CINA

본문

NYT, March 28, 2005

North Korea Experiments, With China as Its Model

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

 

ANDONG, China - At night, the view from the upper floor of a hotel looking out across the Yalu River toward the North Korean city of Sinuiju seems one of utter desolation. Three naked bulbs twinkling feebly is all that can be seen along a several-miles arc of riverfront.

By day, though, the scene at the border in this bustling Chinese city could scarcely be more different. Trucks steadily lumber across the bridge linking the countries, ferrying North Korean raw materials into China and Chinese manufactured goods to market in North Korea.

Westerners have long taken the nighttime view as the truest reflection of North Korea, a country all but frozen in time, its leaders so obsessed with control that they do not countenance contact with the outside world. The view from China, though, in cities like this, where small groups of North Koreans can be found in the downtown shops and hotels, scouring the city for bargains, is of a country already well into an experiment, however uncertain, aimed at rebuilding its economy and even opening up, ever so gingerly, to the outside world.

North Koreans who have recently arrived in China, and Chinese businessmen who have extensive experience in North Korea, speak of significant changes in the economic life in a country with a reputation as one of the most closed and regimented.

They say the changes, which were officially started in 2002 and have gradually gained momentum, have undone many of the most basic tenets of North Korea's Communist system, where private commerce was banned, private property circumscribed, and an all-powerful state the universal employer and provider.

Now in ways that many Chinese say remind them of their own early economic reforms a quarter century ago, North Korean farmers are allowed to take over fallow land and plant it for their own profit, selling their products in markets.

"It seems they are learning from the Chinese model of the 1980's, giving land to farmers and not allowing people to depend on the central government for everything," said Yu Zhongde, a Chinese businessman whose company operates bus routes in North Korea. "The rate of change is speeding up, and the aspiration for wealth among the people is really growing."

In the cities, Mr. Yu and others say, the changes have been even more noticeable, with people being allowed to trade goods for profit in newly created public markets, including 38 in the capital, Pyongyang. These days, traders sell everything from clothing and bicycles to televisions and refrigerators, mostly imported from China.

Private automobile ownership is still not permitted, but people reported seeing signs advertising used cars for sale in Pyongyang, nonetheless. Here and there, others also report the opening of small restaurants and karaoke bars.

"The standard of living is improving, not just in Pyongyang, but throughout the country," said another Chinese businessman who has been a frequent visitor to the country since 1997. "Nowadays, if you have money you can buy whatever you want. The problem is that most people still don't have much money."

Similar comments about the recent availability of goods were repeated in numerous interviews with North Koreans who had illegally slipped across the porous border, taking a risk in hopes of earning some money in China and buying goods to carry back and sell.

The difference in the remarks of Chinese business people and the North Koreans is one of tone, with the North Koreans almost universally asserting that life has gotten tougher, not better, since the introduction of the economic changes.

"The government has no money, and everything has become much more expensive," said a woman from the northeastern city of Chongjin, who sneaked into China three months ago. "Many people steal things to survive."

People from the countryside said farmers had tended to do better than city residents under the economic changes. "You can find anything you want in the markets now, but the prices are too high for us to afford them," said one 50-year-old woman from a village in the Musan region, near the Chinese border. "Farming for ourselves, though, made us better off than people in the towns. At least we always had enough to eat."

Deok Ryong Yoon, an economist at the South Korean Institute for International Economic Policy, acknowledged the growing social disparity. "The market has become the main mechanism for the North Korean economy, and they are trying to use the market to rehabilitate their economy," he said. "The changes have increased net production in North Korea. They have more goods and seem to be benefiting from the reforms, but distribution is very unequal."

North Korean officials have used the state's propaganda machine to spread the new market-economy gospel, including quotes from the supreme leader, Kim Jong Il. They began with an article attributed to Mr. Kim published in the state press in 2001 under the headline "Gigantic Change," in which he called for making "constant efforts to renew the landscape to replace the one which was formed in the past, to meet the requirements of a new era."

More recent articles have gone further, praising some aspects of capitalism and extolling "those with money using money" as a new force for social regeneration. Many analysts say this most recent language also echoes important changes in China, including most famously the quote often attributed to Deng Xiaoping: "to be rich is glorious."

Chinese businessmen and foreign economists say North Korea's emergent capitalist class has two disparate components: the operators of a small, clandestine private economy who have survived since their emergence during the famines of the mid-1990's, when the state distribution system was failing, and a far larger group consisting of officials of all description, from petty and mid-level functionaries to members of the political elite and perhaps largest of all, the military.

"Pretty much everyone in business is an official of one kind or another," said one Chinese investor who is a frequent visitor to North Korea. "Ordinary people simply don't have the money, and if they had money, they'd be asked where they got it, and get in trouble."

The businessman said corruption, abuse of office and the seemingly arbitrary application of rules were the biggest weaknesses in the country's new policy drive. "Changes are declared," he said. "They are spoken, but it's not put into law, and this makes it very difficult for business."

Ordinary citizens say these uncertainties hit them hard, too. A hint of this notion, of a state that gives and can also take away, was included in a sarcastic but menacing commentary by North Korea after its rejection last month of new multinational talks about its nuclear program. Washington "can just have talks with peasant market merchants, whom the United States is said to like, or with the representatives of the North Korean defectors organizations the United States is said to have formed."

One city dweller told a story of how the government had engineered the introduction of new banknotes for the won, the currency, as part of the economic changes. With little explanation except a vague discussion of addressing social inequality, people were ordered to turn in their old won for new ones, the woman said.

"No matter how much of the old money you turned in, each family was given 4,500 new won," she said. "You didn't dare complain. If you did, you would be denounced as an enemy of the people."

본문

☞ Here you can watch a related video.

본문

日本同志/Osaka Dock Workers Trade Union, they were also very active in the struggle against sending Japanese troops to Iraq.

Well, studying early the real neccessary things for the future!

본문

본문

Here you can read the related article about last days' events...

 

본문

#1 平和집회

 

#2 전철연 연대밤 

 

 

 

 

본문

(☞ Here you can read the related article.)

 

본문

 

Source: counter globalization action Korea

본문

 

 

 

 

 

<China-NK relations, Economic policy>
by Michael Rank (source: http://www.nkzone.org) 

There's a very interesting Chinese look at North Korea on a website specialising in the hermit kingdom, it compares NK with China during the Cultural Revolution or Great Leap Forward, paints a generally bleak picture of a starving country where there is much anti-Chinese resentment. It's anonymous and is written from a personal perspective, but it's on a well established website and seems to reflect a strand of official opinion.

It's roughly comparable with the highly critical article in the Chinese journal Strategy and Management (“S&M” to its fans) which was censored last summer, though a bit less official. S&M was closed down for publishing this article, incidentally, and its website has been wiped.

A short introduction by the “webmaster” quotes the U.N. as saying at least two million people died of starvation in the 90s as the country was arming itself with nuclear weapons, maintained the world's fifth biggest army, etc. “This is the Kim family's choice, not the choice of the North Korean people. The article says here are no fat people in North Korea but this is not right, Kim Jung-il's fat stomach which the webmaster has seen on television continues to make a deep impression on him.”

The article starts off in Dandong, where he notes few trains or cars or trucks cross the bridge into NK. “Clearly NK's closed policies have restricted border trade. But there are hardly any restrictions on tourists visiting NK from Dandong and local people can go on a four-day tour for 2,100 yuan ($250).” [When I visited Dandong in 1999 I was slightly surprised how many of the people I met had visited NK - Michael].

The author says he was hoping to visit NK to find out about everyday life there but was told tours were highly regimented and restricted official sites like Kim Il-sung's old home, the Juche tower, etc, and “there is no time for free activities, while there are also language problems and North Koreans are not willing to have contact with foreigners, so it is difficult to learn about NK on an ordinary tour.”

But he adds that if you establish a good relationship with your guide, they are likely to be more open, “and even be mildly critical of the authorities, which in NK amounts to subversion and can be severely punished.”

He adds that talking to Korean-Chinese on the border is also a good source of information as many of them have close ties with NK and have relatives there.

He says NK is still in the grip of hunger/famine and that (even) in Pyongyang the state ration has fallen to 100 grams a day [can this be right...?], while meat and eggs are considered luxuries, and people supplement state rations with leaves and bark. He says that even during the “years of hardship” (Great Leap Forward) in China people received 28 jin (14 kg) a month, or 467 grams a day, so NKs are much worse off than Chinese during that terrible time. [But the 28 jin a month was pretty notional, millions starved during the GLF - Michael].

He says Chinese tour groups are told to bring extra food because of the shortages, and not to give locals any of their extra food. Some tourists who gave some of their foods to some “as thin as sticks” children were fined and the children were punished by the police, their crime was insulting socialist NK's glorious reputation. But many tourists who have given children food without being found out, he adds.

All North Koreans are thin, he didn't see a single fat person, “the people you see on television are the same, apart from Kim Jung-il, of course.” And people on both sides of the Yalu say even Kim has got thinner.

Many people say the reason ordinary North Koreans aren't frank is they are afraid of being punished. The author says he travelled all over China before and after the Cultural Revolution, when things were much the same, so of course he understands this. “The only thing that the author found shocking is the surprising similarity between North Korea today and the Chinese interior before Deng [Xiaoping]'s reforms and opening up.”

“In fact fear of punishment is only a secondary reason for their not being frank, the basic reason is their fierce national pride. But fierce national pride is a common feature of all civilised countries,” is often manipulated, eg Japanese denial of atrocities in WW2. He says Chinese ethnic Koreans share this pride, he was told by young Koreans in a Korean restaurant in Dandong that the whole of northeast China is ours, in the Koguryo period there was no civilisation like ours. The author replied that the northeast was in fact formerly Manchuria, its original inhabitants were Manchus and Koreans have only been there 100 years at most, many came in the 1930s to flee the Japanese.

Many Korean-Chinese admire SK for its economic success but regard Kim Il-sung as a national hero and are unwilling to criticise NK publicly. But many don't want to go to NK because of its poverty, many who went to SK to work found themselves victims of discrimination, so they don't want to live there either. They told the author sincerely that China is our home. Many people take part in semi-official border trade, which is why there is less hunger near the border. A very few NKs cross the border to beg or steal food, he adds.

There used to be NK border trade in ginseng, timber, coal, scrap steel which were bartered for food, detergents, soft drinks but as the NK economic crisis has intensified few Chinese consumer goods have been imported. Forest resources are exhausted, hunger has reduced coal production...

People's freedom of movement has been restricted, just like during the Cultural Revolution, so people are unable to move around in search of food, many people are dying in mountainous areas, he says, but adds that because such areas are closed he did not see this for himself.

He quotes Chinese who have close contact with NK officials as saying most officials get the same rations as anyone else, this relative equality reduces discontent, in contrast to China where there is unrest because of great inequality of wealth. High NK officials live lives of luxury, but ordinary people aren't aware of this, so this has not affected stability.

Hunger is blamed on drought/floods, but on the Chinese side of the border crop yields are high, so it is clearly not just a matter of the weather. Chinese-Koreans who often cross the border to visit relatives blame the collective agriculture system and “eating from one big rice pot” [the slogan used to attack the Maoist system], this makes peasants are apathetic, not interested in saving crops when there is a disaster. The NK government says there is no need for reform, but has in practice relaxed its policies and allows some private plots. “If the NK government relaxes its policies further that will clearly help NK leave severe hunger behind.”

If NK adopts Chinese-style reform and opening policies, there should be no fundamental obstacle [to recovery]. In Dandong NK, SK and Chinese company managers talk business as well as getting together over karaoke, all the songs are South Korean. And in Beijing and Russia NK businessmen also negotiate deals and “take back to NK the buds of reforms and opening up.”

He also mentions an NK ship which is a floating casino moored at Dandong, which he dubs “Macau on the Yalu”. The owners of speedboats which take people towards the NK side of the river say they haven't been on board as you need to have thousands of yuan, but it comes under NK jurisdiction so you don't have to worry about the Chinese ban on gambling. However, the casino was recently closed and nobody is allowed on board, “but this shows that the degree of openness in NK can actually exceed China's”.

NK hostility to China - when the author went out on one of these speedboats they were pelted with stones from the NK side, those throwing the stones included soldiers, the stones were quite large and somebody could have been killed but nobody was hit. “Over the last few decades China had given NK vast amounts of food aid, so why are the NKs hostile to Chinese people?”

In recent years Chinese magazines have published long articles about the Korean war, including documents from ex-Soviet archives, saying Stalin and the NKs placed more importance on the Korean problem than on Taiwan, which worried the Chinese...

Later when China and the Soviet Union quarrelled over ideology and international leadership, NK often supported Moscow over Beijing, ordinary NK people became biassed against China because of media attacks.

NK became extremely unhappy when China established diplomatic relations with SK, so NK voted against Beijing [or abstained???] hosting the Olympics in 2000 [that doesn't sound right to me, can anyone confirm/comment - Michael], greatly upsetting large numbers of Chinese people.

Not only this, but NK has also quietly referred to Taiwan as the Republic of China and “honoured nation” in order to gain economic advantage [to refer to Taiwan as a “nation” is of course anathema to Beijing].

But he adds that China wants stability in the Korean peninsula to ensure its own economic stability, so it needs to cooperate with NK. “Therefore China's relations with NK will strengthen”.

He is scathing about the Juche ideology, which he says is similar to China's Great Leap Forward theories. “China's 'Great Leap Forward'” resulted in famine and NK's 'Juche idea' has had the same result.“ But he notes that NK remains wedded to Juche and they have attacked China for taking the capitalist road (a note adds that this has since largely ceased).

Although NK is a closed society most North Koreans are aware that living standards in China are much higher. They also tend to blame China but if China hadn't provided them with large scale food aid it would have nothing to eat, and the results would be unimaginable. ”But China which is itself not wealthy could not take care of NK's 24 million people and has no duty to do so. To basically end North Korea's hunger, North Korea must rely on itself“ is how the article ends.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

But much more better/interesting is this article from World Magazine (www.worldmag.com), March 5:

 

Room with a view

ASIA: An American businessman gets a bird's-eye look at what may be regime change underway in North Korea | by Priya Abraham

American businessman Roy Browning has a front-row seat for the unusual signs of change emerging from North Korea. Mr. Browning lives in a high-rise in Dandong on the Chinese side of the border with North Korea, overlooking the Yalu River that separates the two countries. He has been there for three years, but in recent months the usually well-sealed border has come unglued, admitting more North Koreans into China. Mr. Browning has talked with several businessmen and North Korean officials, accompanied by KGB-style secret police.

"Trade across the border with civilian officials has increased dramatically in the last few months, and our connections have also increased in frequency," he told WORLD on Feb. 21. "We have even been able to talk to some very senior officials with their secret police looking on. This is very strange and implies that things are loosening up but with a lot of apprehension."

Why the sudden activity? Mr. Browning hears from his sources that "the state is being increasingly controlled by the military and the higher ranking civilian officials due to the strain that a possible Bush invasion was causing," he said.

Those rumors intensified late last year after reports that portraits of Mr. Kim, which dominate Pyongyang's public buildings, had been removed. Insiders claimed the portraits and other Kim images were removed to be cleaned, or because their presence had drawn comparisons to Saddam Hussein. But South Korean officials took them seriously enough to dust off decades-old contingency plans for civil emergency in the event of a collapse to the north.

Any such retooling of Mr. Kim's likeness is significant in the country, which has built a cult of personality around the Kims. Great Leader Kim Il Sung remains president for life, even after his 1994 death. His son, Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, is supposed to command singular loyalty. The country's goals of reunifying with South Korea and defeating U.S. "imperialism" hinge on the presence of an all-powerful leader. One of the younger Kim's sayings is, "To expect victory in a revolution without a leader is as good as wishing for a flower where there is no sun."

But the persistence of the rumors are significant, given North Korea's announcement in February that it has nuclear weapons. Activists and observers used to probing the communist country's idiosyncrasies believe a dramatic change is slowly underway, one that is shifting power away from dictator Kim Jong Il and toward a cabal of military generals.

Mr. Browning first learned last November that portraits of Kim Jong Il had been taken down from public display across the country. Though official denials quickly followed, his sources are adamant the portraits were removed. He also noticed that North Koreans he met coming across the border were hiding their "Dear Leader" pins inside their coats instead of displaying them over their hearts as mandated.

From his 12th-floor apartment window, where the Oregon resident lives while overseeing a semiconductor equipment business he co-owns in the city, he further noticed more-than-usual cargo-truck convoys waiting to cross the border on the bridge leading to Dandong, the only land-link between the two nations. Before, there were about 10 to 15 trucks a week; now between 50 and 70 lined up each day.

As first reported by The Oregonian, Mr. Browning also has seen North Korean trucks driving within Dandong, identifiable by their number plates and exhaust fumes that smell like burning tires—literally, he said, because North Korea recycles tires for fuel. Then there are the businessmen he has met, buying rice, vegetables, and other food and even computers, while selling their own products. From all these signs, he speculates that momentous change is afoot.

"I believe that we will see a slow disintegration followed by a revolution, although the revolution may not even be visible to outsiders," he said. "It is difficult to see things happening even as close as we are because of the strict control the country has. If you can imagine Nazi Germany in 1939 and then make it much worse, you will then have the situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

 

While Mr. Browning is seeing physical changes unfold before his eyes, others are coming to similar conclusions watching other signs. Seoul-based Korean-American human-rights activist Douglas Shin has been tracking blips in North Korea's usually predictable propaganda. From subtle rewordings in the state press and from reports Mr. Shin receives from a high-ranking North Korean official, he believes a band of military generals has already sidelined Mr. Kim.

Most unusual, Mr. Shin said, is Kim Jong Il's virtual disappearance from the public eye. "This kind of thing on this scale has never happened before," Mr. Shin said. "Kim Jong Il has never spent more than five months away from outsiders' view." Yet even photos released of Mr. Kim with Chinese envoy Wang Jiarui in late February appear dated. The same entourage from Mr. Wang's North Korea visit last year is shown.

Mr. Shin said official news organs are increasingly highlighting subordinates more than Kim Jong Il. At a Feb. 2-3 meeting of the "General Onward March for the Songun Revolution," a pow-wow of the Communist Party leadership introduced 10 years ago by Mr. Kim to reinforce military-socialist indoctrination, the rhetoric shifted slightly away from praising Mr. Kim alone and toward the military leadership around him. An editorial in the country's state-run newspaper, the Rodong Shinmun, carried "very unfamiliar terminology," Mr. Shin said. "It said all the people have to protect and follow—usually Kim Jong Il—but this time also the head leadership. It was a plural concept with Kim Jong Il at the peak."

Mr. Shin is persuaded enough by such signs to believe the military generals are gradually consolidating their power. He speculates that they found themselves in a dilemma. On one side the United States was pressuring North Korea to disarm. On the other, Mr. Kim feared he would lose power if he did give up nuclear weapons. After all, his belligerent rule is necessary to project the urgency of defending North Korea against an impending U.S. invasion. The only solution, Mr. Shin believes, was to sideline Mr. Kim. North Korea's declaration that it has nuclear weapons could be, he said, the generals "bluffing for the last time."

Still, decoding secretive North Korea remains an intensely speculative parlor game. Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea, a group assisting North Korean refugees, also hears growing chatter from his contacts about changes in Pyongyang. They confirm the increased border activity Mr. Browning has witnessed, but note that while approved forays into China have multiplied, a parallel clamp-down on refugees escaping North Korea has occurred on both sides of the border.

While Mr. Peters believes Mr. Kim is suffering challenges to his rule, he is not sure the bouffant-haired dictator has lost control just yet. "I don't think we should underestimate the staying power of this regime," he said. "Not because Kim Jong Il is so powerful, but because of the [indoctrination]. There's a joke that if any two people had a conversation that was even remotely critical of the government, they would both inform the authorities."

In the meantime, Mr. Browning has noticed another odd development across the Yalu. North Koreans seem to be re-occupying an abandoned village just outside of border-town Sinuiju. That is unusual because the village is too close to the river, he said. Anyone wanting to escape could swim across, or almost walk across, when the water level is low.

He said North Korean businessmen and regime officials are in evidence in Dandong at least once a week, compared to six months ago, when he only heard about one or two showing up. Asking about Mr. Kim's hold on power, now that rumors circulate, is a touchy subject. "They'll just clam up—they won't say a word," he said. "Something's going on, but it's difficult to find out." With North Korea suggesting last week it may be ready to resume six-party talks over its nuclear arsenal, knowing just who holds the levers of power will be crucial for the United States and its allies. —•

본문

By Aidan Foster-Carter (read more about the DPRK in Times Asia here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea.html) 

It's a cliche to complain how little we really know about North Korea. Hard facts, and especially figures, are indeed hard - as in hard to come by.

In some fields this is perfectly true. The military, obviously. Does North Korean leader Kim Jong-il have the bomb or bombs? How many? Where is he hiding them? All countries keep that kind of information secret.

But no other nation in the world fails to publish any regular statistics about its economy. This 40-year silence should temper hype about market reforms. Without numbers, neither local enterprises nor external donors or (they wish) investors can do more than gamble in the dark. They really do need to know. Providing accurate numbers is a basic prerequisite of being a modern state.

Yet North Korea possesses a Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), and it is not idle. No doubt the Dear Leader demands economic data - for his eyes only. But in some fields, the CBS does publish its work. One example was North Korea's 1993 census, its first ever.

More recently the CBS has worked with international aid agencies to collect information that the latter need in a key area: hunger and its human consequences. The latest fruits of such cooperation have just been published in the "DPRK 2004 Nutrition Assessment Survey", a joint product of the Central Bureau of Statistics and North Korea's Institute of Child Nutrition (ICN), with financial and technical help from United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The two chief consultants were from Australia and Vietnam, so this was a regional Asian effort. It follows earlier surveys carried out at two-year intervals, in 1998, 2000 and 2002.

It was the WFP that released this report, at a press conference in Beijing on March 7. It is in fact dated November 2004; the survey itself was carried out in October. The delay wasn't explained. Perhaps the lag was attributable to translation time and to make sure it was fit for publication generally.

I'm often critical of North Korea, so all the more reason to give credit when it's due. This is an impressive, highly professional report comprising 104 pages, five chapters, 46 tables, 24 figures. The sample was 4,800 children, ages up to six, and 2,109 mothers of children under two, drawn evenly from seven of North Korea's nine provinces plus the capital, Pyongyang.

Having taught social science research methods in a former life, I get a kick out of reading about random and cluster sampling (sad, I know). Then I pinch myself. This is North Korea. An official document! All these numbers! And on a potentially very sensitive subject, too.

For what this survey measures, with grim precision, is what years of hunger have done to the bodies of small children - and I do mean small - and their mothers in North Korea.

To be technical, there are three main criteria:

Underweight (for age) is self-explanatory;

Stunting, low height for age, signals chronic malnutrition;

Wasting, worst of all, is low weight relative to height, indicating acute malnutrition. Each of these categories is sub-divided into mild and severe cases. For the mothers, a fourth measure was used: MUAC (mid-upper arm circumference). Less than 22.5 centimeters means they aren't eating enough.

So how are Juche's (juche is the policy of self-reliance) children faring? The WFP's press release tried to look on the bright side. Since the last survey in 2002, the proportion of young children chronically malnourished (stunted) is down from 42% to 37%. Acute malnutrition (wasting) eased from 9% to 7%. But those underweight rose from 21% to 23% - though for children under the age of two, those most at risk, this fell from 25% to 21%. One in five children had diarrhea, and one in eight showed symptoms of acute respiratory infection. But mothers have made no progress: a third were anemic and malnourished, the same figure as two years ago. Vitamin A deficiency is common.

Much depends on where people are living. Things are less bad in Pyongyang and in the southwestern Hwanghae farming region than in bleak northeasterly Hamgyong and Ryanggang provinces. Ryanggangites get to eat meat, fish or eggs just once every three weeks on average. Chagang in the far mid-north is bleaker still, but North Korea doesn't allow access to this area - probably because of military bases located there. Thus, no survey was conducted in Chagang, which means no food aid either; the WFP is strict about that - surveys first.

Even at the national level, the few slight improvements offer scant comfort. The more than one-third (37%) of North Korean's under six who are stunted - and especially the one in eight (12%) who are severely stunted - will grow up stunted and stay that way. Even once Korea is reunified politically, they will stand out physically: dwarfed by their Southern peers.

Seoul, meanwhile, has different - nay, opposite - child health issues. With uncanny timing, the very same day as the WFP released its survey on the North, education officials in the Southern capital reported that one in 10 schoolchildren in Seoul is overweight. Obesity rates are growing fast, too. As the old adage has it, the rich slim while the poor starve.

Back in the North, the WFP doesn't appear to be leaving any time soon. Richard Ragan, head of the program's Pyongyang office - and an American, to boot - said he hopes the agency will shut up shop one day, once the government and the private sector can stand on their own feet.

But for now, one anniversary a proud North Korea won't be celebrating, is that this year marks a whole decade since it first, reluctantly, asked the WFP and other agencies for help coping with flood and famine. While the worst of the famine has eased, food self-sufficiency - in a country so mountainous that this is a ludicrous goal anyway - looks as remote as ever.

So still, in 2005, the WFP has extended the begging bowl for Kim Jong-il - whose own priorities evidently lie elsewhere. Ever prickly Pyongyang has bitten the kind hand trying to feed it, forbidding UN agencies to launch their usual formal consolidated aid appeal this year. Nonetheless the WFP is seeking $202 million with which to buy 504,000 tonnes of food, mainly grains.

And no wonder. In January North Korea cut its Public Distribution System (PDS) rations to starvation level: 250 grams of cereal per person per day, the lowest in five years. Such cutbacks don't usually happen until March, when last year's crop typically runs out. This is all the more odd, since 2004's autumn harvest is thought to have been the best in years.

Luckily, the WFP currently has enough stocks - as it did not, in the recent past - to feed all of its target group: a staggering 6.5 million North Koreans, or nearly one-third of the entire population. The main categories within this group are 2.7 million children from birth to the age of 10 and 2.15 million people in food or work programs. Other beneficiaries include 900,000 elderly, 300,000 pregnant women and nursing mothers, and 350,000 in low-income households. The latter are a new category: victims of the post-2002 reforms that have seen inequalities widen, even as the state retreats ever further from providing any help to the millions of citizens whom its disastrous past and half-baked present policies have starved and stunted.

That's my take, not the WFP's. Diplomacy precludes any such critique from a UN body. Yet the raw data, the results - written indelibly on the bodies of innocent children, marked for life - are there for all to see. It's ironic, but the same regime that branded this suffering on its people is at least now registering and owning up to the outcome: collating and publishing these damning data, putting its name to the survey, and signing off on it. That's a start.

Where his statisticians boldly go, will the Dear Leader follow? It's so simple. Ditch nukes; watch aid explode instead. Let the children eat, and grow. If not, what future is there?