I am teaching a course on Asian Politics in the coming spring semester. I focus primarily on comparative foreign policy in southeast and east Asia. So China, the Koreas, Japan, and the ASEAN states get covered in terms of security issues, economic interactions, etc. Realizing that I have spent a great deal of time reading about, studying, writing about China and ASEAN states, I decided this fall to read more about the Korean peninsula, demographics, geography, society, culture, history, contemporary political structures, and so forth. As with most people it is the last book/article/information you covered that sticks in your mind. The last book I read about the Korean peninsula is Victor Cha's* The Impossible State; North Korea Past and Future. I find Cha's argument about why North Korea's government behaves as it does to be very compelling. I also find it to be very telling about recent events in North Korea.
Cha argues that North Korean ruling behavior can be understood as grounded in the desire to exercise absolute control to maintain the Kim family's position. Additionally, North Korean behavior can be understood as a desire to remain grounded in the first half of the Cold War. The first half of the Cold War was the heyday of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). In the 1950s to early 1970s North Korea produced more heavy machinery, more electricity, and was generally much more economically viable than South Korea. The Juche mentality was developed in the 1970s and reinforced in the 1990s as a means of controlling a population that was increasingly lacking food, electricity, modern technological development and conveniences as the reality that the heyday of DPRK economics and political clout ended with normalization of relations between the U.S. and China and the normalization of trade with a surging South Korea and China and improved South Korean-Russian relations. North Korea's heyday fades as Chinese and Russian direct payments and loans fade away and North Korea's government refuses to alter economic policy to recognize the new realities of East Asian politics and economics. The Kim administrations (Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il) both worked harder after that point in time on control of the population and control of the agencies of government (primarily through a military first policy of income and food distribution).
No how does this tie to the new Kim administration (Kim Jong Un) and current events? In the late 1990s as an expedient means to deal with failure of public redistribution systems (remember that a communist/marxist/authoritarian state operates by redistributing the benefits/wealth of production to the population), due to lack of production in industry and agricultural disasters of the mid to late 1990s, the DPRK introduced some minimalist market reforms. Leading this effort on behalf of Kim Jong-Il was Jang Song Thaek who was purged by Kim Jong-Il in 2004, but resurrected in 2010. Why was Jang resurrected, well he does happen to be the husband of Kim Jong-Il's sister, Kim Kyong-hui. Kim Jong-il used his sister and brother-in-law to help ensure ease of transition to the sudden emergence of Kimg Jong Un as the heir to the Kim dynasty in the DPRK. Last year some analysts even speculated that the real power of the government was in Kim Jong Un's aunt and uncle and that he was possibly a public figurehead (a not too unreasonable analysis based on the very limited information we had regarding Kim Jong Un). So now forward to the current situation, Jang Song Thaek has been purged again from positions of power in the DPRK (vice-chair of the National Defense Commission and department head Korean Worker's Party). For my two cents this move is designed to consolidate the position of Kim Jong Un and who was the easiest target among those who could challenge Kim Jong Un's authority. Well of course the easiest target is the one who was in charge of liberal reform of the economy that has failed (because it was not really liberal reform at all). And so the effort maintain total control of the population under the thumb of the Kim family and the new leader Kim Jong Un continues and it targets anyone and anything that might challenge the belief that the DPRK should return to the heyday of the 1950s to early 1970s.
Cha argues that North Korean ruling behavior can be understood as grounded in the desire to exercise absolute control to maintain the Kim family's position. Additionally, North Korean behavior can be understood as a desire to remain grounded in the first half of the Cold War. The first half of the Cold War was the heyday of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). In the 1950s to early 1970s North Korea produced more heavy machinery, more electricity, and was generally much more economically viable than South Korea. The Juche mentality was developed in the 1970s and reinforced in the 1990s as a means of controlling a population that was increasingly lacking food, electricity, modern technological development and conveniences as the reality that the heyday of DPRK economics and political clout ended with normalization of relations between the U.S. and China and the normalization of trade with a surging South Korea and China and improved South Korean-Russian relations. North Korea's heyday fades as Chinese and Russian direct payments and loans fade away and North Korea's government refuses to alter economic policy to recognize the new realities of East Asian politics and economics. The Kim administrations (Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il) both worked harder after that point in time on control of the population and control of the agencies of government (primarily through a military first policy of income and food distribution).
No how does this tie to the new Kim administration (Kim Jong Un) and current events? In the late 1990s as an expedient means to deal with failure of public redistribution systems (remember that a communist/marxist/authoritarian state operates by redistributing the benefits/wealth of production to the population), due to lack of production in industry and agricultural disasters of the mid to late 1990s, the DPRK introduced some minimalist market reforms. Leading this effort on behalf of Kim Jong-Il was Jang Song Thaek who was purged by Kim Jong-Il in 2004, but resurrected in 2010. Why was Jang resurrected, well he does happen to be the husband of Kim Jong-Il's sister, Kim Kyong-hui. Kim Jong-il used his sister and brother-in-law to help ensure ease of transition to the sudden emergence of Kimg Jong Un as the heir to the Kim dynasty in the DPRK. Last year some analysts even speculated that the real power of the government was in Kim Jong Un's aunt and uncle and that he was possibly a public figurehead (a not too unreasonable analysis based on the very limited information we had regarding Kim Jong Un). So now forward to the current situation, Jang Song Thaek has been purged again from positions of power in the DPRK (vice-chair of the National Defense Commission and department head Korean Worker's Party). For my two cents this move is designed to consolidate the position of Kim Jong Un and who was the easiest target among those who could challenge Kim Jong Un's authority. Well of course the easiest target is the one who was in charge of liberal reform of the economy that has failed (because it was not really liberal reform at all). And so the effort maintain total control of the population under the thumb of the Kim family and the new leader Kim Jong Un continues and it targets anyone and anything that might challenge the belief that the DPRK should return to the heyday of the 1950s to early 1970s.
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