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[Junior]

Analysts predict 'beginning of the end' in N. Korea
Posted 10/11/2006 8:08 PM
By Paul Wiseman and Park Juyeon, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-10-11-nkorea-analysis_x.htm

SEOUL � North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il gambled when he announced his regime had gone nuclear this week, and he is likely to lose in the long run, say analysts who watch the Stalinist state.
"It is the beginning of the end of the North Korean political system," predicts Park Young Ho, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank in Seoul.

"He has shortened the life of his regime," agrees Paik Tae Woo, a former South Korean diplomat who is now a visiting professor of diplomacy at Taiwan's National Chengchi University.

Their reasoning: The United Nations will respond to reports that North Korea tested a nuclear device Monday with economic sanctions that could collapse a rickety economy and unleash widespread unrest. Sanctions already are being imposed. Japan on Tuesday banned all North Korean imports and prohibited North Korean ships from docking at its ports.

The World Food Program (WFP) warned Tuesday that it might have to suspend food aid to North Korea in January because donations have fallen short: The U.N. food relief agency has collected only 10% of the $102 million it hoped to raise to feed 1.9 million North Koreans over the next two years, says Christiane Berthiaume, a WFP spokeswoman. And that was before the reports of a nuclear test.

"Having nuclear weapons weakens Kim Jong Il's status," says Lee Kwang Baek, a researcher with the activist group Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights. "They don't have enough internal capability to survive harsh sanctions and further international isolation."

Dong Yong Seung, head of North Korea research at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, sees three long-term scenarios: North Korea descends into chaos; is forced into reunification with South Korea; or becomes a vassal state, subservient to China, with or without Kim Jong Il still in charge.

Kim Jong Il has defied the doubters before. He managed to consolidate power after the 1994 death of his father, dictator Kim Il Sung, a near-deity in North Korea. The younger Kim also maintained control after famine killed more than 2 million North Koreans in the mid-1990s, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. What's more, the North Korean people have a high tolerance for economic and political deprivation, having survived food shortages, economic sanctions and brutal repression. "They are used to enduring difficulty," Paik says. "Even this time, they can endure for a certain period of time."

While Kim Jong Il probably boosted his prestige with ordinary North Koreans, and certainly with North Korea's political and military leaders, with his bid to join the world's exclusive club of nuclear powers, the euphoria won't last long � perhaps three months, predicts Cheong Seong Chang, a North Korea watcher at the Sejong Institute, a think tank outside Seoul.

"The North Koreans will be satisfied for a while even though they are hungry," Cheong says. "This winter will determine the timing. The hunger and the cold will bring out internal conflicts." The hardship will be worst in impoverished, mountainous Ham Kyeong Province, along North Korea's northern border with China, likely adding to a flood of refugees fleeing the country in search of work, he says.

During past crises, North Korea has been able to convince its people their suffering was caused by U.S. imperialism. North Koreans, however, have become better informed. Hundreds of thousands have crossed the border to work in China, where they can trade information with other refugees and get news from TV and the Internet. Others inside North Korea have gleaned outside information using computers and cellphones.

"This time, many ordinary North Koreans have been exposed to outside information," Park says.

"Ordinary people do not believe the Korean Workers' Party's propaganda," Paik says. "But they are required to shut their mouths."

North Korea is especially vulnerable because it is so dependent on the goodwill of China and South Korea: Together, they account for about 70% of North Korean trade, says Dong, of the Samsung research institute. Both have grown weary of Kim Jong Il's nuclear antics, and both issued uncharacteristically harsh denunciations of the reported North Korean nuclear test.

South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun this week warned that South Korea is rethinking its "Sunshine Policy" of no-strings-attached aid to Pyongyang. And "Kim Jong Il has turned out to be a real headache to China," says Park, of the Unification Institute. "The Chinese may start thinking of alternatives."

[EFLtrainer]

"The North Koreans will be satisfied for a while even though they are hungry," Cheong says. "This winter will determine the timing. The hunger and the cold will bring out internal conflicts." The hardship will be worst in impoverished, mountainous Ham Kyeong Province, along North Korea's northern border with China, likely adding to a flood of refugees fleeing the country in search of work, he says.

During past crises, North Korea has been able to convince its people their suffering was caused by U.S. imperialism. North Koreans, however, have become better informed. Hundreds of thousands have crossed the border to work in China, where they can trade information with other refugees and get news from TV and the Internet. Others inside North Korea have gleaned outside information using computers and cellphones.

"This time, many ordinary North Koreans have been exposed to outside information," Park says.

"Ordinary people do not believe the Korean Workers' Party's propaganda," Paik says. "But they are required to shut their mouths."

And THIS is why the Sunshine policy IS a success and should not be abandoned. I repeat, while most atttribbute the fall of the Iron Curtain to economic conditions partly created by expenditures in the arms race and Cold War, I believe the slow realization of the general population that their lives of deprivation were NOT the norm in developed countries was the secret element that allowed the changes to happen.

Thus, rather than disengagement, more intelligent and more careful engagement are a key to change in NK. Sanctions aone will lead, at best, to chaos and reciprocal belligerence on the part of NK, hastening a greater crisis. However, some combination of sanctions, greater engagement and increased aid with strong controls on distribution to prevent the NK gov't fromsizing materials for the army and gov't. is a policy much more likely to succeed.

In the end, a more stable, better informed, more economically developed NK will make for a much smoother process of reunification.

[NAVFC]

Why make the North Koreans suffer for that long? There are hundreds of thousands of poor souls sitting in Kim Jong Ils concentration camps, wondering if they will ever be free.
Propping up North Korea will only lengthen there suffering.
The people of NK should not have to endure this, and by coming down on Kim we have ensured a shorter life span of his dictatorship.

[Junior]

Kim may have realised that its make or break now for his regime, which is why he could be prepared to do anything, to prevent the stranglehold being applied.

[mindmetoo]

I can't see China being happy about some future North Korean warlord, post Kim Il Jong, having nukes and no central government and China wanting to launch a plan to bring parts of North Korea under its control, like the beakdu mountain range.