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Perils in the Workers' Paradise

By Bruce Klingner, Asia Times

All is not well in the Workers' Paradise. This has been said many times before about North Korea, and the regime has endured, but this time the problems may be getting dramatically worse. Accounts say European policymakers are preparing for abrupt change in the country. Japanese intelligence sees growing signs of social disorder and warns of feud or confrontation arising from a succession struggle. Economic reforms exacerbate divisions and nasty posters and leaflets are increasingly appearing.

North Korea, however, has weathered political cataclysms before, and its neighbors want stability, not chaos on the Korean Peninsula. To this end there are reports, difficult to confirm, that Chinese troops have moved to the border to prevent a destabilizing exodus of refugees from North Korea into China.

Political soothsayers are debating whether 2005 will finally mark the turning point for the North Korean regime as it is faces a seemingly perfect storm of growing political instability and concerted US efforts to increase pressure on the government.
South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young predicted that during the coming "crossroads" year, "we can either find a breakthrough in resolving the matter or we can face a crisis situation". A confluence of reports suggesting that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's grip on power is weakening and, therefore, he may be more vulnerable to outside pressure have raised the fondest hopes and, concurrently, the worst nightmares of policymakers, but these are more likely projections of wishing thinking.

 
To paraphrase Mark Twain, past reports of Kim's death (or political demise) have often been greatly exaggerated. Longtime Korea watchers will remember a decade of cyclical predictions of impending North Korean implosion due to similar reports of senior-level purges, acts of disrespect to the leadership, and attempted assassinations and coups.
As for efforts to ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang, Washington will face significant obstacles from regional actors who are wary of raising tension on the peninsula as long as diplomatic efforts appear to provide a potential resolution. The US would then face the decision of whether to pursue unilateral regime-change action, but it is likely be less willing to do so in light of its current difficulties in Iraq.

 
Indications of instability, this time for real? Recent breathless reports on the removal of some of Kim Jong-il's official portraits from alongside his father's, North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, were initially interpreted as harbingers of a loss of power to rivals, or even manifestations of a successful assassination. Subsequent commentaries indicated that the portrait removals were merely part of a campaign initiated by Kim in 2003 to reduce the foreign perception of his excessive personality cult. Kim's images were only removed from venues for meetings with foreign delegations, but not from their ubiquitous positions elsewhere in the country.

Suggestions of an ongoing dynastic power struggle among Kim's potential heirs were prevalent in December. While traveling in Austria, Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-il's eldest son and potential heir, was rumored to be the target of an assassination plot by supporters of Kim's other sons, although local authorities denied this. Kim Jong-nam has been considered a long shot to succeed his father, since he was deported from Japan in 2001 for attempting to enter the country illegally on a false Dominican Republic passport. Kim Jong-il is rumored to have been so angered by the embarrassing fallout from the incident that he banished Jong-nam from North Korea, and Kim fils has been living in Beijing.

Another rumored attack occurred in September on Kim Kyong-hee, Kim Jong-il's sister and the wife of Chang Song-taek, who himself was purged earlier in 2004 along with 80 other officials. South Korean intelligence officials testified that Chang was removed and possibly placed under house arrest for attempting to create an alternative faction within the military. Chang's sin, however, may have been abusing his power through excessive money-making endeavors, as in July 1997 when he was investigated, falling from Kim Jong-il's favor only to be subsequently rehabilitated. Chang had been similarly demoted in the late 1970s to become secretary of a steel works in Nampo, but later returned to power.

The extent of the perceived instability in the country has been exemplified by media accounts that European policymakers have been advised to prepare contingency plans for "sudden change" in North Korea. the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency has assessed growing signs of "social disorder" in North Korea, due to increasing access by the citizens to outside information, as well as exacerbated class divisions brought on by economic reforms. The Japanese agency also warned of a potential "feud or confrontation" arising from a succession struggle.
Rounding out the rumors were media stories of posters and leaflets critical of the regime, 130 North Korean generals having defected to China, and reports of Chinese troops moving to the border in preparation for a potential refugee exodus triggered by a regime collapse, all of which also have been previously reported in recent years.

 
Denials from both Koreas The two Koreas reacted to the rumors by appearing to be competing with each other in more strongly denying the possibility of instability in the North. Pyongyang's official media apparently felt it necessary to respond by asserting that the regime was "politically stable and is as firm as a rock" and denouncing the rumors as part of an "undisguised [US] psychological operation aimed at a regime change".

Perhaps exploiting the rumors for diplomatic leverage, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) warned that the country was "compelled to seriously reconsider its participation in the talks with the US", as a way of attempting to blame Washington for the stalled six-way talks aimed at defusing Pyongyang's nuclear program.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun repeatedly emphasized that "there's almost no possibility of North Korea collapsing [because] China supports North Korea and because we [South Korea] don't want it to collapse". He blamed the United States and other Western nations for predicting collapse as a major reason for Pyongyang feeling a "greater sense of insecurity and crisis" - and thus prolonging the nuclear impasse.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young declared early this month that South Korea had "no hostile intention" toward the North and promised that Seoul wouldn't allow future mass defections of North Korean refugees, such as the 468 airlifted from Southeast Asia in July, since Pyongyang might feel "threatened" by another such incident.

Outside players have great impact on Korea A critical factor affecting events in North Korea will be the future direction taken by the administration of US President George W Bush and the extent to which it pushes for change in Pyongyang's behavior. US Ambassador to Seoul Christopher Hill told reporters that the US remains "100% behind the goal [of] a negotiated, diplomatic solution" to the North Korean nuclear issue; at the same time he warned that, "without putting a deadline on it, I think it's fair to say that time is not limitless". The ambassador explained that the US sought "regime transformation" in North Korea, defined as "a sense of progression in the North's behavior", such as the dismantling of its nuclear-weapons programs.

 
South Korea, however, has made clear its disapproval of even this moderated US concept of regime transformation. Unification Minister Chung highlighted the policy divergence between the two allies, asserting that "external pressures have no effect on North Korea's regime". Chung articulated Seoul's advocacy of a "spontaneous" transformation at a pace to be determined by Pyongyang and asserted that Seoul has "no leverage" over the North.

Another factor impacting the peninsular situation will be the growing exasperation of Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the United Nations Security Council's timidity in addressing North Korea's continuing non-compliance with Non-Proliferation Treaty inspection requirements. He commented early this month that the crisis caused by Pyongyang's refusal to abandon its nuclear-weapons ambitions is "getting worse". ElBaradei emphasized, "This has been a pending issue for 12 years ... and we need to address the whole question and bring it to a resolution. I would certainly hope that by the end of the year we should be there."

 
Iran's actions with regards to its nuclear-weapons program will influence global perceptions of the viability of negotiations to constrain the behavior of rogue nations. Analysts debate whether the Libyan model, in which Tripoli voluntarily gave up its nascent nuclear program, reflects the successful application of diplomacy or of escalating pressure and threat of force.
Pyongyang has displayed remarkable abilities to withstand international pressure over the years and one could argue that it was the United States that recently blinked first, having diluted its previous insistence on "no concessions" and "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement" by proposing a three-month "preparatory period" for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs, along with proffered incentives.

 
Despite widespread perceptions that the US will lose patience and ratchet up tension on North Korea, with potentially dire consequences, it is possible that the political landscape at the end of 2005 will be remarkably similar to the current state of affairs, with analysts pondering how North Korea miraculously muddled through yet another year in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Bruce Klingner is director of analysis for Intellibridge Corp in Washington, DC. His areas of expertise are strategic national security, political and military affairs in China, Northeast Asia, Korea and Japan.