Below is the full interview with Marcus Noland;

- Could you introduce your book briefly, including how long you spent collecting data, how many defectors you met and so on, and point out what you would like to highlight the most?

I first became interested in the issue of North Korean refugees during the 1990s while writing ¡°Avoiding the Apocalypse: the Future of the Two Koreas¡± (2000). Later, while chair of the research committee of the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, I commissioned and helped design a survey of refugees in China carried out by Professor Chang Yoonok in 2004-2005.

This work became the centerpiece of a report that Stephan Haggard and I edited for the Committee in 2006. Professor Chang¡¯s survey was really path-breaking, but by its nature limited: since the respondents were in effect illegal aliens facing forcible deportation to North Korea and an uncertain fate once repatriated, we could not administer as detailed of an interview as we would have liked.

Nevertheless, Professor Chang and her associates managed to interview more than 1,300 people. Haggard and I subsequently conducted a second survey in South Korea in November 2009. The survey was smaller (300 people) but in the more secure legal environment we were able to administer a longer and more nuanced questionnaire.

We were happy to see that our results from the South Korea interviews reconfirmed the earlier ones obtained in the China survey. The current book synthesizes all of this work.

We find that refugees suffer psychological trauma both from their experiences in North Korea as well as their experiences in China. The famine experience, in particular, continues to reverberate through North Korean society.

In terms of the economy, we find that marketization has been extensive. It has given rise to changing perceptions about the pathways to advancement in North Korean society. The market is seen as the best way to make money, but positions in the state and party are still prized, not out of patriotism but because they provide a platform for economic predation on the common people.

This leads to the third broad theme of the book, namely the state¡¯s criminalization of economic activities. Revisions in the North Korean legal code have greatly broadened the definition of economic crime. Roughly speaking we guess that about all non-elites violates some part of these strictures, making everyone a criminal.

The police are given extraordinary discretion with respect to who is arrested and incarcerate, and conditions in the detention facilities is horrific. This creates a perfect system for extracting bribes, since people will be willing to pay to insure that neither they nor their families become ensnared in the system. The penal system is not only fulfilling its traditional role as an instrument of political repression, it is a mechanism for extortion as well.

Finally, we find that people increasingly are consuming foreign news media and are increasingly disinclined to believe the regime¡¯s explanations which place the blame for all difficulties on hostile foreign forces. However, while discontent is widespread, North Korea remains an atomized society characterized by low levels of personal trust.

- What would you describe as the most remarkable changes in North Korean society you have seen during the 2000s?

Our surveys document just how quickly the old central planning system collapsed in the mid-1990s and how quickly markets developed to survey peoples¡¯ needs. One of the things that we find is that in the period since then, the government has shifted economic policy, most obviously in 2002 and 2005, but for many people these changes do not seem to have had a big impact on their lives.

In some sense, they have become detached from the state. They report growing corruption and inequality. Those respondents who formerly worked in government or party offices report increased corruption among their peers, and increased time devoted to ideological indoctrination. The central authorities seem to understand that they have been losing control of parts of the society, and much of the state¡¯s behavior since 2004 or 2005 seems to be aimed at re-asserting control.

- What about the currency redenomination?

Our surveys were carried out before the currency reform so we do not have any results that directly address that episode. However, our results indicate that people increasingly hold their own government, not foreign forces, responsible for their plight.

The currency reform was so obviously a self-inflicted disaster that I expect that it has reinforced this trend toward holding the government responsible for conditions. I should add that in association with the book we have launched a new blog, North Korea: Witness to Transformation, and I have put up a post demonstrating that food price inflation has accelerated dramatically in the aftermath of the currency reform. We also plan to discuss other issues including the security situation and succession in this blog.

- Have there been any clear changes to people¡¯s views of the outside world, or impacts on their society due to foreign waves coming in through the markets?

People increasingly consume news from foreign sources, mainly radio broadcasts. One of the things we find is that the inhibition against consuming foreign news has disappeared.

Many refugees who left the country in the 1990s indicated that they had access to foreign news sources but did not consume. This inhibition has disappeared.

And contrary to some claims, this is not purely an urban or youth phenomenon: in our survey the rate of consumption of foreign news is highest among middle aged people, and while the rate of penetration was higher in the urban areas in the 1990s, the rural areas have essentially caught up.

- There have been many attempts to resume the public distribution system and close down markets, such as banning the sale of rice (2005) and banning women under 49 years of age from selling goods in the markets (late 2007). Even though they all failed, what results remain?

The regime is in a constant war with human nature and the market. It attempts to suppress the market but does not have the capacity to replace the market¡¯s function in society, so is forced to compromise or retreat.

However repeated attempts to suppress the market have the effect of disrupting people¡¯s lives. This interference with people¡¯s ability to provide for themselves and their families is a bigger source of tension between common people and the state than political ideology.

- Regarding punishment, when people are arrested for economic reasons, what kinds of punishment do they receive?

Historically, North Korea had detention facilities comparable to felony prisons and misdemeanor jails similar to that in other countries, as well as long-term political prisons on the Soviet model. What is new is the class of institutions, labor training centers, which arose out of the famine experience and were subsequently institutionalized in the North Korean legal code.

These are where most people accused of low level economic crimes are sent. We find that while the rates of abuse are not as high in these institutions as say the felony prisons or political prison camps, once one takes into account the generally shorter periods of incarceration (typically weeks or months), the likelihood of witnessing abuses such as prisoners being beaten to death is really quite high.

The extraordinary discretion that police are given in terms of detaining people (13% reported having received a trial or formal legal proceeding) and the high rates of abuse means that people are willing to pay bribes to stay out of jail.

We find that people engaged in market activities have a 50% higher likelihood of being arrested. Not surprisingly, people also report rising levels of corruption.

- If the people, apart from and hostile to the regime, conduct market activities but cannot yet lead the North Korean regime and society to change, what do you think would be needed to develop the power to exact fundamental change in the regime?

The final chapter of our book goes into some detail on what we could be doing to improve the situation in North Korea. We divide up the policy recommendations into those addressing the refugee issue and those concerning the broader issues of human rights and humanitarian concerns in North Korea.

We further divide the policies into those which require the involvement of the North Korean government and those that can be undertaken without the North Korean government¡¯s assent. There are no easy answers or quick solutions.

But one thing that we can do is promote initiatives that will constrain the unaccountability of the North Korean government. The situation in North Korea is bad because the government is fundamentally unaccountable to the people.

From the outside, it would be difficult for us to make the government more accountable, but we can contribute to an environment in which people have a better understanding of their situation and the costs that the regime¡¯s behavior places on them.

In the simplest terms this means bringing information to North Korea.

- Bribery has become a form of social system all over North Korea. It is now one way for some people to earn a living. Can it also shake the political system?

The impact of bribery is ambivalent. On the one hand, it acts as a kind of safety valve: the state does not have to fully pay its officials if they get some income through irregular methods. However, it also risks creating a divergence between the parochial interests of local officials and the political goals of central decision-makers.

Refugee flows are an example. The central authorities may want to end cross-border migration, but if local officials are making money off of this activity they may turn a blind eye toward it, or otherwise implement their responsibilities in a less than rigorous fashion. In the end the central authorities risk degrading their very instruments of control.

The government appears to be aware of this possibility, hence the recurrent anti-corruption drives.

- The market system, which has developed spontaneously according to the people¡¯s needs, is a huge dilemma for the North Korean regime. How do you think a regime led by Kim Jong Il or Jong Eun will deal with the market system in the future?

The state appears to want economic modernization on its own terms, which is to say under its control. Right now this can be scene clearly with respect to cross-border trade with China. The regime wants to have trade with China, but it does not want it carried out in a decentralized fashion by entities which it does not control directly.

Rather it wants this trade to be conducted by entities under control by the center. The state is clearly uncomfortable with free markets and from their perspective rightfully so: Our research suggests that those involved in market activities are 50% more likely to be arrested; have distinctly negative views of the regime; and perhaps most importantly, are more likely to communicate these dissenting views to others.

In this sense the state is right to fear the market which is emerging as a semi-autonomous zone of social communication, and potentially, political organizing, offering an alternative pathway to wealth, status, and potentially political power, independent of the regime.

- It is obvious that once people experience freedom, it is almost impossible for them to return to the past. In terms of political belief, people have left the leader's side, his family and communist revolution far behind. In this situation, the regime seems to be sticking to restrictions, controls, the Kim family idea and such things. It is a completely contradictory situation. Now, as Kim Jong Eun¡¯s turn comes, it appears clear that the situation will get worse. What do you expect to see in Kim Jong Eun¡¯s future and that of his system? Does this situation link to the collapse of the regime? How do you see the future of the succession system?

One of the things that we asked respondents in the survey conducted in South Korea was what they wanted for the country. They overwhelmingly support unification. There is little support for ¡°third way¡± type solutions such as North Korea remaining independent but with a different kind of government, and almost no support for the status quo.

Although there is no way to verify these claims, the respondents indicate that these views are shared by friends and family remaining in North Korea. Whoever inherits power from Kim Jong Il will face a very difficult situation.