North Korean People Research Articles

Overturned Time and Space: Drastic Changes in the Daily Lives of North Koreans during the Korean War

This article analyzes the overturning of time and space in the daily lives of North Koreans during the Korean War. The overturning was caused by the aerial bombings by the United States Air Force that lasted for three years. In particular, after the execution of the scorched earth policy, in November 1950, which destroyed all the cities and villages in North Korea, most people lost their dwellings and had to endure living underground, in dugouts or mud-huts; they were also mobilized at night to restore industries and transportation facilities. This article describes the miserable daily lives of North Korean civilians during the war, a topic that has rarely been discussed, and explains how this experience continues to affect the worldview of the North Korean people.

Chinese Tourists' Motivations and Satisfaction of Visiting North Korea

This article reports results from a survey of 23 semi-structured interviews with Chinese visitors to North Korea. The interviews examined the motives for and subsequent assessments of their tour of North Korea. In addition to expected assessments such as perceptions of North Korea as a unique destination, the satisfaction derived from sightseeing, watching the Arirang performance and meeting to a limited extent North Korean people, there were also adverse comments about inadequate Korean programmes, overly flexible travel schedules that could change at a moment's notice, high prices and poor standards of food quality. One contribution that the article makes to the wider literature is not only is it a description of an under-researched tourist destination, but also an examination of the nature of cross-country comparisons and the role of nostalgia that emerged in these interviews.

North Korea's Vinalon City: Industrialism as Socialist Everyday Life

In the early 1960s, the synthetic fiber vinalon became North Korea's national fiber, a product that symbolized the independence and ingenuity of its state-led socialism, from the raw materials needed to make it (the abundant coal and limestone) to the person who invented it (the colonial chemist Ri Sŭnggi, scouted by North Korea in 1950). The Vinalon Factory near Hamhŭng City—a factory originally built by a Japanese chemical company and a city rebuilt with the assistance of East Germany—also became a national emblem of its own, as a factory that arose solely from the toil of the North Korean people. The history of vinalon is a confluence of the colonial industrial system, the postliberation nationalist ideology of state building, the dynamics of multinational postwar reconstruction, and the monopoly of economy and politics by the regime of Kim Il Sung. Vinalon City, as the immense factory was called, was a transnational object par excellence, but at the same time, it was immutably localized for the ordinary North Korean people, replete with its labor heroes who achieved superhuman levels of productivity. This industrial narrative has a dimension of concrete, everyday reality, as vinalon is worn as clothing and produced by the workers. The everyday dimension is precisely where the ideological workings of state power are hidden. Furthermore, the history of vinalon reveals a characteristic of ideology of work—the subsumption of life by labor—a characteristic that is certainly not limited to North Korea.

Author’s Response to: Two Koreas and public health: ‘First, do no harm’

I thank Dr Shin for his interest in my editorial ‘Two Koreas, war and health’1 and for raising important issues on the potential impact of economic sanctions and the use of humanitarian aid for political leverage on the health and human rights of the North Korean people.2 It is noteworthy that recent economic sanctions against North Korea were made while people in the country were still suffering from lingering food shortages and economic difficulties. During the North Korean food crisis in the mid and late 1990s, about 240 000–600 000 people died due to the crisis, based on estimates using the North Korean census data of 1993 and 2008.3,4 Infant and under-five mortality rates increased about two-fold during the period.4 Biological imprints of the severe food shortage remained in North Korea until recently, according to a study on the long-term trends in childhood underweight prevalence.5 Considering that food aid from the World Food Programme was associated with improved nutritional indicators in a North Korean nutrition survey,6 economic sanctions and other political measures to reduce food aid might have caused health problems, especially among the most vulnerable North Korean people. Economic sanctions are like a siege on a city and may precipitate long-term sequelae. Epidemiological studies have provided evidence of long-term health effects associated with sieges, as was the case in the Dutch famine during World War II.7,8 Infant mortality, a measure for early life conditions, showed a seven-fold difference in 2010 between the two Koreas.1 Anthropometric data indicated a substantial difference in height between the children of the two Koreas.9 As a result, in the reunified Korea of the future, health and social inequalities according to prior citizenship will be inevitable. Shin pointed out the harmful health effects of economic sanctions and the political use of food aid led by the US government.2 The role of the South Korean government in addition to that of the US government would be also crucial because, along with China, South Korea has been a major trade partner of North Korea as well as a major donor country to North Korea for food aid during the most recent decade.10–12 A clear example of the use of political and economic measures for political leverage was the sudden shutdown of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the most important economic zone for inter-Korean economic cooperation. At the height of the tension in 2013, and as I was writing the editorial,1 the factories of 123 South Korean companies in North Korea were shuttered; about 54 000 North Korean employees were laid off and about 200 000 family members were affected. The relationship of job loss with increased morbidity and mortality risks has been well documented.13,14 However, the international and South Korean media covered the political and economic aspects of the closure but gave little attention to the potential impacts of job loss on living standards and health of North Korean employees and their families. The difference in life expectancy between the two Koreas was less than 3 years in 1993 but increased to about 12 years in 1998.15 The fact that the 12-year difference in life expectancy has remained ever since15 suggests that a constant humanitarian crisis, which could be called a slow-motion holocaust, is going on in North Korea. Concerns have been raised regarding food aid to North Korea, including inequitable distribution of food, lack of a monitoring system, and other uses of the food assistance (e.g., reselling in private markets and funding nuclear programmes).12 However, considering the expected short-term health impacts of food shortages and their long-term health and social consequences, the imperative to provide food aid to North Korea may well outweigh such concerns.

STIFLED GROWTH AND ADDED SUFFERING

The United States rhetorically promotes a nuclear-free North Korea with an open economic system, eager for the country to become an integrated member of the global community. Sanctions Washington has imposed on Pyongyang since the outbreak of the Korean War, however, have failed to advance this objective. Indeed, sanctions have proven to be counterproductive. While having a negligible effect on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, sanctions also restrict the inflow of foreign investment, thereby stymieing North Korea's efforts to recalibrate its economic system. The dearth of foreign investment further limits the establishment of market-based exchanges that would facilitate economic liberalization, a process that could improve economic security in North Korea. It is the North Korean people, moreover, not the governing elite, who bear the ultimate costs and suffer under these sanctions, creating undeniable tension when considering the causal relationship between economic sanctions and human rights. Despite assurances offered by U.S. administrations that sanctions policies exclusively target the government, this article argues that economic restrictions play a significant role in the country's economic woes, inhibiting Pyongyang from improving the standard of living for the North Korean people and failing to promote an improvement in basic economic rights.

PEACE AS A NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHT

This essay analyzes the “human rights” framework that evolved, paradoxically, as a way to address human rights and human security needs in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) by withholding humanitarian assistance from that country. This framework turns on the premise that the North Korean “regime” is the source of the society's ills, that it is unwilling to implement radical reforms needed to restore its economy for fear that they would undermine its rule, and that it maintains its grip upon society by means of propaganda and repression. Regime collapse, some argue, will thus lead to a better life for the North Korean people. Informed by this view, in combination with “intelligence” sources that predict the imminent collapse of the “regime,” U.S. policy has been loath to provide any assistance, including food aid, that might prolong the life of the state. By viewing North Korean society today in the context of its historical experience before and since the decline of its economy starting in the early 1990s, this essay challenges assumptions that underlie the “human rights” argument for regime collapse. It explores alternative reasons for the society's unexpected survival and argues that analysis of North Korean society in abstraction from the state of war in which it is situated, fails to offer realistic options for addressing the human security of the North Korean people.

Building Trust in Inter-Korean Relations

The Park Geun-hye administration in South Korea has made “trust building” the focal point of its North Korea policy, with emphasis on improving the lives of the average North Korean citizen. Bearing in mind the longstanding and deep-rooted political competition and structural divide between the two Koreas, how can South Korea realistically and viably begin to build trust with North Korea? This article provides a sociological definition of trust and trust building so as to prescribe how the trust-building process might best begin between the two Koreas. Considering the hardships of the North Korean people due to the chronic energy shortages, insecurities of the leadership in Pyongyang, and shortcomings of Seoul’s “trust-building process,” South Korea should look toward supporting nongovernmental engagement with North Korea, with a focus on renewable energy assistance as part of its initial and long-term future engagement strategy.

샬롬의 관점에서의 통일선교

Korean people have been talking about reunification of Korea for more than 60 years. This means that there is division in the Korean peninsula. Division brings antagonism and competition. We need reunification and it should be peaceful. The term peaceful reunification indicates the method and aim. Reunification of Korea should bring peace. Peaceful reunification is a missional task as well as a national task.Shalom is fulfilled with justice and love with the relationship between God and humanity, a human and a human, and humanity and nature. Shalom reveals right relationship with God. It appears through a righteous life and is embodied in the faith community. Shalom is found in peaceful relation with others and is embodies in the ethical community. Shalom is also found in harmonious relation with nature and is embodies in the responsible community.The Korean Christianity has three-fold roles that are national reconciliation, salvation and reunification. Division is building a wall between you and me, regards with hostility to each other, and the loss of community life. Reunification however is overcoming the division, settlement of hostile life, and recovering of community life. The Korean Christianity has a task to reconcile the North and the South. This is a role of the high priest that is given to the Korean Christianity.The Korean Church should repent its loss of public trust in the society through falling into materialism, taking advantage of secular success, neglect of social issues, and splitting into several factions rather being a model of reconciliation and harmony. Therefore the Korean Church should recover its public trust and leadership. One of the important roles of the Korean Church is to be concerned about North Korean people’s life and their human rights, and then should participate in the interchange with North Korean people. Particularly, the Korean Church should make constant efforts for a reunion of the dispersed family members. The Korean Church can also play a role of trust building between the North and the South with a prophetic mission.The Korean Christianity should not take a biased attitude to a specific ideology, nor assume an amicable attitude to a particular system. This makes mediation of confrontation and conflict difficult, and may break social balance. Therefore the Korean Christianity should overcome a certain ideology and system, and contribute peaceful reunification. This is where the Korean Church should stand and what the Korean Church should do.

From Pre- to Post-Famine: Trends in Underweight Among North Korean Children, 1987-2012

IntroductionTo let all people eat rice with meat soup, as a common propaganda slogan has it, has been an objective of the leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), also known as North Korea.1 Yet contrary to official proclamation, nutritional stress has lingered in North Korea ever since its foundation in 1948, which was brought about by the emerging Cold War (1945-1991). As a manifestation of food calamities, mean final height of North Korean men, taken as a proxy for nutritional and epidemiological stress in early life,2 merely stagnated for all decades of the Cold War.3,4 In stark contrast, contemporary South Korean men are by now the tallest in all of East Asia because of healthy and wealthy living conditions in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.5Worst of all, by the 1990s, North Korea experienced a great famine.6,7 Massive starvation of North Koreans occurred with the downfall of socialism and the geopolitical disintegration of the Eastern Bloc. Food, fertilizers, and energy could no longer be afforded on the basis of world market prices. Lacking these necessary inputs, North Korea's economy collapsed in the 1990s.8 More important, in the previous Cold War era, the socialist government inefficiently focused on heavy industrialization and symbolic mammoth projects of marginal economic use in addition to overspending up to one-third of its budget on the military.9 This leftNorth Korea without comparative advantages in exports in the post-Cold War era to raise the levels of living and revive its economy.Though macroeconomic shocks and long-term strategic malinvestments are the underlying causes for North Korea's decline after the Cold War, the food crisis of the 1990s itself was triggered by two consecutive floods in 1995 and 1996 that devastated large parts of the country and evolved into a major famine.10 The floods in turn were a result of the El Nino weather anomaly at that time, although deforestation accelerated the crisis. However, by the early 2000s, North Korean living standards improved thanks to international assistance. In the early 1990s, North Korea joined the United Nations, and after the first floods in 1995, it officially appealed for aid. Ever since then, international food aid has been pouring into the DPRK, with peaks from 1997 to 2005 (Figure 1). Another important factor for North Korea's revitalization in the post-Cold War era was liberalization reforms. These were officially introduced in 2002 (July First Reforms) and led to a paradigmatic shift, including marketization and decentralization.11,12,13 Table 1 demonstrates that probably 78 percent of North Koreans were participating in the informal economy by the time they were interviewed from 2004 to 2005.This article investigates the trends in underweight of children in North Korea from 1987 to 2012 to explore how the nutritional status of the North Korean people developed in the critical decade of the 1990s and beyond. First and foremost, the starting point of this study is the year 1987, which is a prefamine period when North Korea was still integrated into the Eastern Bloc. The last year of observation is the post-famine year 2012, which is over a decade after the great famine of the 1990s. Hence, this study offers very rare evidence on the long-term development of North Korean biosocial living standards. Previous statistical analysis on North Korean child malnutrition focused on cross-sectional evidence during the peak of famine14,15 or after the famine16,17 as well as on the regional effects of the food crisis.18,19 What is more, this paper compares underweight rates of children in North Korea to that of their peers in South Korea by drawing on recently released statistics based on a nationally representative anthropometric survey carried out from 2003 to 2004. This is another intriguing comparison because both Koreas share the same genetic and cultural ancestry and were also not affected much by migration over the last centuries. …

The Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions Against a Nuclear North Korea

IntroductionOn July 5, 2006, North Korea test-launched an array of missiles, which ended a self-imposed moratorium of eight years. Ten days after the missile test (on July 15, 2006), in its toughest official response to North Korean actions since 1994, the United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted Resolution 1695. This resolution condemned the missile tests, demanded North Korea cease all activities related to its ballistic mi - ssile program, and required all member states to comply with measures limiting North Korea's access to missile-tested materials or technology. On October 9, 2006, North Korea set offits first nuclear test. The UN Security Council voted unanimously on October 14 to slap North Korea with trade, travel, and other as punishment for its claimed nuclear weapons test. This resolution (1718) is much stronger than the earlier resolutions; it calls for inspection of North Korea cargoes, bars the travel to UN member states of North Koreans responsible for North Korea's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, requires UN member states to freeze the financial assets of North Korean people or entities designated by the UN as engaged in North Korean WMD activities, and requires the establishment of an oversight committee.Under the latest resolution (2094), tougher impose penalties on North Korean banking, travel, and trade, and were passed in a 15-0 vote that reflected the country's increased international isolation. China, the North's longtime benefactor, helped the United States draftthe resolution, in what outside experts called a sign of Beijing's growing annoyance with Pyongyang's defiant behavior on the nuclear issue. The Chinese had entreated the North Koreans not to proceed with the February 12, 2013, underground nuclear test, their third. It is questionable whether these new will work. In other words, will the compel North Korean leaders to comply fully with UN demands, or will they lead the North Korean masses to rebel against their leaders? This article discusses reasons for the possible failure of these new against North Korea, the consequences of their failure to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, and policy options on a nuclear North Korea.The Effectiveness of Sanctions Against Outlaw CountriesThe term sanctions means restrictions on normal commercial relations with a target country, including trade, investment, and other cross-border activities. Economic are either unilateral or multilateral. A unilateral sanction is imposed by one country, such as the U.S., against another country, such as North Korea. Multilateral require the cooperation of at least two nations. The clearest examples of multilateral are those imposed by the Security Council of the United Nations.Multinational were relatively rare before 1990. The UN Security Council, obviously incapacitated due to Cold War-related veto powers, imposed only twice (Rhodesia in 1966 and South Africa in 1977) in the 45 years of its existence prior to the August 1990 embargo of Iraq.1 Since 1990, however, the UN Security Council has increasingly imposed economic to prevent, manage, or resolve violent conflict. When a UN sanction is imposed, all UN member nations are required to comply with the order and to enforce the sanction against the outlaw country.2The active utilization of as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy dates back to the aftermath of World War I, when U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suggested that the adoption of was a method that could keep the world free of war. However, empirical studies on the effectiveness of economic by Pape3 and others found that historically, have a poor track record. The rare success of cases such as South Africa is associated with unique factors that are unlikely to be found elsewhere. …

A Strategy Toward Reconstructing the Healthcare System of a Unified Korea

This road map aims to establish a stable and integrated healthcare system for the Korean Peninsula by improving health conditions and building a foundation for healthcare in North Korea through a series of effective healthcare programs. With a basic time frame extending from the present in stages towards unification, the roadmap is composed of four successive phases. The first and second phases, each expected to last five years, respectively, focus on disease treatment and nutritional treatment. These phases would thereby safeguard the health of the most vulnerable populations in North Korea, while fulfilling the basic health needs of other groups by modernizing existing medical facilities. Based on the gains of the first two phases, the third phase, for ten years, would prepare for unification of the Koreas by promoting the health of all the North Korean people and improving basic infrastructural elements such as health workforce capacity and medical institutions. The fourth phase, assuming that unification will take place, provides fundamental principles and directions for establishing an integrated healthcare system across the Korean Peninsula. We are hoping to increase the consistency of the program and overcome several existing concerns of the current program with this roadmap.

North Korea and the Contradiction of Inversion: Dictatorship, Markets, Social Reform

IntroductionThe problem of North Korea today is the problem of the contradiction of inversion, that is, the inverse relation of dictatorial regime capacity and social reform pressures that have been intensified under impoverished and marketizing socioeconomic conditions. Importantly, this contradiction is not an abstract, metaphysical, or speculative principle formulated in the realm of pure logic or pure theory. Instead, the contradiction is a concrete, empirical, and real social involving the actual momentum of millions of people in everyday life and the struggle of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and Korean People's Army (KPA) elite to maintain its interests, privileges, and survival.While the Soviet-Stalinist-constructed North Korean party-army state-regime had been able to more or less contain the contradiction in the epoch of world Stalinism, with financial aid, fraternal trade, and material assistance from its allies and benefactors in the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, and China, the 1989 to 1991 liquidation of the Stalinist states and onset of the post-Soviet and post-COMECON era exacerbated the problems for the regime. North Korea confronted a crisis of compounded proportions: collapse of the bureaucratically planned economy, collapse of faith in Marxism-Leninism, collapse of discipline in the WPK, and, most catastrophically, collapse of the food-ration system.With the great famine of 1996 to 1999, an emergent market economy based on the spontaneous rise of petty trade and small proprietorship became the new social reality. Confronted with these conditions, the ruling group determined to secure its existence by distancing itself from Marxism-Leninism in 1992, emphasizing militaryfirst (songun) populism in 1998, adopting pragmatic socialism (shilli sahoejuui; markets plus planning) in 2002, and relinquishing communism in 2009. What the political-economic adaptations of the regime are indicative of is that the contradiction of inversion is moving North Korea into an alignment that is fundamentally in the interests of global capitalism.Contradiction of InversionHow is the contradiction of inversion constituted? North Korean studies scholars do not presently use the term, but its sense-content is axiomatic in empirical and predictive analyses of the contemporary North Korean socioeconomic and sociopolitical situation. A notable example is Un-Chul Yang's 2012 article Downfall of the North Korean State Economy in International Journal of Korean Studies, which speaks of from the bottom of and the rise of markets as a bottom-up process rather than a top-down process, resulting fundamentally from economic failure, financial bankruptcy, food shortages, and incapability of government to provide for the North Korean people.2As economic poverty is protracted and as markets at the bottom grow, the North Korean state-regime experiences declining political authority and decreasing influence of power.3 Summarizing the social process and its materially conditioned trajectory, Yang says:With constant economic difficulties, the reigning force of the dictatorial regime is, in fact, gradually loosening. The number of North Korean defectors is increasing, and corruption already seems to be out of control. In addition, the steady growth of private business will be an index to producing a new future.The pressure from the bottom of society to provide reform measures continues to increase as the capacity of the North Korean regime decreases. With the slowly shifting paradigm of the North Korean people and elites, the foundation for a market economy should gain strength in the near future.4What this description and prediction reveal is that the contradiction of inversion has four main factors: (1) progression of time, (2) social hierarchy, (3) dictatorial regime capacity, and (4) social reform pressures. The latter two factors, existing in the objective contexts of history and society, manifest a decrease-increase relation as a direct consequence of economic difficulties and a vertical opposition between the people and the elite. …

Current status of healthcare and effective health aid strategies in North Korea

As the period since the partition of North and South Korea has been prolonged, the gap between the two Koreas continues to widen in various ways. Indeed, in the health sector, differences that already existed have diverged even more after North Korea’s economic crisis. This article will focus on the problematic situation of North Korean health care status and the trends in health aid to North Korea toward future improvement. Since 1990, after the dismantling of the socialist state system and a series of natural disasters, North Korea has accepted partial transformation to free market principles. Along with these changes and due to decreased rations, health workers also began seeking a secondary income to meet their daily needs, and a secondary economy in the pharmaceutical industry became one of their main financial resources. This has led to inequity in health service accessibility and has resulted in changes in North Korean patients’ health behaviors. Meanwhile, external aid for health has steadily increased, resulting in dependency on external support. Infectious disease and maternal, neonatal, and child health-related aid support has comprised the largest portion in health aid; however, the changing composition of the disease burden is requiring different allocation and partnerships aligned according to health aid needs. North Korea requires health-related policy reforms that can respond actively to the lack of health resources, the deteriorated health infrastructure, and the instability of the health and social safety net. The South Korean government, as the central coordinator of such aid, should play this role with a specific strategy to support and respond to the changing needs of the North Korean people.

The Study of the North Korean People's Army Officer Training System during the Founding of the NKPA's Military

The Study of the North Korean People's Army Officer Training System during the Founding of the NKPA's Military

North Korean refugee health in South Korea (NORNS) study: study design and methods

BackgroundUnderstanding the health status of North Korean refugees (NKRs), and changes in health during the resettlement process, is important from both the humanitarian standpoint and the scientific perspective. The NOrth Korean Refugee health iN South Korea (NORNS) study aims to document the health status and health determinants of North Korean refugees, to observe various health outcomes as they occur while adapting to the westernized lifestyle of South Korea, and to explain the mechanisms of how health of migrants and refugees changes in the context of new environmental risks and opportunities.MethodsThe NORNS study was composed of an initial survey and a follow-up survey 3.5 years apart. Participants were recruited voluntarily among those aged 30 or more living in Seoul. The survey consists of a health questionnaire and medical examination. The health questionnaire comprises the following six domains: 1) demographic and migration information 2) disease history, 3) mental health, 4) health-related lifestyle, 5) female reproductive health, and 6) sociocultural adaptation. The medical examination comprises anthropometric measurements, blood pressure and atherosclerosis, and various biochemical measurements. Prevalence of several diseases able to be diagnosed from the medical examination, the changes between the two surveys, and the association between the outcome and other measurements, such as length of stay and extent of adaptation in South Korea will be investigated. Furthermore, the outcome will be compared to a South Korean counterpart cohort to evaluate the relative health status of NKRs.DiscussionThe NORNS study targeting adult NKRs in South Korea is a valuable study because various scales and medical measurements are employed for the first time. The results obtained from this study are expected to be utilized for developing a health policy for NKRs and North Korean people after unification. Additionally, since NKRs are an immigrant group who are the same race and have the same genetic characteristics as South Koreans, this study has the characteristics of a unique type of migrant health study.

ATROCITIES BEFORE AND DURING THE KOREAN WAR

Drawing on the results of forty-eight case studies completed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea (TRCK), this article analyzes the characteristics of “mass killings of Korean civilians” committed in South Korea (south of the 38th parallel) from October 1948 to March 1952. First, the author identifies four groups of perpetrators who committed the mass killings: the army/police of the Republic of Korea (ROK), ROKpolice and army intelligence agencies, ROKpolice and security agencies, and the U.S. military. Second, the author shows that the political circumstances at the time of each mass killing had profound effects on the ways in which these mass killings were carried out, how victims were selected, and how the perpetrators mobilized. Immediately before the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the ROK army/police were mobilized to suppress rebels within the army and civilian opponents to the government. This resulted in mass killings. Immediately after the war started, potential collaborators with North Korea were summarily executed by army intelligence agencies/police. Finally, collaborators, or suspects, with the North Korean People's Army were vengefully punished after United Nations forces recovered Seoul. Also, the U.S. military was engaged in killing refugees and civilians in enemy territory throughout the war. The series of mass civilian killings demonstrates, in the most grotesque way, that the Korean War was the final outburst and culmination of conflicts that arose from the high political tension caused by the establishment of the two governments after Korea's independence in August 1945. To substantiate these claims, this article details some of the civilian mass killings whose veracity has been confirmed by the TRCK.

The Inchoen Landing Operation and Response of North Korean People's Army

The Inchoen Landing Operation and Response of North Korean People's Army

The Chinese Communist Forces(CCF) and North Korean People's Army(NKPA) Combined Forces Command and Its Impact on the Reorganization of NKPA

The Chinese Communist Forces(CCF) and North Korean People's Army(NKPA) Combined Forces Command and Its Impact on the Reorganization of NKPA

Reform without Transition: The Economic Situation in North Korea since the July 1, 2002, Measures

Poor Economic Performance in North KoreaDespite the severe economic hardship, North Korea has devoted its energy to strengthening its capabilities. Adhering to the so-called military first politics, the harsh North Korean regime continues to maintain its stranglehold on the people and attempts to avert political democratization. North Korea propagates a juche ideology as the foundation of its legitimacy and uses this to insulate its people from the outside world.1 The fundamental obsession with a self-reliant economy has brought about overall economic inefficiency, including a low level of technology, serious neglect of production facilities, and a decrease of labor productivity. As the resultant economic dilemma accumulated, the North Korean economy tumbled severely in the 1990s. North Korea is well aware of the serious problem of its backward economy, but denies the fact that its economic slump can be ascribed to the accumulated problems of its inefficient system. Instead, North Korea blames the hostile policy of the United States, or its weak external economic relations caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc.The economy ceased to function during the 1990s, especially after North Korea suffered severe flooding in 1995. After several years of famine, North Korea announced that the country had overcome its economic hardship through an arduous march of sustained effort by Kim Jung-il and the Korean Workers Party. Positive economic growth in the early 2000s seemed to be made possible by foreign subsidies (see Figure 1). In general, however, the North Korean economy is believed to have failed, losing all its potential and ability to overcome the economic deadlock.Furthermore, North Korea has failed to supply daily necessities and subsistencelevel food to meet the demands of its people (see Figure 2). North Korea needs at least 6.5 million tons of grain to distribute to its people, but its grain supply is far below the demand-by more than a million tons. The poor performance of the agricultural sector is due to the shortage of energy and fertilizer. North Korea was too dependent on Soviet oil and fertilizer subsidies prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.2In an effort to ride out the economic hardship, North Korea introduced bold measures to improve economic management on July 1, 2002, by increasing salaries and prices and providing its state-run enterprises with some incentives. The socalled July 1st measures are viewed as the most aggressive economic policy adopted by North Korea in recent years. The measures were targeted at curing the country's economic inefficiency within the framework of the state-controlled economy. Although North Korea is encouraging production more practically than in the past, and has pushed ahead with reform-oriented changes in the economic sector, it has yet to find better alternatives that will yield substantial economic growth. The measures were designed only to smoothly manage the planned economy, rather than introducing the merits of the market economy. The most notable example is North Korea's industry, which is still the top-priority economic expedient under its stratocracy.3Put simply, the July 1st measures worked against economic reform.4 In reality, the overall level of production in North Korea has remained in the doldrums for a considerable period of time. The shortage of capital goods has almost paralyzed production activities in most industrial sectors.During the initial period of the July 1st measures, North Korea faced severe inflation. The drastic increase in wages pushed up the purchasing power of the North Korean people. As time passed, an excess demand, caused by high wages combined with the ever-increasing speculative demand, touched off skyrocketing price increases. This is a typical monetary illusion, which refers to the tendency of people to think of currency in nominal terms. To stop high inflation, there is a need to add up production factors or improve labor productivity. …

Groping for Ways toward Value Integration between South and North Korean People - Centering around Communitarian Integration Principle

Groping for Ways toward Value Integration between South and North Korean People - Centering around Communitarian Integration Principle