Open Sources
Several weeks ago, I blogged about the North Korean manager of a restaurant in Nepal who absconded with the till and defected. The Chosun Ilbo has several interesting updates to that story, including the fact this turns out to have been just one of two such restaurants in Kathmandu, that the manager has arrived in South Korea, and that Nepal has released the South Koreans who helped arrange the defection. Then there is this illustration of how small changes in how South Korea implements national policy can have significant effects on the North:
“Please refrain from visiting North Korean restaurants that are becoming sources of funds for the Kim Jong-il regime. Anyone who has visited such restaurants will be subject to investigation on charges of violating the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Law and the National Security Law upon returning home,” the embassy warned in an email.
A South Korean resident said the Kumgangsan and Okryugwan restaurants had depended largely on South Korean customers, so their sales must have dwindled.
It has been rumored for years that North Korean consular facilities are expected to finance their own operations. Those facilities often do so through a mix of legal and illegal activities, to include missile sales, counterfeiting, smuggling, and the trade in endangered species. Of course, legal activities are also a necessary cover for illegal activities, since they facilitate the comingling and laundering of the proceeds. This one small shift in South Korean policy could help support its policy of constricting North Korea’s finances and proliferation efforts, and perhaps even pressure it into behaving less atrociously.
Nonsense. It’s an orphanage for babies being starved by imperialist sanctions.
Poverty-stricken North Korea is spending some US$150 million building a house and office for leader Kim Jong-il’s heir apparent Jong-un, the Telegraph reported Saturday.
I have to wonder if where the Telegraph got its images. Maybe Curtis will tell us.
But thanks to the Great Leader’s wise on-the-spot guidance, North Korean women have little difficulty fitting into skinny jeans.
I’ve already blogged about reports that North Korea has somehow found the funds to build up its armor and its special forces, but this buried detail intrigues me very much:
The overall number of North Korean tanks rose to some 4,100 as of last month from 3,900 in 2008, the paper said. But most of the newly added tanks were old-style equipment deployed in the rear, a military intelligence official told a briefing on the policy paper.
Such a deployment suggests that North Korea is more afraid than ever of its own people. I can see why North Korea could conclude that its obsolete PT-76 clones are unfit for front-line service, and I can also see why it could conclude that they’re well suited for counterinsurgency or the suppression of demonstrations. The question is whether the North Koreans perceive that they face such a threat. My guess is they do.
Meanwhile, here’s another report that North Korean soldiers are continuing to go AWOL to steal food and loot local residences.
A North Korean freighter has gone down off the east coast of China with several of her crew.
The South Korean version of country music known as “trot” — usually heard on city buses or from noraebangs at 2 a.m. — does not usually evoke the word “sophistication,” but South Korea’s decision to play trot on the DMZ loudspeakers shows greater sophistication about North Korean sensibilities than playing K-pop would. I nominate Patty Kim for the playlist.
Some of the other cross-DMZ games have been a bit more menacing of late.
Tremble, Commies. Park Geun Hye is the front-runner for the next Korean presidential election. I see my favorite, Kim Moon Soo, also makes the list.
Andrei Lankov tells us about the North Korean travel pass system.
The Telegraph pretty much copied this story from the Daily NK without attribution (sound familiar?). The Daily NK reported this back in October. I blogged about it then and added some satellite imagery to the Daily NK’s story:
http://www.nkeconwatch.com/2010/10/26/leadership-compound-reconstruction-continues/
http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=6947
Personally I do not see any evidence that this construction is related to Kim Jong-un since they have been updating these compounds for years—well before KJU was on the scene.
Happy new year!
Sorry, I don’t understand your point on the Nepal restaurant story. First you suggest that the lack of South Korean customers is causing these restaurants to run into financial difficulties, but then you add that they are most likely merely fronts for various illegal activities. If the latter is true, it would seem to me that the number of legitimate restaurant patrons has little effect on their overall financial solvency. Am I missing something?
Yes Jangmi, you are missing a very vital point proposed by Mr. Stanton, North Korea’s last means of profit besides illicit activities is to feed foreigners. I guess that their own average countrymen has soo much food also so that they can also branch out…
From the KoreaTimes: “…The sorry state of the military even earned Kim Jong-un’s ire, who reportedly said: ‘Those incapable military commanders should resign.'”
So underperforming KPA officers have the option to resign vice being shot or turning big rocks into little rocks at a gulag? Maybe KJU is a reformer after all.
“turning big rocks into little rocks”
I like this succinct way of describing such a horrible and mundane task. Says something to me about the vastness of time and the short lives North Koreans live.
North Koreans only live short lives if they are born outside their Party Capitol. Those within live long lives as long as they Obey by Party rules. A slave/occupant with the luxury of living in the fortress of Pyongyang is better off than any human living outside that city who happanes to be a North Korean. Imagine if the Republic of Korea had the technology to bombard Pyongyang with Information… Oh if Seoul actually had the power to hijack DPRK CNC technology….
There is a significant difference between a serf and a slave. North Korean farmers and urban proletarians are serfs — as perhaps are even the privileged residents of Pyongyang. But they are not slaves.
A serf is bound to his place of employment — most commonly land, but also a factory (or a baseball team) and cannot take his labor elsewhere without permission of his employer, and that permission is almost never given. If he leaves without permission, he can be punished at law. But he still has other, genuine rights, such as free procreation, enjoyment of his own private property and the like.
A slave has no rights. He is property himself — a “chattel”, just like cattle. His very children belong to his master, as does his life and everything that he gains and holds in that life. A slave is not punished at law, but extralegally, because the slave has no legal rights. Serfdom is bad, and I suspect all readers of this blog detest it equally. But slavery is abhorrent on every level — and does not appear to exist on any legal basis in the DPRK.
I think “de jure” there is no slavery in North Korea…but “de facto” I think people there are slaves. Any freedom is entirely arbitrary, and there is no recognized independent authority (judiciary, free press, etc.) to which an aggrieved individual can appeal. As for procreation, my understanding is that an NK woman who has a child with a Chinese man can be in big big trouble…doesn’t sound like freedom to me. Private property in NK is highly lmited and subject to the whim of the state. Currency was arbitrarily devalued, which caused enormous problems.
On a separate note, Zillow values the U.S. White House at about $252 million U.S. dollars. If Baby Kim’s new place is costing $150 million U.S. dollars (or equivalent) it must be truly spectacular. The land was presumably acquired for nothing – who else has title to land in NK besides the state? Labor costs are a lot lower there…so Baby Kim will truly be living large. What was that show on MTV about celebrity homes…Cribs? Maybe his place could be on that show…
david woolley, do North Korean serfs own businesses? If they accumulate wealth as currency, can the authorities wipe out its value?
If North Korean serfs are sent to work as lumberjacks in Russia, do they perhaps begun to approach slavery?
“A slave has no rights. He is property himself — a “chattelâ€, just like cattle. His very children belong to his master, as does his life and everything that he gains and holds in that life. A slave is not punished at law, but extralegally, because the slave has no legal rights. Serfdom is bad, and I suspect all readers of this blog detest it equally. But slavery is abhorrent on every level — and does not appear to exist on any legal basis in the DPRK.”
Interesting discussion, DW, but off the mark. Honestly, seems “slave” title is more applicable than “serf” for most in NK. They don’t have “free procreation” or “enjoyment of private property”. It’s all controlled by the state… (though even a slave can sometimes pull one over on his master) Their children are taken and indoctrinated whether they support that or not. They don’t get fair trials. They have no legal rights if they offend KJL.
I hear the criticisms, and understand the emotion — but North Koreans aren’t slaves.
They do have the right to own property — even if it’s radios with fixed dials. Indeed, they appear to have certain real property rights to land in rural areas. They do have the right to engage in private commerce — for example, in jangmadangs, even though the traders may be subject to disgusting bribe demands. They may own bank accounts in their own names, –even if the government can call the deposits in for revaluation, it’s still their money. Even the lumberjacks in Russia, or the workers in Kaesong, get paid (poorly paid, and receive less than they are charged out at) but they get to keep the money as their own property. They own the clothes on their backs. Slaves cannot own property, any property — not land, nor radios, nor bank accounts, nor clothes.
Consider the latest information about Rajin, where urban workers are clamoring to go to, in order to make good money. There are lotteries to go, with workers volunteering. The job allocations are corrupt, but there is an underlying “free enterprise” concept that is alien to slavery.
Slavery, although it is a word that can be bandied about, is a really horrible system, where slaves know they are unfree. The North Koreans do not consider themselves slaves. They may deplore their government, dislike their privations, live in fear of arbitrary demands, but they still can consider their deplorable circumstances to be necessary to the building of a socialist paradise — and they can, and do, complain of individual slights. (Like anyone in a Communist system, they cannot criticize the system, but they can complain about its implementation, with the expectation that their grievances will be considered and even acted upon.)
Now I agree that, from our perspective, the ability of the DPRK rulers to allocate labor and accommodation, to set hours and to limit food, to decide if children are truly legitimate or miscegenated, to forbid emigration and to punish it by imprisoning the entire family, means that there are no truly free choices in that system, and it appears to us as if those people are victims — and slaves. But that simply illustrates how we decent people can fail to understand the utterly rebarbative condition of a true slave.
Serfs and Slaves only prosper in Pyongyang along with Eunech families to the regime if they are lucky. Everyone in Pyongyang is an actor. Those in Hamhung now resent those in the Willowed City for continuing to play along. Socialist Paradise…
Kim Jong Il is now a Lion tamer without a whip.
The audience of those he whipped now call for his blood. The only difference now is that the people of the elite in Pyongyang now call for the destruction of Kim Jong Il openly.
The ROK and U.S. tried to warn China that they will not flee south, but north when this day came. If only Beijing had not have been soo stubborn to continue to support a spoiled brat, thinking it was a little brother when in fact it was it’s adversary.