State security agents in the North Korean city of Rason recently discussed South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s debt-relief program during a political lecture. While the lecture aimed to highlight problems with Lee’s program, North Koreans in the audience responded with surprising envy.
A source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK recently that Rason’s state security department held a lecture about South Korean politics in early July for state security officers, trade officials and their families.
The lecturer explained that newly inaugurated South Korean President Lee Jae-myung wants to establish a large-scale debt forgiveness program that would buy up and cancel loans of up to 50 million South Korean won that have been overdue for seven or more years.
The lecturer said the new government’s first supplementary budget—which includes this debt relief program—passed the National Assembly on July 4 and noted that the program covers around 1.13 million people, including foreign nationals.
The lecturer then quoted members of South Korea’s main opposition People Power Party who argued that the program creates moral hazard and is unfair to those who responsibly paid off their debts.
But what shocked attendees most was the simple fact that the South Korean government was canceling bad debt.
“Is Korea actually a capitalist country?” one person asked after the lecture.
“We took on debt when the border closed during the pandemic, but our socialist government says personal debts are personal responsibilities,” another commented.
“This is what a real socialist state should do,” the family member of one trade official reportedly said, adding that “our state doesn’t actually take care of people.”
The lecturer’s attempt to criticize Seoul by highlighting flaws in Lee’s program only sparked admiration and envy for South Korea among the state security agents, trade officials and family members in the audience, the source said.
“One person admitted that for the first time, they felt jealous of South Korea—North Korea’s greatest enemy. Another complained that North Korea makes everyone take responsibility for their debts while South Korea is out there writing off people’s debts,” the source said.
The Rason state security department organized the lecture to gauge what comparisons North Koreans might make with the new South Korean administration’s stimulus program. The conclusion was that more comparisons with South Korea could lead to ideological problems and that future lectures would need extra explanations and ongoing monitoring.
The state security department paid special attention to the pro-South Korean capitalist sentiments expressed by trade officials and their families. Officials decided that such preferences go beyond mere curiosity and could threaten the regime, concluding they need to keep working to counter them.
