The Transformation Of North Korea

He writes that the regime of Kim Jong Il is imploding as its Stalinist system has been slowly relaxing by the natural difficulty of keeping extreme political repression going. In the last decade, though, this process has accelerated as a result of economic collapse in 1991-95 and famine in 1996-1999.

The three big factors facilitating this process include:

Information: It used to be that people could only get their hands on radios, and that when doing military service. But now prosperous North Koreans can buy used DVD players and VCRs smuggled in from China. What they like to view are South Korean TV soap operas. These TV programs give the lie to the idea that 7 million South Koreans are unemployed and live in unimaginable poverty. In fact, North Koreans are non-plussed that South Korea is apparently richer than the border area of China—which looks pretty rich to them.

Economic System: When the Stalinist economy broke down the North Korean people had to develop an informal capitalist economy. It had all the bad features of informal economies everywhere including rapacious moneylenders and necessary bribes to officials. But people had to adapt or starve.

Diminishing Political Control: The economic crisis of the 1990s has led to the demoralization of the party cadre. Now they are willing to “turn a blind eye to certain phenomena, especially if monetarily rewarded to do so.” Anyway, since survival is achieved for most North Koreans by small-scale business activity, what’s the point of listening to powerless officials. The social hierarchy has changed too with formerly persecuted Japanese-Koreans and Chinese acquiring wealth and status through their foreign connections and businesses.

It’s an amazing story, and we will read more of it in the coming months and years.

Christopher Chantrill blogs at americanmanifestobook.blogspot.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.