reactor, so this wouldn’t be a Chernobyl-scale disaster, but it’s safe to say that North Korea’s response to it would be inept, secretive, and almost certain to make the worst of things.

It’s an interesting post, well worth reading in full. I’ve found that a good rule to follow with 38 North is to read everything that comes with satellite imagery, and nothing that comes without it.

~   2   ~

DEFECTION NUMBERS RISE despite an ongoing border crackdown. The rise is modest:

Statistics released by the Ministry of Unification today have revealed a total of 360 North Korean defectors entered South Korea during the first quarter of 2014; 153 in January, 111 in February and 96 in March. While the figure is a slight increase from previous years, it would be premature to assume a rise in defector numbers across the board, a ministry official said. [Daily NK]

It will be interesting to see now many of the newer arrivals are from the Inner Party, and what they have to say about the mood in Pyongyang since the Great Purge.

~   3   ~

SERIOUSLY? The Japanese managed to persuade President Obama to make a three-day state visit to Tokyo, yet he’s only going to make an overnight stop in Seoul? That’s not going to endear him to the Korean Street. I can understand the importance of highlighting our friendship with Japan when it’s under threat from China, but isn’t it just as important to demonstrate our friendship with South Korea when North Korea is invading its airspace with UAVs and threatening to test another nuke?

~   4   ~

THE ROOF OF ONE OF KIM JONG UN’s palaces has caved in. As my grandmother would have said, “nebach.”

~   5   ~

NK NEWS HAS ASSEMBLED a panel of North Korean refugees, who offer their predictions about the length of Kim Jong Un’s rule.

~   6   ~

ANDREI LANKOV THINKS the era of “dangerous” dissent may have begun in North Korea. I don’t agree with much of Andrei’s analysis — in particular, I think this era has begun to a greater extent that Andrei does, and has waxed and waned with the circumstances, and the analogy between the U.S.S.R. and North Korea is a bad fit. It’s still interesting reading.

~   7   ~

KAESONG UPDATE: Say, do you ever get the idea that North Korea doesn’t share South Korea’s vision of Kaesong as a globally interconnected capitalist megaplex sprawling across the Workers’ Paradise, tempting hundreds of thousands of North Koreans with the lure of blue jeans, toilet paper, and ChocoPies? No?

~   8   ~

REGULAR READERS KNOW THAT I’M UNIMPRESSED by most foreign “engagement” projects inside North Korea. Few of them offer any real potential to trigger significant social or political change in North Korea, and nearly all of which provide significant hard currency to the regime, thus helping to pay for the secret police, propaganda apparatus, cell phone trackers, barbed wire, and other tools that help keep non-elite North Koreans isolated, ignorant, and hungry.

The one “engagement” project about which I’ve reserved some ambivalence is Koryolink, the cell phone venture of the Egyptian conglomerate Orascom. I can’t weigh the costs and benefits of the program unless I know how Pyongyang uses the money it earns from the venture, but cell phones certainly are a potential tool of inter-city communication, and it seems unlikely that the regime can monitor all of the calls. No, I don’t believe Koryolink really has 2 million subscribers — that would be about 10% of the total population — but even so, how can the regime prevent them from being used for subversive talk? An illuminating report from the VOA provides some answers, including the fact that the minutes cost so much that many subscribers carry their phones as status symbols, but can seldom afford to use them.

There are no signs that North Korea introduced cell phones as a means of reforming or opening up to the outside world. On the contrary, Pyongyang appears to be using the wide distribution of mobile phones to maintain and solidify its stability. One defector explained, “It is stupid to criticize the regime on the cell phone, which does more harm than good, when the call rate is exorbitant.”

It isn’t just the money factor, though, that is stopping cell phone users from actually using the handsets for communication. Authorities monitor all text messages, along with location data in real-time. Voice calls are recorded, transcribed, and stored for three years according to a former North Korean security agent. Also, there are no international calls allowed, and Internet access is banned for all but the ruling elite.

He told VOA that security guards often stop and question cell phone users on the street to search for any “politically inappropriate” content on their phones, especially South Korean soap dramas. An officer can confiscate a phone on the spot at his discretion. [VOA]

And if things get edgy enough in Pyongyang, you can be sure there’s a kill switch for the whole system. Even so, traders still manage to use them to exchange price information or arrange transactions, and trade is what’s feeding most North Koreans today.

~   9   ~

OH REALLY? KOREANS ARE OFFENDED when Japanese put up “Japanese only” signs? You know what? I totally understand how that sort of thing would offend someone.

It’s enough to make you wonder why South Korean troops are still defending them. Oh, wait.