NK NEWS BRIEF | October 9, 2013

Propaganda posters at the base of a ski slope at Masik Pass: there are reportedly only about 5,500 skiers in a country of 24 million | Photo: Kim Kwang Hyon/AP, via The Guardian

NK INTERNAL

• Yonhap: The Workers’ Party seems to have been fully revived under KJU, taking center stage in NK. SK MOU official: “The general perception that change is taking place with more emphasis being placed on the economy may be correct, but to say the military has been sidestepped altogether needs more time to verify.” Since KJU came to power reportedly as many as 44% of 218 top regime officials have been replaced.

• Daily NK: “The markets in [Pyongyang] have seen a surge in trade of earrings and necklaces. While most of the accessories on offer come from China and are cheap, more expensive Southern goods can be found too.” Only two or three years ago, jewelry was mostly popular among cadres and performers, however, this trend has recently spread to the general population; “If you go to the Women’s Union or People’s Unit meetings, around half of the women aged in their 30s and 40s are wearing necklaces and earrings.”

• AP: Although it does not appear to be ready, the Masik Pass ski resort will formally open this Thursday and cater to an estimated 5,500 NKorean skiers (0.02% of the country’s population).  

• Daily NK: The proposal to establish two new special economic zones in each province has been met with mixed opinions. While some are optimistic about improved economic conditions, a defector who lived near Rason believes “If one thing is good (better living standards from wages earned in the zone), something else will be bad (restrictions, control and investigations).” There is also concern about the increased security services to control civilians that may accompany the open zones.

• Daily NK: After the KIC’s shutdown in April, employees underwent several weeks of self-criticism sessions. Now, with that testimony being used against them, many workers have not been allowed to resume working at the KIC. The authorities “just instructed them to go and find work elsewhere.”

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• AP write-up of interview with NK’s de facto head of state: “Kim Yong Nam… said economic growth is the top goal of the government under its new supreme leader, Kim Jong Un… But he said such improvements can only be made once North Korea is confident it will not be attacked or ostracized by the United States.”

• RFA: Despite good harvests, farmers are reportedly anxious because the authorities have failed to articulate a single clear allocation plan for this year and because of previous broken promises.

• Yonhap: NKorean exports to China rose 8% to 1.85 billion USD in the first eight months of this year, thanks to higher exports of coal, ores and woven garments. However NKorean imports from China fell 6% to 2.24 billion USD during the same period. As a result, two-way trade, totaling 4.09 billion USD, did not change much.

• Trade between NK and the EU was 92,000 Euros in 2012, a 40% decrease from 159,000 Euros in 2011.

• According to the FAO’s Crop Prospects and Food Situation report, there will be 2.8 million “vulnerable” people in NK who will need assistance until this year’s fall harvest.

REFUGEES

• FT: Adjusting to SK’s competitive society can be difficult for defectors, but plenty of them are flourishing under the South’s capitalist system. Access to microcredit, freedom to run their own business, and the indelible memory of hardship in NK are driving their successes.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• NK called the recently released NKDB White Paper an insult to NK’s “dignity and structure.”

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• SK’s NIS briefed lawmakers that KJU has professed his aim to “unify the two Koreas by force within the next three years” and has reinforced military assets near the DMZ. The NIS also told lawmakers that NK had restarted its Yongbyon reactor. PY announced in early April when tensions spiked that it would restart work on the small reactor and use it to strengthen their nuclear deterrence.

• Sec John Kerry in Japan: “We are prepared to sign a non-aggression agreement, providing North Korea decides to denuclearize and to engage in legitimate negotiations to achieve that end.”

• US and SK defense ministers discussed delaying OPCON transfer beyond 2015 and finding new methods to deal with NK’s provocations.

• SK’s Unification Minister pointed to PY’s recent personal criticisms of PGH and its unilateral postponements of family reunions as cause for the current icy inter-Korean relations. Conversely, NK is blaming SKorean media for deteriorating relations. On Tuesday, SK’s UM condemned NK’s criticisms.

• In response to joint military exercises among the US, ROK, and Japan, NK warned that it would carry out pre-emptive strikes to counter military provocations by SK and the US. PY has also put its military on full alert for the first time since March. Beijing’s response: “We call on all relevant parties to bear in mind the overall interests of this region… keep calm, exercise restraint and maintain the momentum of dialogues.”

• The US and Japan agreed to strengthen their security alliance. The agreement, which will put surveillance drones in Japan for the first time, demonstrates the countries’ efforts to respond to growing challenges from China and NK.

• The remains of Son Dong Shik, a POW who died in the North in 1984, were returned to SK over the weekend. If the remains are indeed those of Mr. Son, it will bring the total number of repatriated POW remains to six.

• PGH and Abe ignored each other at the APEC summit despite awkwardly having to sit next to each other, contrasting with PGH’s ‘extremely amicable’ meeting with Xi–their third meeting since June.  

ANALYSIS & OPINION

• Bechtol interview with RFA: [Syria has] North Korean advisers living [in weapons facilities], and in fact, there is a very posh North Korean facility that the Syrians maintain for them 365 days a year. And, at least at one of the facilities, not only do the North Koreans help them with the materials needed to fabricate these warheads and artillery shells, but they actually have the missiles. The North Koreans help the Syrians marry up these weapons … with Scud missiles. This has been going on since the early 1990s.

• From Haggard and Noland’s blog: Wintrobe argues that the nature of the military is such that the career options of its personnel tend to be limited outside the military sphere, and the hierarchical nature of militaries means that there are limited spaces at the top. So the universal response of military dictatorships is to expand the military budget and raise military salaries as a means of keeping the organization content.

• DeTrani (formerly USG): “I believe there would be interest in returning to negotiations with North Korea if Pyongyang stated that they were prepared to implement the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement. That in return for security assurances, economic assistance and the eventual provision of light water reactors, when they return to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state, and ultimately establish normal relations with the US and other countries, North Korea was prepared to comprehensively and verifiably dismantle all of their plutonium and uranium enrichment nuclear weapons programs and that they were prepared to immediately cease all missile launches and nuclear tests as they engage in six-party negotiations.”

MISC.

• NYT on the story of Kim Dong-sik, a NKorean spy captured in SK in 1995.

• Charles K. Armstrong discusses the history of NK’s foreign relations in his new book, Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992.

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