Famine in Paradise

Abstract

[ 193 ] book review roundtable • famine in north korea social re-engineering. Until that day arrives, however, studies such as Famine in North Korea are indispensable in accounting for one of the most tragic episodes in twentieth century Korean and Asian history. In bygone eras of Chinese and Korean dynasties, the sine qua non of the “mandate of heaven” was the emperor’s ability to serve the people. In this respect, the “emperor’s famine” in North Korea will be recorded in history as the beginning of the end of Kim’s self-imposed and self-serving mandate. Famine in Paradise Andrei Lankov The great North Korean famine of 1996–99 was the worst humanitarian disaster to strike East Asia since China’s famine under Mao’s rule in 1958–61. The North Korean famine is unusual for three reasons. First, the famine occurred in an industrial, urban, and highly literate society. Second, the crisis arose in the middle of the world’s most dynamic region. Third, the disaster occurred during a peaceful era in regional history, a time without significant social upheaval. The famine no doubt will attract much attention in the decades to come, and Haggard and Noland’s Famine in North Korea constitutes one of the first comprehensive academic studies of this topic. This book is a “must-read” for all students of North Korea and contemporary East Asia and is likely to remain a standard on this issue until North Korean archive materials are opened to researchers, which of course is unlikely to occur in the next decade or two. The authors dealt with formidable challenges, the most serious of which being the acute shortage of data. North Korea is probably the world’s most secretive state; when statistics are released from Pyongyang, one can be sure that the figures have been doctored to serve political schemes and agendas. Haggard and Noland carefully collected all available data from different sources, including government materials, NGO reports, and witness testimonies. Though the picture that is portrayed may be incomplete (and andrei lankovis Associate Professor at Kookmin University, Seoul. Born in the then Soviet Union in 1963, he has published a number of books and articles on the North Korean history, including Crisis in North Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2005) and North of the DMZ (McFarland & Co., 2007). He can be reached at . [ 194 ] asia policy perhaps even wrong in some regards), this fault is applicable to almost all research on North Korea. Given the current situation, one could thus hardly do more than the authors have accomplished. The North Korean government blamed the disaster on great floods that hit the country in 1995–96. The book indicates, however, that the natural calamity played a rather marginal role in the collapse of North Korean agriculture and that this collapse began years before the floods, as clearly indicated by a steady decline in food consumption. Initially the government attempted to resolve problems through such outdated measures as attempts to boost productivity in the cooperative farms through “better” ideological indoctrinations. The government also made equally futile attempts to ban private trade at the markets and through limiting food consumption; one such example was the launching of the bizarre “let’s eat two meals a day” campaign. These efforts did not, however, meet with success. Why did the North Korean leaders follow this conservative line? Why did they not imitate the markedly successful reforms of China and Vietnam? The answer to those questions lies in the existence of another Korea, the prosperous and free South where per capita income is ten to thirty times greater than in the North (depending on which statistics are used). Pyongyang is afraid that liberalization will bring an instant loss of control: aware of South Korea’s prosperity, North Korean citizens might rise against their rulers if the government begins to institute reforms. Though hypothetical, the possibility of such a scenario unfolding prevents North Korea’s elites from relaxing their positions. The authors demonstrate quite well, however, that despite all of the government’s bans and restrictions, grass-roots marketization is occurring from below. Though some minor government-led reforms have been introduced—such as increasing the area...