Authors: Andrei Lankov
This was quite remarkable. Three previous launches (1998, 2006, 2009) of long-range missiles had all ended in failure as well, but the North Korean authorities had officially insisted that the 1998 and 2009 launches were both successes, while the attempted 2006 launch was never mentioned in the North Korean media. By openly admitting this time that the satellite did not reach the orbit, Kim Jong Un took an unprecedented step—in effect acknowledging that technical failures are possible even in his country, blessed with Juche science though it is.
The real changes, however, could only be observed somewhat later, in summer. In July 2012, Kim Jong Un came to the concert of a newly established pop music group named Moranbong (which is also the name of a very famous scenic hill park in downtown Pyongyang). The official media reported that the group would greatly contribute to the “further development and construction in People’s Korea.” Well, perhaps, but the group’s first concert was rather unlike anything North Korea has ever seen. To start with, the female performers who comprised the group were dressed rather risqué by North Korean standards. The music performed included the theme from the Hollywood movie
Rocky
and a song by Frank Sinatra. While this music was being performed, actors dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and Tigger, too (to quote A. A. Milne) were on the stage. Disney lawyers even felt obliged to release a statement soon afterward confirming that they had not been involved nor received prior permission for the concert.
There was no doubt that this display of cuddly creatures on national TV was supposed to be a media event. Kim Jong Un himself was present, and his august presence left little doubt that this combination of risqué dress
and American pop cultural icons had his unconditional approval. Up until now, America has been presented as a source of capitalist decadence, lust, and sleaze, with its popular culture vilified as an embodiment of abnormal and immoral qualities.
Admittedly, icons of Disney cartoons are by no means unknown to many North Koreans living in major cities. They are often present on kids’ apparel and toys imported from China and sold in the marketplace. But there is a difference between tolerating the presence of Mickey “imperialist” Mouse on personal property and promoting him to stardom via national TV.
Kim Jong Un was not alone at the concert. He was accompanied by a mysterious, beautiful woman, dressed impeccably in black. Soon after, the same woman would be seen on a number of other public occasions by the side of the Supreme Leader. Many Pyongyang watchers began to speculate about who she was, the vast majority quickly concluding that she was likely to be Kim’s wife. Speculation was not to last long, however, as North Korean media soon explained who she was. Her name was Ri Sol Ju and Kim Jong Un had indeed married her. She has subsequently accompanied her husband quite a few times, talking to kids in a kindergarten, greeting generals at a military meeting, riding a roller coaster, and enjoying the company of a young seal in Pyongyang Zoo (often sporting the latest Dior bag).
By North Korean standards this is all but unprecedented. Kim Il Sung’s first wife Kim Jong Suk was eventually made into a major object of personality cult, but she was completely unknown in her lifetime. His second wife would enjoy a brief spell of political prominence and perhaps had major political ambitions in the 1970s, but she would soon fade into obscurity and would only appear in public when her husband met visiting foreign dignitaries who happened to come to North Korea with their spouses. Kim Jong Il was even more strict in this regard, so none of his numerous wives and live-in girlfriends ever appeared in public in that role. His last mistress, Kim Ok, occasionally accompanied him during overseas trips, but her true identity was never admitted and she was officially just a member of the delegation.
Both the open endorsement of Western pop culture and the willingness to show off his beautiful wife might be attributable to Kim Jong Un’s less than advanced age, as well as his desire to make his country into a less boring place. After all, he had just recently been a Swiss schoolboy, an admirer of gadgets and pop music. However, these actions also indicate that he is at least willing to experiment with new ideas and challenge the existing norms of public behavior.
It has subsequently become clear that Kim Jong Un does not merely want to change cultural and symbolic things alone. On July 17, the first visible crack appeared in the seemingly cohesive North Korean elite. On that day, at a special meeting of the Politburo, Vice Marshal Lee Yong Ho, a member of the de facto regency trio, was suddenly ousted from all his official posts. The official explanation was health problems, but almost nobody took this seriously. Lee Yong Ho’s removal was probably another sign of the ongoing rise of party apparatchiks and industrial managers who are pushing aside the generals. Some of these people are probably more inclined to experiment than are the top brass in the military.
Around the same time, reports about changes in agricultural management began to appear. From the little that is known about the new agricultural policies it appears that these reforms are relatively piecemeal if compared to Chinese reforms of the 1980s, but quite similar to the initial experiments that took place in the late 1970s. Under the system that is to be implemented in a small number of trial areas, farmers will be permitted to dispose of (at market price) all that they produce in excess of government quotas. Concurrently, rumors about imminent changes in industrial management began to circulate as well.
Does this mean that Kim Jong Un is inclined to steer North Korea toward Chinese-style reforms? It is of course too early to say for certain, but it seems that the young dictator wants to run things somewhat differently. He wants to break with at least some of the established traditions of his father’s regime. He seemingly does not share the fear his father and his father’s advisers had about the likely political consequences of reform.
Of course, this does not mean that these fears were and are unfounded and paranoid. On the contrary, it might be that the behavior of a former
pupil at a Swiss private school is indeed reckless and dangerously adventurous (if judged from the elite point of view). It is too early to say whether Kim Jong Un will be able to proceed with more changes (even though it seems likely) and whether his desire for change will be translated into a comprehensive reformist strategy. Opponents of reform may succeed in removing him from power or persuade him that, in the peculiar case of North Korea, reforms are too risky (as reforms indeed seem to be). And, of course, if young Kim succeeds in thwarting the opposition, he will still have to face the forces his policy will unleash. His well-experienced and street-smart father avoided changes because he believed that such forces would be too powerful to control. It remains to be seen whether much younger Kim Jong Un, who probably learned a significant part of his politics from computer games, will be able to control these forces of popular discontent and escalating political expectations.
Be that as it may, the second succession in North Korea is sure to bring us more surprises than the first did in 1994.
T
HE
C
ITY OF
M
ONUMENTS
Pyongyang is usually presented as an ancient city. And this, in a sense, is really the case. The area has been the site of a major settlement for nearly two millennia. However, the present Pyongyang was built almost from scratch in the mid-1950s.
This was largely the result of a major US bombing campaign that reached its height in 1952. The US command had hoped to bomb the North Korean government into submission, and by the end of the war, some 90 percent of the city ceased to exist and most of its population had fled to the countryside.
Reconstruction began in the 1950s. From the very beginning, the new government wanted to build an exemplary Communist city free from reactionary traces of the feudal and imperialist past (Kim Il Sung was quite explicit when he said, “There were many defects in Pyongyang because it was built in an uncultured and lopsided way, under Japanese imperial rule”). The skyline that emerged owed much to the late Stalin’s Soviet
Union. Indeed, many parts of the 1950s and 1960s Pyongyang look exactly like a Soviet provincial city of the same period. At the time, many important positions in the construction industry were occupied by Soviet Koreans who would later be purged and accused of “wrecking.”
The center of 1960s Pyongyang was called Stalin Street (eventually renamed Victory Street). However, a new round of major construction began in Pyongyang in the 1970s. This was a time when most of the major landmarks of modern North Korea were erected. On the hill overlooking the Taedong River, a great statue of Kim Il Sung was erected. Behind that, the museum of Korean Revolution was built. Not far from there one could see the Mansudae Theater, where the exemplary revolutionary operas were performed in the 1970s. The large central square, predictably named after Kim Il Sung, was topped off with a mammoth People’s Study House. Most of these structures broke with earlier Soviet heritage and were built in a mock traditional style (but still with a touch of characteristic megalomania).
On the opposite side of the Taedong River, a Tower to the Juche Idea was erected in 1982. The general shape of the Chuch’e Tower duplicates that of the Washington monument in the US capital, but exceeds it in size. The tower is 150 meters high and is crowned with a 20-meter-high torch that is illuminated at night. The tower includes 25,550 granite blocks—one for each day Kim Il Sung had lived by the time the monument was unveiled.
And of course there were a great many high-rise apartment buildings constructed in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of these high-rise quarters are actually off-limits for normal Pyongyangites, including a large district near the 35-story Koryo Hotel. This is where Central Committee officials live behind high fences.
However, contrary to what a short-term visitor might think, the majority of Pyongyangites do not live in these apartments. One merely has to go to the Juche Tower in order to get a real idea about how the living quarters of Pyongyang are structured. With the exception of government residence areas, multistory apartment buildings serve as screens that stand on the perimeter of districts, inside of which one can see clusters of
humble traditional dwellings that are not so different from village houses. On the outskirts of the city, no one bothered to try to disguise these houses and they are readily visible.
The construction boom ended abruptly in the late 1980s, when Soviet subsidies dried up. The sad, if somewhat comical, history of the Ryugyong Hotel is a reminder of it. This 110-story, as yet unfinished, hotel was meant to be the largest hotel in East Asia. Initially it was meant to be completed in 1989, but due to economic crisis, work stopped and for two decades the skyline of Pyongyang was dominated by a gigantic concrete pyramid (official photographers worked hard to make sure it was never seen in official photographs).
But very recently a new construction boom has begun in Pyongynag. New high-rise buildings and monuments started to appear after 2007, and even the ugly Ryugyong Hotel was finally glassed—thanks to a deal with an Egyptian mobile phone company. However, it remains to be seen whether the Ryugyong will ever be opened to the public. It might just be for show, like other things in Pyongyang.
The city of Pyongyang was built to be a visual representation of paradise as imagined by Kim Il Sung and his fellow guerrilla partisans. They have probably achieved what they wanted but one cannot be sure whether outsiders are sufficiently impressed by the results of their efforts.
The North Korean elite of today finds itself in a peculiar and unenviable position. It cannot reform itself because in a divided nation, Chinese-style reforms are likely to trigger regime collapse, which in turn will bring ruin to the current elite. North Korea is therefore stuck with an outdated economic system that cannot generate growth and sometimes cannot even provide for the sheer physical survival of the country’s population. Hence, the North Korean government has no choice but to seek outside aid just to stay afloat.
This is difficult, since such aid cannot be sought through the channels usually employed by poorer countries—that is, by lobbying international organizations and NGOs. “Normal” aid is not of help to North Korea’s rulers because such aid always comes with conditions that are seldom compatible with their policy goals.
North Korean leaders know that they are unlikely to attract enough aid on politically acceptable conditions if they follow the established explicit and implicit rules of aid-seeking. They have thus decided to bend the rules, playing a myriad of games and using a variety of tools to seek aid on their own terms. While the outside world tends to concentrate on the nuclear issue, one should not forget that while the nuclear card is the best known and most powerful of these diplomatic tools, it is by no means the only one. The diplomatic survival games are played by the North Korean regime with admirable skill, but also with remarkable disregard for humanitarian concerns.
A discussion of North Korea’s foreign policy should start with the nuclear issue, which has dominated all Western discourse about North Korea for two decades. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Gregory Schulte recently described this attitude as a “fixation with nuclear diplomacy.”
1
A Vietnamese diplomat, posted to the United States, once joked that he would have to work hard to explain to Americans that Vietnam is not a war. I’m not sure whether he’s succeeded as yet, but it’s certain that for the vast majority of Americans and Europeans, North Korea is a nuclear device.
This overemphasis on the nuclear issue has obscured the fact that for the North Korean leaders, the nuclear weapons program is not an end in itself but rather one of many strategies they use to achieve their overriding goal of regime survival. Like their unwillingness to reform themselves, their costly decision to go nuclear is anything but irrational. Instead, it is deeply related to the peculiarities of their domestic and international situation and unlikely to ever be reconsidered.