The South Korean government’s pursuance of economic cooperation with North Korea have basis on the following logics.

One, as long as Kim Jong Il maintains control, collapse of the North Korean regime or democratization in North Korea will not take place. Two, even if the North Korean regime collapses, the kind of political, military, and economic chaos it may cause will bring tremendous sufferings to the North Korean people. Three, it is only through liberalization and reformation that North Korea can fundamentally solve its problems. Four, there is a high possibility of North Korean liberalization and reformation. These reasonings may seem practical and logical, yet they have critical errors.

Is the Present North Korean Regime Stable?

Many experts on North Korea predicted that North Korea will collapse within few years after the Eastern European socialist countries collapsed in 1989. Many others predicted the same for North Korea after the death of Kim Il Sung. However, the North Korean regime did not collapse and now only few people believe in the collapse of the North Korean regime at an early stage.

Actually, when the Eastern European socialist countries collapsed in 1989 in a chain reaction, the possibility of the regime collapse in North Korea was very low. There were relatively less elements for collapse inside North Korea compared to Eastern European countries. North Korea was geographically and sentimentally too far away to be directly influenced by those countries. Furthermore, North Korea had been an extremely closed society that it unlikely to be impacted by happenings occurring in Europe. Although the international communist movement was long ago declining, by 1989, both China and North Korea were already disinterested in the “international communist movement” or “international alliance of the communists.” The collapse of the communists in another continent far away from their territory was not of their concern. Of course, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as the leaders of the nation, might have felt anxious. Especially the miserable end of Rumanian regime under Nicolae Ceausescu, who learned methods of dictatorship from Kim Il Sung, would have been a shock for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. However, the people, from the average citizens to the Party cadres, did not know what kind of politics or regime strategy Rumania had. There was no reason why it should be affected by Rumania’s situation.

In 1994 when Kim Il Sung died, North Korea was already under the control of Kim Jong Il, thus the possibility of sudden chaos in North Korea was unlikely, despite the absence of Kim Il Sung. Those who asserted that North Korean regime will soon collapse were only unaware of such basic facts.

However, the food crisis was somewhat different. The food situation in North Korea started to deteriorate in the late 1980s, worsened entering the 1990s, and reached a critical point between 1995 and 1998. Millions of people died of starvation. Due to this horrendous reality, most of the control system in North Korea started to collapse. For decades, the people of North Korea did not enjoy freedom of mobility (even within the nation) but during the food crisis, it was impossible for the government to control all the people wandering in search for food. Furthermore, the government also started to have difficulties in controlling the border. Whereas before, the few “border transgressors” were severely tortured or executed, now that there were so many crossing the river between North Korea and China, the border became no longer controllable. The number of people who crossed over to China either in secret or by bribing, have reached up to one million, but the government still fails to control the border.

Corruption is another one of the serious problems in North Korea. Corruption used to be already widely prevailing in North Korea before, but it was relatively better compared to other third world countries with similar economic level. However, after the food crisis, the belief of “money is all” spread among the people regardless of the strata and from lowest class to the government officials, everyone practiced corruption. Ways were created for the people to get away from wrongdoings if they could bribe, and from small things such as having travel permission issued to the big problems such as having people released from prison, money could make all things possible. Meanwhile, it quickly created a society where people could not do much without money. Now North Korea has become one of the most corrupted states in the world.

Furthermore, in the past, private businesses were strictly prohibited but after the food crisis and collapse of the food distribution system, the government had no control over the emergence of underground or half-underground markets. Although law prohibited it, private businesses openly emerged and prospered in many places.

Meanwhile, status of the government workers including police (security officials), bureaucrats, government institutions of different levels and the Party organs of different levels fell down to the bottom for they started to receive criticisms for doing nothing but squeezing money out of the people. Now there are people who openly criticize police in North Korea, which was unimaginable in the past.

Furthermore, people from outside were astonished to see the North Korean people outraged during the soccer match (of which North Korea was very proud to organize and participate) on March 30, 2005 between North Korea and Iran. We, the foreigners, were only familiar with the North Korean people moving like machines under the government orders at least in the public scenes. However, on that day we saw North Korean people throwing things, even pulling out the seats from benches and throwing them into the stadium. The outrage continued despite the police restrained it. It was a truly surprising evidence of the fact that the former North Korean system is collapsing in mass scale.

Such changes in North Korea were not intentionally made by Kim Jong Il, but emerged from the food crisis. Kim Jong Il’s passive and defensive regime is incapable of controlling the current social changes.

Changes in the control system of North Korea do not mean the collapse of the regime. As Mao Zedong said - “Power comes from the gun” - power has a close relationship with the military force. As long as Kim Jong Il has control over the military, the collapse of the regime will not take place easily. However, Kim Jong Il’s military is not made of selected people; they were drafted from the mass population (5% of the total population). Furthermore, the military is involved in many areas of the society including construction, farming, business, and policing, thus they naturally keep a close contact with the civilians of whom they are affined to. With such kin relationship between the people and military, the status of military in the long run does not differ much from that of the civilians. For this reason, it will be difficult to maintain a society that has already turned anti-regime, with only the military force.

Kim Jong Il witnessed that during the collapse of the Eastern European socialist countries, communist ideology or the communist party had little power to help a government in trouble. Especially for the case of Rumania, Kim Jong Il may have learned the importance of the military control. He may have also learned that once people are let loose, it becomes harder to control the society. Therefore in many parts of the society, Kim Jong Il controlled and pressured people more and further strengthened his military dictatorship. The Worker’s Party became second to the military and the status of the communist ideology or even the Juche ideology fell down lower and lower.

Although this kind of control strategy by Kim Jong Il was effective for a significant period of time, it also faced the problem of which if the system starts to collapse, it will not be able to stop this process by relying on the Party structure or ideology.

There is more than little possibility that the collapse of the North Korean regime occurs in non-political areas first, just like the outrage at the soccer stadium. There is a possibility that Kim Jong Il feels threatened by the popular movement and as he increases the level of oppression, people respond with opposition to the regime. On the other hand, there is also a possibility that he ignores the people while the (negative) sentiment spreads among the people. Because the North Korean people still have fear toward the political sectors, the possibility of start (of people’s outrage) first in non-political area is higher. On the other hand, a political incident as an igniter for a popular outrage is still a possibility.

Furthermore, as many experts prospect, death of Kim Jong Il can also bring a sudden change in North Korea. As mentioned before, currently in North Korea, the entire system has been collapsing thus the regime is maintained with fear and violence. The creation of fear and violence is done entirely by the regime structured centering Kim Jong Il, but if he disappears, the power structure is unlikely to be sustained only with the Worker’s Party. Furthermore because the military has asymmetrical power, there is no other organ that could control the military, especially because there is no leader that could replace Kim Jong Il, thus there is a high possibility that his death brings an extreme chaos.

Anti-regime phenomenon is not widely spread in North Korea. The North Korean society has very little possibility of overthrowing the regime by a gradual spread of anti-regime movement. The collapse of the North Korean regime is unlikely to occur very suddenly.

Those who think there is very little possibility for the collapse of the North Korean regime, blindfold their eyes from seeing the changes occurred inside North Korea for the past decade. They only remember the failure of the experts’ prediction for its collapse between 1989 and 1994. The people who predicted the regime collapse between 1989 and 1994 made an error, by making a prediction out of generalization without sufficiently studying in details the reality of the internal situations of North Korea. Similarly, it is also an error to believe that because the previous predictions failed, it will fail again this time.

The following is an organized list of the important changes occurred in North Korea in the past ten years.

One, the state is controlled centering the military, and became a military dictatorship.
Two, power and status of the Worker’s Party weakened within the nation compared to that of the military, thus its role is limited for the regime maintenance. Kim Jong Il tends to command the military personally rather than through the Party.
Three, blurred ideology. The role of the communist ideology for the maintenance of the regime or the state is limited and the importance of Juche ideology has also contracted.
Four, decrease of people’s allegiance to the Party and the national leaders. These days, even the defectors who have recently defected easily talk negatively about the Party, government and Kim Jong Il.
Five, due to the widespread practice of corruption, most of the government departments function abnormally and the people’s outcry about the government officials’ corrupted activities is heightening.
Six, state control over the people’s economic activities; daily and personal activities has significantly decreased.
Seven, outside information is flowing into the North Korean society and is spreading throughout the country.

Evaluating the current situation, if a crack is made in any part of the North Korean society, there is almost no safety net North Korea can rely on to overcome the breakage. The only safety net could be the military, but with the given characteristics of the military, especially that soldiers are generally drafted in mass number, the military is incapable of confronting the people for a long time.

The North Korean regime is now taking its last breath. Although it would be inappropriate to say that the North Korean regime will collapse immediately since there is no evident movement that threatens the regime, it is foreseen that there is a 50~60% possibility of collapse within five years, and a 80~90% within ten years.

If North Korea is to last more than five years, its economy could be better or worse than now, but its politics will be on the verge of death.

Is Chinese Style Liberalization Possible for North Korea?

In fact, the question of whether the current regime can survive or not comes down to whether or not Chinese style economic liberalization and reformation could succeed in North Korea. Many people believed that similar kind of economic development is possible in North Korea, which has been shown in North Koreans’ efforts for realization of price and wage, legalization of private business, family centered farming, and construction of Kaesung Complex. However, it seems that the reason why they believe Chinese style economic liberalization and reformation is possible is because they do not see that there is the big difference between present North Korea and China of the 1970s.

First of all, let’s look into the liberalization and reformation of China more in detail.
It has been 27 years since China actively pursued liberalization and reformation. The three people who led the Chinese liberalization and reformation in the first ten years or so were Deng Xiao Ping, Hu Yanobang, and Zaozyang, who recently passed away.

China’s liberalization and reformation was a great shock for the world. At the time, the communist movement was in trouble around the world. Although Russia and Eastern European countries were officially communist states, people were much disinterested in the communist ideology. On the other hand, the percentile of the population eager for communist ideology in China were relatively much higher compared to Russia or Eastern European countries, in fact, China had 90% of the total number of the communists in the world at the time. Not only that, (although later it was proved that it was nothing more than a mere power struggle), decision for economic liberalization was only few years after the Cultural Revolution, which is well-known to be very intense ideological struggle. It was shocking that such a country was moving ahead for liberalization and reformation.

In fact, Chinese liberalization and reformation was an unprecedented incident at the time and it required a very revolutionary contemplation. At the time, Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito tried something a little different than communist practices but there was no attempt to fully accept market economy (by communist countries). Not only was it the first attempt, but it was a shocking idea that had its basis on a very creative thought - coexistence of communist rule and market economy. At the time, the core of the communism was perceived as “communist dictatorship, planned economy, and nationalization.” These three were seen as inseparable. However, under the condition of maintaining the communist ruling, planned economy was to be changed to market economy, and some fundamental changes were to be done about nationalization, but this was something not to be easily accepted in the logics at the time.

Actually, the outside world did not even understand what “liberalization and reformation” really meant. In fact, some people understood it as something similar to the plot that removed Khrushchev from office in 1964 in Soviet Union.
It was in 1993, 15 years after China started liberalization and reformation, that the world started to believe that such an idea had some truth in it and that there was a high possibility for success.

There are many people who think Chinese liberalization and reformation in a simple manner and believe any country can successfully open up like China. However, this is a misunderstanding. From the end of 1970s, there were about 50 to 60 communist or quasi-communist countries (mostly African communist states), but only China and Vietnam succeeded in liberalization and reformation. There are states that collapsed in the process of or for denying liberalization, some pursued liberalization for many years but failed to make any progress, and others still tried to keep the regime closed. In any case, if we look at the results only, Chinese style liberalization and reformation is a very difficult task, which requires a healthy political stability and a capable leadership for its success.

Chinese liberalization and reformation succeeded under the following conditions.
First, the condition that communism and international communist dignity preside. In other words, the nation was in a condition where it would less be affected by political and ideological influences.

Second was the high status of the Chinese Communists. Although the Chinese communists experienced a great amount of difficulties and defamation during the Cultural Revolution, it still held a significant degree of dignity.

Third was the atmosphere which allowed things to be determined and decided (and decisions to be respected once they were made) by the Chinese Communist Party. Although the politics seemed to be in confusion, there seemed to be a strong sentiment that if there was any decision made by the Communist Party, it must be supported and followed. If such sentiment had not existed, then it would have been difficult to object and overrule the arguments of Premier of the People’s Republic of China and chairman of the Communist Party of China Hua Guofeng during the Party Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

In fact, Hua Guofeng also contributed to Chinese liberalization and reformation. After Mao Zedong died, he made a decision to agree to get rid of the Gang of Four, thus he indirectly contributed to the first step China was making towards its political development. Furthermore, even the Party Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to take the path of liberalization and reformation and after his line failed, Hua Guofeng did not make any conspiracy as Mao Zedong or the Gang of Four did although he could have. Instead, he admitted his defeat and accepted the power shift of the nation and the Party. He was much younger than Deng Xiao Ping and had relatively much less experience in politics. While Deng Xiao Ping held important positions in the Communist Party since his twenties and worked as one of the core members of the Party for fifty years, it was only for a few years that Hua Guofeng enjoyed the position as one of its core members. While Deng Xiao Ping had an expansive basis (connections) among the Communist Party cadres, Hua Guofeng had a rather weak basis. For this reason some people say that Hua Guofeng’s failure was somewhat an expected result. However, Hua Guofeng was the person who held the positions of Nation’s President and Chief of the Party. Although he could have easily justified an unfair competition by limiting the others’ words, or by limiting the main middle status cadres on Deng Xiao Ping’s side to win the decision in his favor, he did not use any of such vulgar methods. Even after the decision of the Party Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was made, it was still possible for him to make the decision an illegitimate one or make those who opposed him to fall into difficult situations, but he did not. Rather, he contributed stable management of the Communist Party and the state in the difficult times, so ultimately he contributed to China’s liberalization and reformation. This could be possible thanks to Hua Guofeng’s noble character, but it was also a demonstration of the general mood in China, that the Party’s decisions must be followed and that one must be loyal to the Party.

Fourth, moral superiority of the leaders of the liberalization and reformation. The biggest Achilles’ heel in the Chinese modern history is the Cultural Revolution. As an indirect consequence of the Cultural Revolution, as many people as thirty million died in cruelty and a wide range of people especially political cadres, economic cadres, and cultural cadres were persecuted so they could not fulfill their roles. Most of the businesses did not function properly and the entire national economy was in chaos, which caused a huge economic digression. Schools of all levels closed down for a long time and created a big intelligence gap. The biggest error of the modern Chinese history and the Chinese Communist Party is the Cultural Revolution. However, the leaders who led liberalization and reformation, Deng Xiao Ping, Hu Yaobang, and Zaozyang, were not responsible for the revolution, actually they were the ones persecuted during the incident. This kind of moral superiority became an important stimulant for the pursuance of the liberalization and reformation.

Fifth, international environment was favorable to China. At the end of the 70s, as part of the intention to isolate the Soviet Union, the US put much effort to bring China to the Western side and many of the Western countries agreed to such American policy. Much of the western press wrote positive aspects about China, while China did not make hostile statements to the Western countries. The Western countries incorporated China into the international foreign relations with privileges. Meanwhile they did not pressure China to hasten its liberalization process. It was eleven years later, after the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 that the Western countries started to pressure China.

Although there are still some differences, the process in Vietnam was more or less the same. Vietnam’s liberalization had basis on the victory of a long war, which also created a high sense of dignity and power that drove liberalization and reformation, and this may be principally different from the Chinese case, but the two cases are fundamentally similar.
However, the case for present North Korea is completely different.

First of all, now, the international communist movement is completely collapsed and the communist ideology is unwelcome everywhere in the world. Even in China, the people interested in the communist ideology do not constitute more than 1% of the population. There is little possibility that North Korea could be sustained by the communist ideology or the power and dignity of the international communist movement.

Second of all, authority of the Worker’s Party diminished so significantly that it is incapable to lead the liberalization and reformation of North Korea. Kim Jong Il has long been working ignoring the Party structure and the cadres had to be more concerned about the mood of Kim Jong Il rather than about the decision made by the Party. Such a practice has now become a habit and because the people blame the Party for the food crisis, human rights abuses and corruption, there is no justification for the Party to hold much authority. Even if the Party tried to gain some authority back from the communist ideology or the Juche ieology, this is also impossible because nobody in North Korea is interested in ideologies. Therefore, even now, the Party is incapable to play an important role, and for it to replace Kim Jong Il, in case of his death, would be more difficult. This is a big difference between North Korea and China, where in China the Communist Party’s decision played definite role in leading China to liberalization and reformation.

Third, Kim Jong Il has moral defects. Kim Jong Il does not have anything to be proud of, but on the contrary he is mainly responsible for severe economic crisis, human rights violations, and wide practice of corruption. Yet, he is well known for his complex relationships with women, and mass amount of seizure of national fund. Furthermore, if the luxurious life of Kim Jong Il and his family is revealed, North Korea’s political stability would no longer be possible. The truth about Kim Jong Il’s personal life has been revealed by his entourage including Lee Han Young (Kim Jong Il’s wife’s nephew), Sung Hye Rang (Kim Jong Il’s sister in law), Fujimoto Kenji(Kim Jong Il’s former cook), and Lee Young Kook, (Kim Jong Il’s former bodyguard). Even from the North Korean society, that is so extremely closed, information about Kim Jong Il flows out. If North Korea attempts liberalization and reformation, information flow would be fast and will spread expansively. As it was in China in the 1980s, demand for information will be so high and expansive in North Korea that stopping information flow merely by punishing people would be extremely difficult. A lot of information which circulated underground in China during the 1980s contained negative messages about Mao Zedong but was favorable to the government of the time. This may have been because negative statements about Mao Zedong were prohibited and thus were controlled, so information circulation did not affect political stability. However, underground information flow in North Korea mainly consists of negative information about Kim Jong Il. Even if Kim Jong Il realizes the seriousness of the problem and tries to stop the liberalization process, the information flow will not stop. Once information flow trespasses certain level, artificial efforts to stop will not work. It will have its own driving force. Especially in a country like North Korea where much of the government structure has collapsed, controlling information flow will be almost impossible.

Fourth, the current international environment is not favorable to North Korea. Most of the people in the world think North Korea as one of the poorest under-developed countries, ruled by a tyranny and where a lot of human rights violations occur. There is no reason for the countries of the world to give advantages or privileges to North Korea; on the contrary they have more reason to pressure North Korea. From the North Korean perspective the only reliable tools it has are the Chinese assistance and the nuclear but these two can always become a boomerang. Although currently the international society is easing on the North Korean nuclear problem, it could always turn into a reason to pressure North Korea or even to attack North Korea. China is currently supporting North Korea, but it feels less and less responsible. If China believes North Korea must have its regime changed, China could be the most dangerous enemy of the Kim Jong Il regime.

Fifth, the biggest difference between China and North Korea is the existence of South Korea. Although China has Taiwan, with only 1/58 of the population and 1/265 of its territory, Taiwan is incomparable to the mainland China. Furthermore, since not many supported Kuomindang before it escaped to Taiwan, the existence of Taiwan is not a threat to the mainland China. This is an entirely different problem from how people think about communism or the communist party. Even if people hated communism or the communist party, they do not think Taiwan or Kuomindang as their alternative. Actually, for Taiwan, mainland China is a threat. However, for North Korea, the situation is very different. South Korean territory is insignificantly smaller but possesses the double of North Korean population. Furthermore, although the figure may differ depending on how the GDP is calculated, South Korea has a 30 times to 100 times bigger economy than North Korea. Furthermore, in the human rights aspect, South Korea is in much superior position than North Korea. Although people say gap between the people of the North and the South grew larger, because Koreans altogether have high desire for unification, North Korea will be greatly affected by the influence of South Korea. Once the people start to think of South Korea as an alternative, as more and more the South and the North are compared, dissatisfaction among the North Korean people could be developed into a major political instability.

As I have explained so far, even if liberalization and reformation in China was successful, it does not mean that following the same footsteps could lead all the other nations to the same success, and it would be especially difficult for North Korea. Since Kim Jong Il holds all authority and power in his hand, deciding to pursue liberalization and reformation would not be a difficult step. Hawkish wing, conservative wing, liberal wing, and progressive wing are mere words without any significance. Anything could be done with one word from Kim Jong Il’s mouth and there is nobody to oppose him. Therefore making a decision to open up could be easier than in any other country. However the possibility for success is extremely low. Actually, it would be more correct say to that success is impossible. After pursuing liberalization and reformation for a few years, the percentage of working factories will be more than 20% of its previous record and as factories normalize and China and South Korea assist North Korea, the economic situation in North Korea will be improved. However, as the political instability amounts, whether it chooses to stop liberalization process or continue to proceed, the North Korean regime is destined to collapse.

Will Collapse of the Regime Only Mean Sufferings to the North Korean People?

Collapse of the North Korean regime could lead to a civil war. The main force that withholds the North Korean regime - the military - could be broken apart in the process of power struggle or it could be divided into the military that support the old powers and the military that desire revolution, so different kinds of civil war are possible. Furthermore, the small territory, unfortunately, has concentrated number of trained military and excess amount of weapons. In such a condition, if the nation is driven by a messy civil war, the situation can quickly get out of control and cause death of a huge number of military and civilians in a very short period of time.

If a civil war does not take place, then because serious human rights took place and every level of the society was tightly controlled for such a long time, every village, every factory would have its own grudge. In this kind of situation, if the political situation does not recover quickly, revenge and repulsion will be repeated over and over in an evil cycle, and cause numerous casualties.

Furthermore, during a few years of political chaos, it could also have difficult economic situation.

However, this is almost inevitable. Considering the current North Korean situation, whether the international society wants it or not, there is more possibility for its early landing than delayed landing.

Some people argue nuclear pressure, pressure for human rights, democratization movement, and missionary activities are preventing North Korea’s late landing, but this is nonsense. The reason why late landing is difficult for North Korea is due to the weakening of the Kim Jong Il regime, not the outside pressure.

What the outside world can do once the North Korean regime collapses is assisting it to quickly recover, so it will not create further casualties. It could recover its economy by investing and sending economic aid. Under the current North Korean regime, sending economic assistance is possible but it only extends the life of the Kim Jong Il regime, which is ultimately adding on the sufferings of the North Korean people. Due to the corruption in the system, the effect of the amount will be less than half of the half the amount of the aid sent. Therefore, under the current regime, humanitarian aid apart from food aid such as economic aid could have more negative effect than positive effect in North Korea.

Collapse of the North Korean regime will happen even if we ignored it and simply waited, but ignoring the neighbor’s extreme suffering would be betrayal of our moral obligation. Rightful political practice made the modern human history mentally prosperous and it became the important mental basis of the developments followed. At the end of the Japanese colonial period, there were less than 100 million Koreans all around the world and they did little for the surrender of Japan. However, their existence became an important mental nutrition for the future development. It is the same thing with North Korea. If we watch the North Korean people going through horrendous sufferings but ignoring the Kim Jong Il dictatorship, and simply wait the regime to collapse naturally without doing anything, we will later suffer for decades to come out of guilt and sense of lack of morality. Even if it is only few hundred people, if we devote ourselves for the liberation of North Korea, this effort will become an important mental and political asset for all of us.