Authors: Andrei Lankov
Another possible trigger of the final crisis is the outbreak of serious factional infighting within the top leadership. This is the second scenario. Such an outbreak might take the form of a purge of prominent officials, or it might lead to an attempted coup (successful or not—does not really
matter). The probability of such a factional clash doesn’t appear to be high at the time of writing. Admittedly the international media loves to run stories about alleged factional infighting in Pyongyang, but these stories are based on hearsay.
Nonetheless, common sense suggests that factions are likely to exist, even though the North Korean leaders have understood the need to maintain unity and not to rock the boat. But nothing is eternal and the next generation of leaders might lack an understanding of how dangerous an open feud can become. Alternatively, a loser in a factional clash might decide to go down fighting and make the conflict quite public and even violent. Understandably, if a general believes that he will face an execution squad tomorrow, he is not going to care a great deal about the regime’s long-term stability. In another twist of the same scenario, some foreign power (in all probability, China—nobody else is in a position to stage such an operation) might decide to encourage a group of ambitious people to challenge the seemingly irrational old guard.
Whatever the reason, such an open clash might jeopardize the regime’s stability. The lack of unity at the top will be perceived as a sign of the elite’s inability to keep the situation under control. In this situation many people who would otherwise remain docile will start expressing their grievances—with predictably dangerous consequences for the regime’s future.
The third possible scenario of the endgame is a spontaneous outbreak of popular discontent—a local riot quickly developing into a nationwide revolutionary movement, somewhat similar to what we have seen in 2011 in the Arab world. A public suicide by an unsuccessful fruit peddler in a countryside Tunisian town sparked a revolt that in no time wiped out some Arab dictatorships and damaged others. The Ceausescu regime in Romania, arguably the most repressive of all the Communist regimes of the late 1980s in Eastern Europe, was doomed when the security police attempted to arrest a popular priest in the small town of Temisoara.
Nowadays, North Koreans appear to be too terrified, isolated, and distrustful of one another to emulate Tunisians of 2011 or Romanians of 1989. Nonetheless, the control is steadily getting weaker, the fear is diminishing, and the knowledge of available alternatives is spreading, so in the
long run (and we are talking long-term prospects here—the 2020s, perhaps), a similar scenario will not be impossible in North Korea.
The fourth scenario is a contagion of some unrest in China—the only country where an outbreak of civilian disobedience or a riot might produce some impact on North Korea. Right now the Chinese “developmental dictatorship” appears to be stable, but if a major challenge to the regime is going to arise there, it is likely to produce a deep impact on North Korea as well.
Of course the above-mentioned scenarios can combine, and the present author is not sufficiently vain to believe that he has listed all the possibilities in this short sketch. On top of that, neighboring powers might get entangled with such developments as well, even though at the current stage outside players would prefer to steer clear of North Korean perils. Nonetheless, one thing appears to be almost certain: due to the peculiarities of North Korea’s domestic and international situation, neither a gradual and manageable transformation of the regime nor its perpetual survival appears to be a likely outcome. Sooner or later, it will go down in crisis—in all probability, suddenly and, alas, violently.
There are at least two pieces of bad news that relate to the scenarios outlined above.
First, unfortunately for us outside observers, the above-listed scenarios imply that the warning time will be short or absent, so North Korea might look perfectly stable on one Monday morning only to become a chaotic mess by Friday afternoon. The only exception is a reformist scenario: it will probably take a few years before attempted benevolent reforms will turn ugly.
A second piece of bad news is that the coming collapse might become quite violent—there is little reason to expect a North Korean revolution to be “velvet.” The major factor is the difference between the interests of the ruling elite and a majority of the population. One might expect that in the event of a crisis a majority of common North Koreans will expect and demand unification with the prosperous and free South. They will probably act not so much due to their democratic or nationalist idealism (even though both are likely to be present), but out of material considerations.
Since the gap in living standards between South Korea and the North is at least the same as the current gap between the United States and Vietnam—and perhaps much larger—the pull of glittering South Korean prosperity will become irresistible. Common North Koreans will expect (wrongly) that in case of unification they will immediately enjoy a lifestyle equivalent to that of their southern brethren.
However, the North Korean elite is likely to have very different opinions about the subject. As has been mentioned above, these people understand that in case of the regime collapse they will not be able to maintain their privileges. Many of them are afraid that if unification happens they will be persecuted by the victorious southerners or perhaps even lynched by angry mobs of their own compatriots. These fears might be exaggerated but they’re not completely unfounded.
Therefore the elite might choose to fight, assuming that they will be fighting for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. The elite constitute only a small part of the population—if we include the security police, elite units of the military, and mid- to high-level party functionaries as well as their families, the total is likely to be one to two million people or some 5 to 7 percent of the entire population. However, these people know how to handle arms, have an organizational infrastructure, and, on balance, they are also better informed and have more social skills than humble commoners. There are also good reasons to suspect that they have already made some preparation for guerilla war, so a fair amount of arms are at their ready disposal (and they might make good use of the army arsenals as well).
The elite’s initial instinct will be to put down disturbances, slaughter the ringleaders, and attempt to restore what the Kim family regime defines as “law and order.” If unsuccessful, they will beg for Chinese help.
However, there is good news: the instability in North Korea, while highly probable in the long run, is unlikely to last for a long period of time. For a while the country might even look a bit like Somalia, where rival cliques
wage a violent struggle for the control over a few remaining objects of economic or strategic value. But even if that were to be North Korea’s fate, it would not last long.
North Korea is no Somalia. It is located in the middle of a highly developed region, while its small size and long coastline make projection of force much easier. It has considerable nuclear stockpiles and a large WMD arsenal that no major international player would like to see unattended. In other words, it seems that a major crisis in North Korea will be seen by the international community and nearby powers as a clear and present danger. So, an international or unilateral peacekeeping operation of some kind seems to be likely—even though currently none of the potential “pacifiers” is too happy about such a prospect.
In the current situation there are three possible scenarios for a peace-keeping operation in what is now North Korea. First, such an operation could be launched by South Korea unilaterally (probably with some US involvement). Secondly, a unilateral Chinese action is possible. Finally, a peacekeeping operation might be a joint international one, perhaps mandated by the UN.
Prospects for a unilateral South Korean operation is the first option that can be considered. Few people outside the Korean peninsula realize this, but from Seoul’s official point of view no North Korean state ever existed. According to Article 3 of the ROK Constitution, “the territory of the Republic of Korea shall consist of the Korean peninsula and its adjacent islands.” Therefore, the northern part of the Korean peninsula is legally the sovereign territory of ROK, with the DPRK (North Korea’s official name) a self-proclaimed entity. Officially, South Korea goes to great lengths to emphasize that North Korea is not actually another state, but merely a special region within the borders of ROK (North Korea does the same in regard to the South). Suffice it to say, even economic exchanges between the two Korean states are not officially described as “exports” and “imports”—a special word had to be coined, to emphasize that such exchanges are not, really, international in nature.
This sounds fine on paper, but it may become quite complex in practice—not least because the profound changes that have happened within the
South Korean society over the last decades. The South Korean public is still committed to unification, but this commitment is increasingly theoretical. There is little doubt that the South Korean public will approve a unilateral action if a mild and non violent “velvet revolution” erupts in Pyongyang, so the people of the North will welcome South Korean tanks waving ROK national flags and showering them with azaleas.
However, such a rosy outcome is unlikely to occur. South Korean forces might have to fight their way to Pyongyang against the determined resistance of the Kim loyalists. This will not look pretty, and taking into consideration the current mood in South Korean society, one cannot help but doubt whether a South Korean government will have the political will to dispatch troops to Pyongyang if the troops suffer significant casualties. The present author has privately asked a number of South Korean officials and military officers whether, in their opinion, a unilateral operation would be possible under such circumstances. Nearly all of them think that chances are relatively low.
Chinese unilateral intervention is another possible outcome of the likely crisis in North Korea. So far, Chinese policy on the Korean peninsula has been largely aimed at keeping the North afloat at a moderate cost. However, if the situation in the North were to destabilize, China would have to decide whether it is willing to get the North out of trouble by committing many more resources and perhaps even military force to this task. As we have said above, if a crisis were to occur, a very significant part of the current North Korean elite is bound to side with China, begging the Chinese government for help. They would much prefer a Chinese-controlled satellite regime to a unification under South Korean tutelage.
Will China listen to these demands? It is difficult to say now, since such a move could bring short-term benefits to Beijing, but in the longer run it will also produce manifold complications. Chinese intervention will restore law and order in North Korea, thus preventing a refugee crisis and greatly curtailing the likelihood of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation. It will also ensure that North Korea will continue to exist as a strategically useful buffer zone and that Chinese corporations will be able to maintain their privileged access to North Korea’s resources.
However, for China these geopolitical gains come with a large price tag. It was Chinese analysts themselves who, during private conversations with the present author, have explicitly described the possible sources of complications.
To start with, a Chinese takeover of the North and emergence of a Beijing-controlled regime there will produce a tidal wave of anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea. Even as the South Korean public demonstrate little actual enthusiasm for unification, they are still likely to be outraged by a Chinese intervention in the North. China may instantly become the major target of Korea’s nationalist passions and the ROK-US alliance will be strengthened dramatically.
Inside North Korea, nationalism will emerge as well. It is almost certain that a China-controlled satellite regime will embark on a path of market-orientated reforms. Being backed by Chinese subsidies (and Chinese tanks), such a regime can afford to take political risks that are prohibitively high for the present North Korean government. Reforms will likely lead to an economic revival of the country and a dramatic improvement of living standards of the North Korean population. Nonetheless, this new wealth and new individual freedoms—however considerable—will not transform the majority of North Koreans into supporters of the regime, let alone admirers of their Chinese overlords.
If anything, the Soviet experience in Eastern Europe serves as a good guide in this regard. In 1956 Soviet tanks crushed a popular rebellion and installed a pro-Soviet client regime in Hungary. This regime was more successful than anyone had anticipated and soon made Hungary, according to a popular joke of the time, “the merriest barrack of the Soviet camp.” Soviet subsidies played a major role in this consumerist boom, but this did not make either the Soviet Union or its Hungarian clients popular with the Hungarian people. Common Hungarians still despised their government and blamed the Russians for more or less everything that didn’t go right in Hungary. A similar, albeit less pronounced, picture could be found in other parts of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, and we have little reason to believe that Chinese intervention in North Korea will be any more popular (more so since the average North Korean will be looking to the free,
prosperous, and “purely national” South with admiration—and the gap between the two Koreas will remain huge for a couple of decades at least).
Last but not least, an open intervention into a North Korean domestic crisis will deliver a blow to the myth of a “peaceful rise of China” that plays such an important role in Beijing’s global image-building efforts. All of China’s neighbors will be very concerned by the news about Chinese intervention, since they will see themselves as possible next victims of China’s rediscovered “imperial ambitions.” This will lead many of them to improve their relations with the United States. They will take measures to ensure that the Chinese will not have leverage over their domestic political situations. Needless to say, Beijing will not welcome these developments.