Kaesong: Dead or Just Pining?
[Updated below] The headline is pretty much what I’d predicted three years ago: “North Korea announces nullification of all ‘Kaesong agreements,'” and that’s from the Hanky:
North Korea’s military leadership has made statements hinting they would demand a withdrawal of businesses from Kaesong, but this is the first time the Bureau has brought up the possibility. In this notification, North Korea said,
“We announce the nullification of all Kaesong Industrial Complex agreements made between the two Koreas which gave preference to South Korea in terms of wages and land use fees based on the spirit of the June 15th joint declaration. In response, the spokesperson of South Korea’s Unification Ministry issued a statement, saying, “We offer a clear declaration that we cannot accept the announcement. [The Hankyoreh]
Even if the South Koreans somehow manage to rescue Kaesong in the short term, I can’t see who would ever invest in North Korea now.
With Kaesong dies the experiment called the “Sunshine Policy.” Contrary to what its backers promised, Kaesong didn’t do much lasting good for North-South relations, was never good to its North Korean workers or South Korean investors, never became a major center of manufacturing or exports, and was shut down by the North Koreans at the first hint that it might actually transform North Korean society to something kinder and gentler:
Despite the sizable profits it garners, North Korea is increasingly concerned about the cultural side effects of the joint industrial complex it runs with South Korea, experts in Seoul said Tuesday.
Such fears have driven North Korea to consider the possibility of shutting down the joint park in its border town of Kaesong, they said. [….]
“The fact that North Korea came to wonder whether it should continue the Kaesong industrial park suggests that from the perspective of the North Korean leadership, its side effects are not easy to deal with,” Yang Moon-soo, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said in a forum.
North Korea strictly bans carrying South Korean items into Kaesong that may disperse ideas about the southern capitalist culture, such as mobile phones, cameras, newspapers, books as well as pornographic magazines. Still, routine day-to-day contact between South Korean managers and North Korean employees may form a conduit for Southern cultural influence, watchers say.
“The critical factor is that locals in the Kaesong region get to see the lives of South Koreans first-hand and that their longing for the South grows,” he said.
Watchers suggest such worries are toughening North Korea’s position on a South Korean worker facing political charges in Kaesong. [….]
While outsiders have commonly dubbed the joint park as “the goose that lays golden eggs” for North Korea, the experts noted that internal opposition to the venture is growing, particularly from North Korea’s hardline military. The border town of Kaesong formerly housed military facilities, but leader Kim Jong-il had ordered them out to build the joint park.
“From the military’s perspective, North Korea may have decided that there is more to lose than to gain,” Lee Su-seok, an analyst with the state-run Institute for National Security Strategy. [Yonhap]
The risks that the North Korean military perceived must have been significance, because Kaesong may also have been a cash cow for North Korea’s military. The subversive appeal of a better world continues to constrict Kim Jong Il’s means to support his misrule, despite the best efforts of Roh Moo Hyun and Chung Dong Young. Good riddance.
Updates: Following along with Roberts’ thoughts, here’s a previous post I’d almost linked, which notes the North Korean code of conduct for South Koreans at Kaesong and asks, “Who changed who?” Even if you don’t read a word, you’ll love the picture. But read these:
If there’s a new spirit of openness to be celebrated after a decade of massive wealth transfers to Kim Jong Il — or even a hint of it ““ it’s certainly not apparent in the rules that the North Korean Ministry of Public Security wrote for the occasion. What’s more apparent is that South Korea has acquired the habit of easy and casual acceptance of North Korean control. Want to do business here? Stay inside the fence, don’t talk to the workers or give them gifts, and listen to our creepy blaring propaganda. Want to meet your abducted relatives for a brief moment? Don’t expect them to speak freely. Want good relations with us? Silence our critics. Want our sports teams to visit you? Suppress all dissent and revere our Leader’s portrait as a sacred icon. Want our officials to visit you? Don’t let us see or hear any free speech. Want to visit us? Suspend the preparedness of your military and bow to our total control. And even then, as we will see, your safety will only be “conditionally” guaranteed.
How dangerous must Kaesong have been to the North Korean system to be worth taking a hit like this?
About 38,000 North Korean workers and their families would be immediately affected. “Assuming each North Korean worker has about four family members, roughly 150,000 North Koreans are living off the industrial park. That figure isn’t negligible,” a south Korean official said Sunday. [Chosun Ilbo]
In Seoul, the broader markets have hardly moved on this news, but shares for companies that invested in Kaesong’s slave labor business model are taking a beating. Good. Let every potential investor in North Korea take note. Oh, and the Unification Minister says Kaesong is in a “crisis.”
You wrote:
That’s a bit overstated, I think, and it all depends on how one defines and identifies the Sunshine Policy. Certainly there are at least two versions, KDJ’s and RMH’s, and arguably 2MB’s, which would be Sunshine Liteâ„¢, since he did not attempt to close down Kaesong and other projects as soon as he could (engagement is still a real goal of 2MB, but he’s not going to let it be, as RMH did, the end-all, beat-all goal), and others.
I would be quick to agree that RMH’s most glaring failure was that he was all carrot and no stick when approaching North Korea. But it is the offering of carrots that identifies Sunshine Policy, not just the misguided approach of having nothing but carrots in the diplo-political tool belt. That was RMH’s version, but it is no more the only version than, say, Sarah Palin’s viewpoint is the only form of Republicanism out there.
That said, I think it’s good to let Kaesong close down. Let Pyongyang know that Seoul is not always going to give in to their histrionics. That, in fact, is the only way to move forward with any form of engagement or Sunshine Policy in the post-RMH world, and it has the same goal: Nudge or pull Pyongyang into normalcy.
Finally, I don’t think it’s fair to say there has been no positive effect from Sunshine when some of the effects would not be known at all until some time when the leadership in Pyongyang — whoever they are then — decides reverse their own hardline policies (if that ever happens). Even in the beginning, people like me supposed much of the benefit of such engagement to come way down the road, and we are nowhere near that point.
I believe I own the copyright for “Sunshine Lite.”
Please name one lasting and postive effect of Sunshine. Then try to explain how it outweighs all of the death, misery, and crisis that sustaining Kim Jong Il has meant.
P.S. Also, what exactly is left of Sunshine now?
Even if Kaesong is dead, it looks like there is always China to keep North Korea afloat.
From China’s economic influence over NKorea grows:
Jodi wrote:
Exactly. Something I’ve been saying for years. And let’s not forget that Japan has until very recently been one of their top trading partners, but they’ve been replaced by Thailand.
Ultimately, though, it is Beijing propping them up.
I think its fairly accurate to say the Sunshine Policy is dead.
I think Kushibo’s point is fair enough, but what came to mind was that it focuses too much on South Korea. I don’t think you can talk about a Sunshine Policy without understanding it as a bilateral policy – a policy between the two nations.
So, it doesn’t mean much if Lee didn’t pull the plug on South Korea’s participation now that North Korea has. The level of transaction between the two nations is so much lower than it was before, it is dead. We are also so far from the political environment when Kim Dae-Jung started and North Korea showed it was willing to play along – I’d say both the practical and political aspects of it are dead.
A question: What do you guys know about the other special economic zones?
I haven’t been looking — but I can’t remember the last time I saw something about those other economic zones, and what I remember reading last was a steady diet of bad news about how they were failing.
Has there been any news over the last year? Anybody know anything? (I’m too lazy to dig right now…)
Lastly — I like OFK’s perspective on how this might connect to fear of the influence Kaesong has been having. But, I also think we can give an educated guess that shutting down Kaesong is a sign that the regime feels confident enough about meeting its material needs without it.
I think that is always the equation when viewing what the North does: What can it afford to lose short to medium to long term? What does it hope to gain?
When it was starving to death and afraid for its survival, it was willing to let Kim Dae-Jung start flinging material goods and hard currency to it. It was even willing to let in international aid agencies and constantly fretted over how much it would allow them to investigate and do their job and how much it would hem then in. Then as it grew more stable, it kicked them out.
I’m sure they are worried about Kaesong’s influence so far, and now it seems clear they feel good enough about their situation to get rid of it.
Please name one lasting and postive effect of Sunshine. Then try to explain how it outweighs all of the death, misery, and crisis that sustaining Kim Jong Il has meant.
Can I take a challenge? The lasting and positive effect is a a spread of information about South Korean life. In 2002-2004 there were dramatic changes in North Korean propaganda. The old lies about ‘South Korean destitution’ had become unsustainable, that they had to change the tune, and now their message is ‘The Southerners are doing relatively all right, but it still a Babylon down there’. North Koreans are learning about prosperity, and this information is partially filtering from the border, but also coming from Kaesong. Stories of Kaesong are re-told even the remote north-eastern corner of the country. They know that South is rich. Soon they will learn that Southerners are not dreaming about a life under the loving care of the Dear Leader.
You imply that SK aid saved KJI. It might be the case, indeed, but I am pretty sure that without SK aid they would get something from China, albeit in smaller quantities. And if really pressed, they would just sacrifice the population of northern provinces. As we have seen in the late 1990s, North Korean farmers do not rebel, they just die. In order to start a rebellion, people should see an alternative and have hope. It is Kaesong (and smuggled movies, of course) which are showing them that life outside the country’s borders is better.
Of course, Kaesong should be done together with information dissemination efforts, and it is not happening. The US bureaucracy is not interested. The only exception is a broadcast, and only because, I suspect, it has a reputation earned at the Cold War era, and also has a set of agencies which are supposed to supervise it. But what about digital material? In the North it will be far more powerful then radio. No interest, alas.
Anyway, I believe that in the long run, Kaesong (R.I.P. or not) has done far more good then harm. But both ways should be continued.
Andrei, I accept the challenge and respond that all of those positive changes you cite, or at least 95% of the total effect, were the result not of Sunshine but of smuggling across the North Korean-Chinese border, something that the regime did everything within the limits of its resources to stop, but to no avail: control of the border is steadily breaking down.
I concede that Sunshine made a very modest contribution by letting in a few Choco Pies, and when the regime realized that, no more Kaesong and (if the reports are true) no more Choe Sung Chol.
Kaesong and Kumgang’s greater contribution was to bring in resources for the regime’s needs, such as better border fencing and more pay for border guards, and no doubt to meet other security needs. In fact, we recently saw confirmation that the regime’s efforts to control its northern border are also limited by the regime’s ability to acquire external financing. In which case, we can conclude that the best way to open up North Korea is to starve the regime of funds and enrich the common people who buy things through the black market. Which suggests that the balloon people are on to something, even if their methods are inefficient.
For that reason and others, we shouldn’t be surprised that when mass protests against the regime broke out last year, they happened in Chongjin, not Kaesong (though the very idea of a “ChocoPie Revolution” is irresistible).
Aside from sustaining the North Korean regime for ten more terrible years, Sunshine’s other legacy was mainly in how it changed the South, including marshaling the resources of the state to curb South Koreans’ freedom to criticize the North’s regime. Granted, we can see that South Korean governments of whatever party tend to be about equal and opposite in their censorship, but certainly the suppression of open debate is not a positive contribution to a society.
I would like to close this comment with some shameless and unsportsmanlike gloating: nearly five years ago, I not only predicted that Kaesong would fail, I predicted how and why. You’ve got to admit — that was spot on, wasn’t it? But there’s nothing clairvoyant about that prediction. In retrospect, it all seems very easily predictable, yet the great weight of expert authority was contra and really believed that Kaesong would work. I put you in the small category of experts I really listen to, and to whom I apply that term without quotation marks. I think your ideas about engaging the North Korean people direct, and what messages they’re ready to hear, are inspired. But I think you’ve underestimated the regime’s skill at managing and exploiting “officially approved” engagement.
Dear Joshua,
Here comes my long reply.
To start with, it seems obvious that the ‘cooperation’ (engagement, trade etc) stimulates two mutually exclusive trends. From one hand, it provides regime with money which regime is using, among other things, on improving its surveillance and repressive system. From the other hand, engagement also encourages the spread of information about the outside world, above all, South Korea, thus introducing a dangerous ferment into the commoners’ mind. There are other effects, but they are rather marginal. Our major disagreement is: which of these two trends carries greater weight and will have a greater impact? I believe that in the long run the information undermines regime, in spite of its short-term strengthening due to better paid and better equipped police and border guards similar agencies. You believe that greater efficiency of surveillance cancels out gains form the information spread.
Who is correct? It seems that nobody can be 100% certain about the answer. I would even speculate that North Korean leaders are not certain about this themselves, otherwise they would not oscillate between two extremes: first allowing the cooperation (including very damaging Kaesong city tours project), and then shutting it up. They need money, bit also know that this money comes at a price. If Kaesong Park is closed, it will show that for the time being Kim Jong Il and his henchmen are siding with Andrei Lankov. If it continues, it will mean they believe that Joshua Stanton is right. However, they cannot know the truth, too.
I would repeat my points. None of the some 40 thousand workers in KIP, and almost none in their families will believe the official propaganda about the South. They know it is not the place of destitution, and they also know that Southerners are not really dreaming about a life under the wise care of the Dear Leader. The stories are spreading. This is the first time in NK history when a large number of people from relatively elite background, living near the capital city are exposed to the subversive knowledge about the South. I do not think that better equipped police will be able to cancel the effect out, not least because the police is vulnerable itself.
I used to oppose Roh’s last minute visit to the North. But now I am beginning to suspect that President Roh was indeed a ‘useful idiot’. However, he was useful for us! His policy was based on some strange illusions, but I believe it has seriously damaged the NK regime. Even if they close the KIP, it is too late by now, it will take them many years to repair the damage. Therefore, I repeat: the more joint operations, the better. The ideal type of a ‘joint project’ is a project which involves the greatest possible amount of inter-personal interactions. From this point of view, Kumgang tourism was almost useless (even if acceptable as a first step), KIP was better and the now defunct city tours were the best.
Talking about borderland development. You are right when you say that the amount of subversive information which is coming from the North is greater. There is a serious caveat, however. A rebellion in Ch’ongjn can be easily suppressed without grave consequences for the regime. We’ll probably learn about this rebellion days after it will be over. However, a rebellion in Pyongyang (or, rather, in Pyongsong, a town where the largest NK wholesale market is located) have good chances to deliver a death blow to the regime. Kaesong and Haeju IPs (the latter did not happen which – as you guess – I consider rather unfortunate) are close to Pyongyang, and this is good.
Finally, I do not see what can be got by the isolation. Let’s assume that Chinese and Russian sabotage is overcome somehow . Or (a more probable scenario) that financial sanctions, BDA style, really works. Will it lead to revolution? I do not think so. People start revolution when a) they believe that life elsewhere is better; b) see disagreements among their oppressors; c) have even rudimentary organizational capacity. Therefore, in order to create conditions for a North Korean revolution (which I still believe to be the only long-term solution) we should show them that an alternative exists and also encourage organization.
From my Soviet-ear experience, I believe that officially approved exchanges reach greater amount of people, creating an environment where the active minority can operate. Yes, leaders of the future revolt are those who are listening to the subversive broadcast, but their followers will include those who learned about the official lies through more legitimate channels, like the Kaesong IP.
Dr. Lankov,
A wonderful summation of the issues at hand. I am not fully persuaded, but nonetheless, thank you for taking care to present your views so cogently.
The North’s crackdown on Kaesong has less to do with concerns about ideological and cultural infiltration than the need to find a scapegoat for the stop in cash tributes from Seoul. Pyongyang was assured by Seoul on the even of the presidential election on Dec 19 2007 that the presumptive winner, Lee MB, would continue with the servile ways of Roh and KDJ. Why do you think Roh’s head of the NIS, Kim Man Bok, met with the head of the North Korean intelligence operations vis-a-vis Seoul, Kim Yang Kun, on Dec 18, in Pyongyang? And why do you suppose KMB was charged with such a mission of endorsing LMB and appeasing Pyongyang? I digress.
During the famine in the late-1990s Kim Jong Il had the corpse of Kim Man Keum, former minister of agriculture of some 30 years, dug up and “executed” for mismanaging food policy. For good measure, KWP secretary of agriculture Suh Kwan Hee was also thrown before the firing squad. Choe Sung Chul needed to be punished because the LMB admin did not turn out to be as pliable as Choe and other SK handlers had claimed it to be.
Dr. Lankov, thank you for posting that detailed response and for your continued dedication to finding solutions for the crisis in the DPRK. We all learn from you when you weigh in.
I do believe however that Joshua raises an easy to overlook factor when he refers to the Sunshine Policy’s effect on South Korea.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am active duty US Military and served on the DMZ in 1999-2000 when the SP was first being enacted. I have been here in the ROK since June 2008 so my Korean experience sort of bookends the SP’s tenure.
Without any metrics other than my subjective impressions I would say the practical effect of a decade of SP was to lull most of the ROK to sleep thinking that they were on a glidepath towards a China-styled gradual opening up for limited capaitalist reforms. That was never the case, and neither can it be as long as the Juche cult is maintained. The Chinese do not worship their head of state, so free enterprise zones have at least a chance of introducing neo-democratic impulses. SP was doomed from the beginning simply because Juche has painted the DPRK into the proverbial corner and the only way out is complete ideological failure.
10 years ago it seemed that ROK citizens were more vigilant and less trusting towards the DPRK. There was a reason the DPRK wanted to broker and end to the propagana wars in 2004: they were losing. As Joshua pointed out, the balloon launchers are exponentially more threatening to the regimne because they strike at the heart of Juche’s flimsy, man-made dogmas. I am referring to the launches by the North Korean Christian Association and not the sundry political balloon launches which I believe have negligible impact only. The messages deployed by the NKCA embolden the nascent underground Church.
KIC like any other pan-Korean venture had to delivered on terms favorable to the Juche cult. That doomed it from the beginning. Obama-speak notwithstanding, there can be no compromise, no soft words, no middle ground, no gray areas, no gradualism with Juche. It must be renounced by the DPRK, period, end of story.