Compared with the late Kim
Jong Il era, the current North Korean regime is not in an antagonistic relationship with the country’s market economy. Kim Jong Eun and his close advisors appear to have concluded that markets and marketization are a necessary evil, at least for the time being.
As a result, relations
between and among state- and military-run enterprises and market economic actors are becoming more
diverse and embedded all the time. In today’s changing situation, it is important to access more information.
On June 9th,
Daily NK interviewed Sogang University researcher Dr. Kwak In Ok. Dr. Kwak’s published research focuses on marketization in and around Hoeryong in North Hamkyung
Province, and includes interviews with more than 300 former North Korean citizens
now living in South Korea.
Below is an abridged transcript of the interview.
Is there a particular reason why you opted to study Hoeryong?
The simple reason why I chose Hoeryong
was because there are an unusually large number of people in the defector community
who hail from that area. But also, I thought it would be most appropriate to start with
the North Korea-China borderland and then take the research agenda inland.
You conducted interviews with 300 defectors in the course of the
research. That’s impressive, but there are always going to be people who raise concerns over trust.
If the North were not
closed, it would be essential to physically go there and conduct field
research. But it is not, and defector experiences are our second-best option. I conducted interviews with defectors in groups of ten to achieve a higher degree of reliability, and cross-referenced the findings with spatial images using Google Earth.
Yet the work may still be lacking in some areas; I embrace comment on that and am
keen to talk about it.
It seems that varied forms of close relations are being established between North Korean markets and state-run enterprises.
Currently, around 30%
of the goods that Hoeryong-based state enterprises produce go to the market, and that
constitutes their income. Also, there are joint ventures with Chinese firms for the purpose of selling in North Korean markets. Marketization
has become an unstoppable phenomenon, one that the state is incapable of halting. If one place were forced to close, another place would spring up.
As markets play a core role in
network formation, it seems logical to assume that information
is also flowing more freely now.
Anything can be shared between traders, as long as it is not about Kim Jong
Eun or the Kim family line. The state does try to shut out information about the South, but this is not simple, not least since it was actually their own upper class that first encountered South Korean culture and started to spread it around.
What are the links between cellular communications and marketization?
When there were only fixed line phones, market
economic activities were more complicated. But now, cellphones are being used to
build effective communications networks, and information about regional market conditions is being shared alongside product prices and exchange rates. Cellular phones are a
networking tool, one that links up all the markets in North Korea.
What was impossible in the past is reality now.
What is your view of the Kim Jong Eun regime’s active attempts to improve livelihoods, for instance through the so-called “June 28th Directive”?
Kim’s recent movements reaffirm the point that North Korea’s planned
economy has completely failed. He knows that any economic plan of that nature would
render development impossible, so he seems to be establishing a full market
economy in exclusionary industrial zones here and there, and a controlled market
economy in other areas.
Ultimately, this ought to be seen as Kim Jong Eun seeking alternative
means of pursuing economic development and improvement. It is encouraging, and
if it continues I expect marketization to keep going. Kim Jong Eun
should appreciate that “economic development outside the ideological frame” is the only way for his regime to survive. Our government (South Korea) should prepare to help this movement
in North Korea.
