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North Korea has not the most best reputation. The world believes that an irrational and militant regime has reigned in the DPRK, and the country is run by people who remain captive to 70-year-old ideological models. However, a more sober look shows that North Korea is not run by fanatics and ideologically blinkered National Stalinists. Quite the contrary - the DPRK is headed by cynical and smart pragmatists, they quite sensibly assess the situation in which their country finds itself. The main task is obvious - the preservation of the regime. It is difficult to blame them for this, because there is hardly a state on the planet whose ruling elite would not care about maintaining their own power and privileges.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea arose in 1945-1948. under conditions very similar to those of the birth of many regimes in Eastern Europe. After the northern part of the Korean Peninsula came under the control of Soviet army, the USSR began to actively and, on the whole, successfully plant a somewhat modified version of its own political and economic model there. However, at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. relations between Pyongyang and Moscow deteriorated sharply. Kim Il Sung and his entourage did not accept Khrushchev's reforms and began to rebuild the country's political and economic model in the opposite direction. As a result, North Korea has developed a society in which character traits the Stalinist model of state socialism found even more vivid expression than in the Soviet Union of the late forties.
Trade as such practically disappeared - almost all food and essential goods were distributed on cards. The role of material incentives decreased - the main stake was placed on ideological education. The size of personal plots in the villages could not exceed 100 square meters. m (of course, by the end of the fifties, cooperatives became the basis of agricultural production - an analogue of Soviet collective farms). Travel outside the county or city in which a DPRK resident was registered for permanent residence was severely restricted. Owning free-tuning radios was considered a political crime. Foreign literature and periodicals of a non-technical nature were sent to the special depository, and no exceptions were made for publications from the socialist countries. Even the collected works of Marx, Engels and Lenin turned out to be out of reach - the North Koreans could get acquainted with the works of the classics of Marxism only through quotes and individual texts that were considered ideologically acceptable. Contacts with foreigners, including citizens of the USSR, were strictly limited. The cult of personality of Kim Il Sung (and later of members of his family) reached an intensity that was unthinkable either in the Soviet Union under Stalin or in China under Mao. Extreme, if not grotesque, forms were taken by Korean ethnic nationalism.
Since the 1970s the regime actually turns into an absolute monarchy. Kim Il Sung's successor was officially appointed by his eldest son Kim Jong Il, who headed the party and government after his father's death in 1994. After the death of Kim Jong Il in 2011, power passed to his son, "Young Marshal" Kim Jong Un. A significant part of the highest administrative positions since the late 1970s. occupied by representatives of the second generation of the elite, that is, mainly children and immediate relatives of the Manchu partisans of the thirties.
Established in the 1960s The economic model was extremely inefficient and costly. It is known that the state-socialist economy is capable of mobilization breakthroughs and the concentration of significant resources in those sectors that top management considers vital. At the same time, stable development, as well as the production of consumer goods of satisfactory quality, are extremely difficult tasks for such a system. In the DPRK, where the features of this economic model were brought to their logical conclusion, all these problems manifested themselves especially clearly. By the 1980s, economic growth had almost stopped. Nevertheless, until the early 1990s, the economy kept afloat largely thanks to the Soviet and Chinese assistance that the North Koreans received, skillfully playing on the contradictions and rivalry between Moscow and Beijing. Food cards were regularly purchased, and there was no famine in the country.
However, the situation changed dramatically in the early 1990s, when the supply from outside suddenly stopped. The result was a severe economic crisis. According to existing estimates, the volume of industrial production declined in 1990-2000. about twice. Agriculture was particularly hard hit, initially heavily dependent on the supply of chemical fertilizers and the maintenance of costly irrigation systems and pumping stations. Grain harvests have fallen sharply, and the DPRK, which previously could not really feed itself, faced mass starvation. In 1996-1999 it claimed between 600,000 and 900,000 lives, and also led to tremendous changes in society. Black and gray markets began to play a decisive role in the survival of the population, corruption, which was practically absent before, became universal, the ability of the state to control everyday life weakened significantly.
Elemental Transformation
The collapse of the state economy led to a spontaneous revival of the private sector - formally illegal, but in fact very influential. Markets until the end of the 1980s - a very marginal phenomenon, began to grow rapidly. Although there is no question of any dissolution of agricultural cooperatives, the peasants, on their own initiative, actively cultivate the land on steep mountain slopes and other inconveniences, so that now they are making a significant contribution to food production in the country. Private workshops appeared, mainly engaged in the manufacture of consumer goods. Private trade with China flourished - both smuggled, legal and semi-legal. Finally, otkhodnichestvo to China played a significant role - good until 2008-2009. the border was very weakly guarded.
The line between private and public economy was rapidly blurring. Many of the formally state-owned enterprises (for example, most restaurants and a great many stores) are in fact privately owned. Their owners invest their own funds, hire and fire workers at their own discretion, sell products and services at market prices, and give the state a certain part of the income (or a predetermined fixed amount). The assertion, often found in the press, that the DPRK remains almost a preserve of state socialism, has long been untrue. Most North Koreans live on gray and black incomes. One of the leading experts on the shadow economy of North Korea, Professor Kim Byung-yon believes that in 1998-2008. individual entrepreneurship provided approximately 78% of the income of an average family.
The inevitable consequence of these processes was property stratification. Many of the shadow businessmen, as well as the officials associated with them, have made good fortunes. In terms of market rates, the official salary in the DPRK over the past 15 years has been 2-3 dollars per month (in recent months - even less, due to another outbreak of hyperinflation). The real income of the average family is much higher, about $30, but some have managed to create a fortune of several hundred thousand dollars. The “New Koreans”, a disproportionately large part of whom live in Pyongyang and the border cities, actively visit numerous commercial restaurants, buy apartments (formally the real estate trade is prohibited, but in fact it flourishes), import furniture and sanitary ware from China, in some cases acquire motorcycles, and even cars.
Despite the fact that almost the majority of officials are somehow fed from the market, the state does not approve of the new economy. It is difficult to find even hints of its very existence in the official press, and ideological workers constantly remind that socialism of the Kimirsen type is an ideal, from which, perhaps, we had to somewhat deviate under the influence of exceptionally unfavorable circumstances, but which we must strive for. In some periods, however, the authorities are ready to turn a blind eye to individual entrepreneurship, and in 2002 they even decriminalized certain types of the private economy (these changes were immediately announced in the world press as “the beginning of radical Chinese-style reforms”). At other times, the authorities, on the contrary, seek to undermine the private sector, culminating in the 2009 monetary reform, the original goal of which was to eliminate the capital of private firms. In general, the attitude of the authorities towards "spontaneous capitalism" remains negative. North Korean private entrepreneurs operate in the shadow zone. They are much more influential (and more numerous) than, say, the “guild members” of the Soviet seventies, but, on the other hand, they are far from the officially recognized and encouraged entrepreneurs of modern China.
Private business has made a significant contribution to the fact that in the last decade the economic situation in North Korea has somewhat leveled off. Reports of famine and even cannibalism appearing from time to time in the press should not be misleading. The population in its mass eats poorly, but there is no more famine in the country, and living standards are rising, albeit rather slowly. According to the (South Korean) Bank of Korea, the average annual GDP growth in the DPRK over last decade was approximately 1.3% - the figure is not too high, but not catastrophic either. However, compared with the growth rate of China and South Korea, this is a meager figure. The situation in the country is extremely difficult, and the gap with its neighbors, already huge, continues to grow.
Nevertheless, the North Korean leadership stubbornly refuses to take advantage of the way out of the current situation, which seems quite obvious to an external observer: it is not going to follow the path of China and Vietnam. In both the PRC and the SRV, the communist oligarchy carried out the actual dismantling of state socialism and carried out a phased transition to a market economy (with large elements of dirigisme), while maintaining the one-party system, socialist rhetoric and symbols. As a result, the Chinese and Vietnamese nomenklatura not only retained power, but also significantly increased their income. However, not only officials, but also the vast majority of the population benefited from the changes in these countries: both states are experiencing an economic boom that is almost unparalleled in world history.
The example of China seems attractive, and it is not surprising that many observers have been expecting for decades that the leadership of the DPRK will decide in the very near future to follow the Chinese path - so seemingly simple and effective. Talk of supposedly planned reforms in North Korea arises every few years. For the first time in the memory of the author of these lines, the beginning of "Chinese-style reforms" was discussed in 1984, when the Law on Mixed Enterprises was passed. However, for now, all this remains just talk.
It is this stubborn unwillingness to reform the country that is most often pointed out by those who accuse the Pyongyang leadership of being irrational. However, the DPRK does not follow the Chinese path for purely rational reasons: Pyongyang is well aware that there is a fundamental difference between China and North Korea, which makes reforms an extremely risky and almost suicidal enterprise.
Ignorance is power
The main problem for the North Korean authorities is the existence of an exceptionally successful twin state - South Korea. In colonial times (1910-1945) South Korea was a backward agrarian region, and practically the entire industry was concentrated in the territory that later came under the control of Pyongyang. Despite the heavy destruction caused by the Korean War, Pyongyang quickly put in order the industrial legacy left from Japanese colonialism, and until the end of the 1960s. ahead of the South in most macroeconomic indicators.
However, since the early 1960s South Korea has entered a period of rapid economic growth, which is quite rightly called the "South Korean economic miracle." Between 1960 and 1995, that is, in the span of one generation, GDP per capita increased tenfold, from $1,105 to $11,873 (inflation-adjusted, in constant 1990 dollars). Around 1970, in terms of GNP per capita, South Korea overtook the North, and since then the difference in living standards between the two Korean states has been constantly growing. Because since the early 1960s Pyongyang classified economic statistics, it is difficult to speak with full confidence about the extent of the current gap. According to optimistic estimates, the GDP per capita in the DPRK is 12 times lower than in South Korea. If we believe the estimates of pessimists, then the gap is about 40-fold. However, even if the optimists are right, this is still the biggest difference between the two countries that have a land border. For comparison: in 1990, the gap in GDP per capita between East and West Germany was approximately twofold.
It is the existence of this gap that is, from the point of view of the North Korean leadership, the main political problem. Carrying out Chinese-style reforms inevitably involves the opening of the country (albeit partial), because such transformations require external investment and foreign technology. It is clear that the discovery will lead to the rapid dissemination of information about the prosperity of South Korea, which is not even officially considered another state (in North Korean official documents and propaganda, it is just “a part of the DPRK temporarily occupied by American troops”).
It should be noted that until the early 2000s. the bulk of North Koreans were unaware of how far South Korea had come. They were told that the South is a "living hell", a "country of poverty and lack of rights", where children are starving. However, since the late 1990s The DPRK's carefully constructed system of self-isolation has begun to gradually disintegrate, and information about life abroad is leaking into the country. Many North Koreans now realize that South Korea is faring much better than the DPRK. However, the true extent of this colossal difference is realized by few. It must be remembered that the majority of North Koreans have very modest ideas about a “prosperous life”: a symbol of prosperity for them is the opportunity to eat rice every day, and meat a couple of times a week.
It is clear that the start of reforms will change this situation radically. It will become known that even a poor South Korean family can afford both a car and a vacation abroad (both in North Korea are available only to a few thousand families at the very top of the hereditary power hierarchy). The dissemination of such information will naturally make many residents of the DPRK wonder who is to blame for the collapse of the economy of North Korea - a country that eight decades ago was the most developed region of the continental East Asia. It is also clear that the responsibility will be placed on the current regime. The reforms will inevitably lead to a weakening of both ideological and administrative-police control. A market economy, even if controlled by the state, is not possible in a country where you need to get a police permit to travel outside your home county and you still cannot call abroad from your home phone.
In China, of course, similar processes were observed, but there they did not have serious political consequences. The Chinese are now well aware that the standard of living in their country is much lower than, say, in the United States or Japan. However, this circumstance is not perceived by them as evidence of the ineffectiveness or illegitimacy of the CCP: after all, both Japan and the United States are other countries, with a different culture and history. In addition, China cannot unite with its rich neighbors on the planet, cannot and does not want to become either the 51st American state or a Japanese prefecture.
In North Korea, the situation is completely different. The leadership has every reason to fear that the reforms will lead to the loss of the legitimacy of power and domestic political instability. In other words, the result of social and economic reforms will most likely be not an economic boom (as happened in China), but a crisis and the fall of the regime. At the same time, the probability of absorption of the DPRK by South Korea is high.
It should be noted that it will be extremely difficult for the North Korean nomenclature to abandon an ideology in which they have not believed for so long, but to retain a significant share of real power as entrepreneurs who have privatized state enterprises, or even democratic politicians, as happened in the USSR and a number of socialist countries. . The North Korean nomenclature is well aware that nothing good awaits them in a united state. Former secretaries of district committees and directors of small factories with technology in the 1930s. will not be able to compete with managers from Samsung or LG.
Moreover, fears are widespread among the North Korean leadership about possible reprisals from the victors. After all, they know what they would do with the South Korean elite if the competition between the two Korean states ended in a triumph for the North. It is no coincidence that in frank conversations with members of the North Korean ruling families the question of what happened to the bureaucracy in the former East Germany is very often raised.
Even if the reforms lead to a rapid improvement in the economic situation, this will most likely not help the reformers much: in the most favorable turn of events, it will take two to three decades to close the gap with the South. Throughout this period, Pyongyang will remain politically vulnerable. The fact that the leadership of the country has been hereditary for half a century will exacerbate the crisis of legitimacy. In the eyes of the people, the most successful reformers will remain the children and grandchildren of those who once brought the situation to a crisis.
Lately and in open sources there have been direct confirmations that the fears described above are indeed characteristic of the North Korean leadership. In early 2012, a book of interviews and letters from Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il and half-brother of the current Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, was published in Japan. Kim Jong Nam himself lives permanently in Macau and, according to rumors, does not get along very well with his brother, but maintains good contacts with the Kim family. In addition, Kim Jong Nam is the only representative of the ruling clan who occasionally communicates with journalists. In fact, the book published in Tokyo consists of his conversations and correspondence with Yoji Gomi, a correspondent for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper. There is no doubt about the authenticity of most of the text, since many of the fragments included in the book have been published before.
In his interviews, Kim Jong Nam admits that reforms are the only way radically improve the well-being of the people. On the other hand, he fears that in the specific situation in which North Korea finds itself, Chinese-style reforms will lead to political destabilization. In January 2011, he said: “I personally believe that economic reform and openness are the best way in order to make the life of the North Korean people prosperous. [However] given the specifics of North Korea, there are fears that economic reform and opening up will lead to the downfall of the current order there.”
It is possible, of course, that such fears are exaggerated - it cannot be ruled out that in the event of reforms, the Pyongyang elite will find ways to keep the internal political situation under control. Nevertheless, the likelihood of a catastrophic (for those in power) turn of events is very high. Therefore, it is quite understandable that over the past 25 years the North Korean leadership has shown no desire to follow the Chinese path. This approach may be overly cautious, but it is by no means irrational.
True, Pyongyang's refusal to reform does not mean that the situation in the country can be completely frozen. The dominance of the private economy in the consumer sector in itself makes the process of change inevitable.
The most important is the already mentioned dissemination in the country of information about outside world, in the first place - about South Korea and China. The channels through which this dangerous information is disseminated are quite diverse, and the authorities fail to block them. An important role, for example, is played by labor migration to China - up to half a million inhabitants of the DPRK during 1955-2012. visited the PRC, mainly as illegal guest workers (now their number has drastically decreased). These people not only saw the results of Chinese economic growth with their own eyes, but also heard a lot about life in South Korea - a blessing in the border regions of China, inhabited mainly by ethnic Koreans, the economic and cultural influence of Seoul is very strong.
The smuggling of free-tuning radios also plays a role in disseminating information about the outside world, as does the emergence of privately owned computers. However, the decisive factor was the spread of video equipment. Cheap Chinese models cost about $20-30, which is about the average monthly income of a North Korean family, and are actively used to watch South Korean video products that are smuggled out of China.
Other important changes are related to the weakening of internal controls. The transition to market relations predictably led to an increase in corruption, which in the old days was practically absent. Under the new conditions, officials are often ready to ignore certain offenses (including political ones), if their inattention will be generously rewarded. For example, for a bribe of 100-150 dollars, you can avoid trouble if you find a radio receiver or South Korean video cassettes at home.
In some cases, however, concessions are clearly initiated from above. For example, in the late 1990s the principle of family responsibility for political crimes has almost ceased to apply. Previously, the entire family of a political criminal was subject to arrest and sent to a camp for several years (with subsequent life exile). Currently, such measures are taken only in emergency cases. Spontaneous liberalization is taking place at the grassroots level as well. Dissatisfaction with the government in the last 5-10 years has spread among students, and among officials of the middle and lower levels. So the slow disintegration of the regime continues. Most likely, the regime is indeed doomed in the long run, but its leadership does not at all seek to hasten its end by launching politically dangerous reforms.
scare to survive
An important role in keeping the North Korean economy afloat is played by external assistance, primarily food (even now, when the situation in agriculture has improved somewhat, the DPRK collects 15-20% less grain than is necessary to meet the minimum physiological needs of the population). As a result, foreign policy is primarily built around squeezing out this very aid, including from those countries that are officially considered "mortal enemies of people's Korea."
On the whole, North Korean diplomats are coping very successfully with the task of seizing aid. According to WFP, during 1996-2011. North Korea received 11.8 million tons of free food aid (about 15% of consumption). At the same time, among the donors there is only one state that is formally considered an ally of the DPRK - this is China, which has supplied 3 million tons of food during this time. All other suppliers are the "hostile" USA (2.4 million tons), Japan (0.9 million tons) and South Korea (3.1 million tons). Getting this help requires a subtle and at the same time tough game on the contradictions of the powers.
An important support in these diplomatic maneuvers is the nuclear program - a significant part of foreign aid was actually provided as a reward for the DPRK's readiness to suspend the nuclear program. It is the urgent need for effective means diplomatic pressure is one of the two main reasons that are forcing Pyongyang to work on nuclear weapons. Another reason is questions. national security: in Pyongyang they saw what happened to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi - and they learned quite obvious lessons from their sad fate.
In other words, domestic political decisions largely determine and foreign policy DPRK. In order to somehow compensate for the inefficiency of the economic system, which they cannot change for very weighty domestic political reasons, the Pyongyang leaders are forced to pursue a risky (at least at first glance) policy: to escalate tension in order to later receive rewards for returning to the status quo, to play on the contradictions of the great powers, to engage in mild forms of nuclear blackmail. All this, of course, is reprehensible from the point of view of the outside world, but in the current circumstances, the North Korean leadership has no realistic alternative model of behavior.
So, Pyongyang found itself in a difficult situation, a way out of which is not visible. An attempt to change something is likely to provoke a political crisis and the collapse of the regime, a stubborn refusal to change means that the situation in the country will continue to deteriorate, and lagging behind modern world- grow. It is not yet clear whether new leader country, Supreme Leader Marshal Kim Jong-un to continue his father's line. For Kim Jong Il, who turned sixty in 2002, the conservative line made sense - he had a chance to stay in power until last days life. He succeeded in this - he died in his train-palace, only a little short of his seventieth birthday.
However, his son does not have such a chance: in the long run, the system is doomed, it is undermined by economic inefficiency, the gradual dissemination of information about the outside world, the growing skepticism of the people and the bottom of the elite. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the new leadership will still start reforms that, on the one hand, sharply increase political risks, and on the other, give a chance for salvation. However, reforms are unlikely to begin in the near future - first, Kim Jong-un needs to concentrate all power in his hands and replace his father's elderly dignitaries with his people, who, simply because of their age, will carry out the reform program much more actively.
- Genre:
- Total information control. In North Korea since the early 60s. it is a criminal offense (formally and today it is a criminal offense) to have a free-tuning radio at home. 5 years of camps just for finding a radio in your house. […]Complete information isolation.[…] to access the Internet, you must have the personal permission of the head of state. […]Rigid distribution system. That is, of course, the elimination of all types of private economic activity at the end of the 50s. Since 1957, the transition to cards, and since the end of the 60s. - total card system. […]A South Korean acquaintance of mine who worked with refugees in China told how, around 1998 (during the wave of refugees), he interviewed a certain North Korean grandmother. She just arrived, a few days before she crossed the border and said that she had now been to China, where everything is wonderful, China just knocks a North Korean with wealth, it's a shock. It's a shock when they see how insanely rich the poorest parts of China are compared to them. And she is so advanced in these four days, she says to him: “Now I know what is good.” "What do you know, grandma?" he asks her. “Well, that America lives well, I know,” says the grandmother. He asks: “What is a good life?” Grandmother’s answer: “And in America, everyone, even babies, are given 800 g of pure rice every day on cards.”
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One of the topics that I keep coming back to is what they call "international marriages" in Korea. As you might guess, this is how marriages between citizens of Korea and citizens of foreign countries are called.
Some of these alliances were late XIX century, but the history of "international marriages" really began during the years of the Korean War. For several decades, these were almost exclusively marriages of American military men who served in Korea, and South Korean women, often the hairstyles of both sides did not differ, let's say, high social status(relatively speaking, the marriage of an American sergeant and a waitress).
However, things have changed since the late 1990s. On the one hand, there are more and more marriages between Korean women from the educated elite, and foreigners, also mostly from the elite. However, in "international marriages" the vast majority are unions of girls from poor countries in East and Southeast Asia and Korean peasants. The desire of Korean rural beans, often not very young, to marry foreign women is caused by a chronic shortage of brides in countryside, especially in the provinces of the southwest (girls leave for the cities, guys stay on the farm - and beans). The peak was reached around 2005, when nearly 14% of all marriages in the country were to foreigners. Well, what now?
First, the number of "international marriages" is declining. The reduction process began around 2010 and has been ongoing ever since. In 2010, there were 33 thousand such marriages, and in 2017 - only 21 thousand, that is, one and a half times less. At the same time, the number of marriages in which the husband is a Korean is declining especially strongly, while the number of marriages in which a Korean woman marries a foreigner remains relatively stable (well, more precisely, it is also declining, but not as fast). In general, it seems that Korean rural beans are somewhat disappointed in foreign wives, on whom considerable hopes were placed 10-15 years ago. Experience has shown that foreign wives often do not fit into the Korean rural environment, and at times they simply use Korean men to obtain citizenship of the Republic of Korea, and, having acquired a green passport, they are abandoned. It's a matter of life, alas - this happens in many rich countries.
However, I repeat: the number of marriages of Korean women with foreign men in the last 15-20 years is much less than the marriages of Korean men with foreign women. According to the Korean State Statistics Committee, in 2017, Korean men married foreign women 14,869 times, while Korean women married foreign men almost three times less often - 5,966 times.
Where do foreign wives come from? If we talk about the marriages of a Korean man and a foreign woman, that is, in general, about the marriages of poor rural beavers, then as a supplier of brides, Vietnam is consistently and by a wide margin in the first place. There were 5,364 marriages with Vietnamese women in 2017, that is, a little more than a third of all marriages with foreign women. It is in marriages with Vietnamese women, by the way, that there is a huge age gap - a Vietnamese bride is on average about 25 years old, and a Korean groom is on average about 40 years old. In second place are Chinese women (3.880), in third place are American women (1.017, but it is clear that they no longer marry poor peasants). Next, almost equally, are Filipinas (842) and Thais (843). There are few Russian women and women from the CIS countries; they did not even make it into the top five.
If we talk about marriages in which the groom is a foreigner, then the Chinese are in the lead (1.523), followed by the traditional, in the past decades, the leaders are the Americans (1.392). Next are Canadians (436), Japanese (311) and Australians (203). Obviously the predominance of the developed and, for the most part, the English-speaking world.
Andrey Lankov (ljj he is tttkkk) is one of the world's largest experts on Korea, knows the situation in East Asia well, advises American, Russian, Chinese, South Korean officials and businessmen. Especially in demand after the changes in the North, his interviews were shown on Al Jazeera and other TV channels. His opinions seem curious to me, below I would like to give some excerpts from our conversations with him.
About North Korea
It is not entirely clear to me why there are leftists in Russia who perceive the Northern Korea as something close.It is nationalistic and partly even racist regime, de facto absolute monarchy. Brian Myers, one of the best specialists on the DPRK, generally considers this regime similar to the nationalist authoritarian-fascist dictatorship of pre-war Japan and often says that the entire leftist entourage there is the result of a historical accident.I do not agree with him, but all the same, from the leftist project, no matter how you treat it, there is little left in North Korea.
In general, most do not understand how much the North has changed over the past 20 years.Most factories in the North have not been working for a long time. The population survives on vegetable gardens, petty trade and other private businesses. Spontaneous capitalism of small proprietors is formed from below. Many go to work in China, from there they send money to relatives. Previously, they traveled illegally, but now the authorities also allow legal trips to work.
What will happen next, no one knows for sure. And yet, there are some grounds for asserting: a few more quiet years, and then there will be an explosion. The country has changed a lot over the past 15-20 years. Now many northerners already know how the South lives, they have been to China, they have information about life in neighboring China and life in the South, they understand how poor they are compared to southerners and even Chinese. Sooner or later, this will lead to an increase in discontent and an explosion.The average per capita income in the South is at least 15 (maybe 30 times higher) than in the North. The biggest difference between two countries that share a common border.
The official ideology of the regime here works against it. After all, the North has a materialistic ideology, focused not on (for example) heavenly salvation, and posthumous heavenly joys for the right subjects, but on a material paradise on earth (socialism in their understanding), and in reality, for many northerners, even the life of a peasant in the relatively poor provinces of the neighboring China looks like paradise.What is there to say about the South.
Officials in the North are very corrupt, now you can pay off almost any crime, including political ones. The only question is the price.
Over the past 20 years, political terror has weakened. We can say that under Kim Jong Il there was no mass terror (under his father Kim Il Sung - there was). An example from one county - per 100 thousand population for 10 recent years there were only 15 political cases with arrests.The northern population has already lost the habit of serious terror. A new generation of young people has grown up, not frightened, or rather not frightened enough, who are critical of the regime and less afraid of power.
About the fact that they gave six months in prison to those who did not cry for Kim Jong Il - does not correspond to reality.Maybe there were several such cases on the ground, but this does not determine the picture.
Almost all economically profitable objects in the North were bought up by the Chinese. Mines, first of all. But the Chinese, while largely controlling the economy of the North, do not control its political system. There are two ways to control the political system - bribing officials and blackmail (if you do not comply with our requirements, we will withdraw capital from your country). But still, the northern political elite is not particularly afraid of the withdrawal of capital and so far controls the behavior of its officials. The leadership constantly reminds its own officials that it is better not to be friends with the Chinese, and the North Korean counterintelligence is very actively working on the Chinese.
China's interest in the North Korean economy, however, is not that great. China's trade turnover with the South Koreans is more than 200 billion dollars a year, with the North only 3.4 billion - it's minuscule. True, China also has its own political interests in the north. And yet, if there is a war or the collapse of the northern regime, China will most likely surrender the northerners. China will not be drawn into a serious conflict because of the northerners and risk its own position and economy.
The Arab revolutions, even if they are known in the North, will have little effect due to the mental cultural barrier. But if suddenly a mess starts in China, this can greatly affect the northerners.
About South Korea
Southerners - both the people and the elite - are not belligerent, and they don't particularly want to unite. The problem of a system in which parties succeed each other in power. The Southerners do not want any war with the North, because the government does not want to be responsible for the costs of such a war (possible huge losses in the army and destruction in Seoul). Any government after this can lose power, and acquisitions will be questionable.
The South is now undeniably much stronger militarily and is spending huge sums to modernize the army.But losses in such a war may be completely unacceptable for him. There is another reason for the South not to want war, about it below.
For the same reasons, no one in the South plans what to do strategically with the northerners, who sooner or later will find themselves in the same country with the southerners. In Seoul, everyone hopes that everything will remain as it is for the foreseeable future, and that problems, if they arise, will have to be solved by other politicians ...
Yes, this is ostrich politics, but it is related to the essence of the parliamentary-democratic system, in which there is a constant change of power and, therefore, no one is interested in thinking about the future and strategically planning their actions for 10 or 20 years ahead. And the problems will be enormous - more than 20 million hungry and not very educated people, in addition, with very peculiar ideas about the world and high expectations.
This is the second reason for the southerners not to want war with the north: it is not clear what they should do with the victory.
The North does not need war either. All their periodic actions are just diplomatic gestures, a way to attract attention and achieve concessions (they, in general, have no other way). The last thing they want is escalation. In the near future, they will not go to their usual acts of armed pressure in order to squeeze out help, because elections are coming in the South, leftist parties may come to power, which, most likely, will increase the amount of assistance to the North (help is going on now, by the way, just indirect, but through subsidizing joint ventures in Kaesong). In addition, after Libya, the northerners are afraid to get involved, they understand that the Americans, not only the southerners, can start hammering on them. And this is exactly kranty.
But if help is not provided ... then the northerners can decide on new demonstrative military actions on the border, as a reminder that it is still cheaper to pay off the bottom. I think that in this case, the South will eventually give up and make concessions.
It is important that the northerners' economic dependence on China is growing, and they would like to avoid this, they need another source of humanitarian assistance in order not to become too dependent on China. So far, they have managed to avoid the transformation of economic dependence into political dependence, but the risk of such a transformation is quite real. So they need the help of the southerners - first of all, as a counterbalance to Chinese penetration. That is why, if the southerners do not provide them with humanitarian aid of their own free will, they can again begin to extort it from the South by quasi-military methods, arranging all sorts of shootings. But they may not start, because, again, after Libya, they may be afraid of the consequences.
South Korea continues to develop economically, quite successfully, it does not need catastrophes and upheavals.They don't want Seoul, which is close to the border and, if you count the entire Seoul metropolitan area, is home to 25 million people (half the population of the South), come under fire.
Southern society is very wealthy, young southerners are becoming more and more cosmopolitan.Now they even began to laugh at Korean nationalism - even 10 or 20 years ago, this was simply unimaginable.
Southerners began to laugh at North Korean propaganda as well. This was not the case before. For a long time, southerners perceived Northern propaganda as follows: the right and anti-North Korean left with hatred, the pro-North Korean left positively. Now people just laugh at this propaganda, they don't take it seriously, they parody it.
The South continues to develop economically, despite the global crisis. On the whole, a shift to the left is noticeable - everyone, for example, agrees that social payments should be increased. The disagreement between the right and the left concerns only the scale of the increase. Perhaps the South is turning into a kind of Scandinavian countries, only there are still a lot of people working there, in comparison with the Scandinavian countries.
The labor movement in the South was once very powerful, militant, and at the same time organized quite democratically, at least the strikes were organized according to the results of referendums among the workers.Now the influence of the labor movement is declining. This is due to the fact that industrial enterprises are gradually being moved to neighboring China. The working class is being replaced by office workers. They are much less inclined to protest.
About Russian and American Officials
The Russian Foreign Ministry comrades in all seriousness believe that the Arab revolutions are entirely the result of the policy of the Americans. I heard, for example, arguments that the Americans decided to bet on chaos in the Arab world and are even ready to surrender Israel. For the Americans supposedly know how to manage chaos.
Russian officials are generally characterized by a kind of conspiracy thinking, it is also characteristic of a number of Russian orientalists. They have no idea about the spontaneity of social processes on a large scale. You don’t seem to believe me, and for you, as I see it, it sounds crazy, but they really sincerely believe that any events in the world are the result of someone’s purposeful efforts, someone’s plans and actions.They absolutely do not believe in the possibility of the existence of historical elemental fundamental forces, in the spontaneity of events. From their point of view, all revolutions, all changes in public sentiment (well, almost all) are the result of some kind of special operations and PR campaigns (usually, of course, American ones).
The second fad of Russian bureaucratic (and many non-bureaucratic) analysts. They absolutely do not believe that people are capable of doing anything not for money. They sincerely believe that whatever people do in the political and public sphere, they do it only for money, or for some interests related to money - and we are talking about money for themselves and immediate.That people can sincerely fight for some ideas and follow some ideals, that they can defend the interests of groups, classes, countries to their own detriment - in principle, many in Russia cannot believe this, in their opinion, this is unthinkable.
American officials have their own troubles. For some reason, American officials are convinced that if a representative democracy is established somewhere, then this is favorable for America, and if things suddenly went differently, if the new democratic regime treats the United States without much enthusiasm, it follows that this democracy is wrong , fake (perhaps even in need of correction by the forces of the body marines). They believe in it. A kind of messianic internationalism, in which the United States is firmly associated with the forces of the Beaver. And most importantly, sincere. There are, of course, supporters of real-politics, but in general, the prevailing belief is that democracy is certainly good and natural for any society, and that its spread means strengthening the position of the United States, since any democratic country will be pro-American.
At the same time, officials in the United States are quite capable of imagining the spontaneity social processes and admit that ideological motives and idealism can underlie people's actions.
About the state and its work
The left, it seems to me, has completely wrong ideas about the state, about officials. The left has such a logical contradiction: on the one hand, they think of officials as greedy corrupt personalities, absorbed in their own interests, on the other, as people capable of long-term planning and strategic vision, people who almost selflessly serve some higher interests of some Global Evil.
But the state is a very oak structure. An official will never do more than necessary and more than necessary to please his superiors and get a promotion.The initiative is punishable, and this truth sits in an official (and sometimes in an employee of a fairly large and bureaucratic corporation) almost at the DNA level. He does not worry about the interests of Evil, and not about the interests of Good, and not even about the long-term interests of the state, but about an increase and a good pension, well, in corrupted countries - and about the notorious bread place ...
An intelligence official or the Foreign Ministry must report to his superiors. And for him, as well as for a journalist, it is important and interesting, first of all (and often exclusively), fried facts and exact names.Here, for example, that the authorities of such and such a county, whose name is such and such, take bribes in such and such a volume and control the underground trade in something and there. And the real strategically important information about the scale of corruption in most counties and that there is an underground trade in something and there and traders in something and there and local bosses no longer think of themselves outside this system, this is all for officials already not interested. And in general, the main thing for them is the instruction. The most shameful failure can be avoided if it results from following instructions and orders. You can get a scolding for the most brilliant success, which was achieved against instructions and orders.
But. If it really presses, if a fried rooster comes running, if the higher authorities order to dig the ground with their nose and draw up a general picture of events, resolve the problem, officials will begin to work seriously. And that's the way it's done everywhere.
In general, the bureaucracy is able to work effectively with non-standard situations only in a mobilization mode, only if they put pressure from above and order this problem to be resolved immediately and at any cost. But then the bureaucracy is a force, it moves mountains, and even shows initiative. And so - the official acts strictly according to instructions (or unwritten tradition), avoids initiative and tries to ignore non-standard situations and unspecified problems. Those who behave differently do not stay long in the bureaucracy, and if they do, they don't do very well.
