"North Korea - China friendship" by Roman Harak. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0). Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/roman-harak/5578914865/ BY: MOHIT MANNThe current Coronavirus outbreak in China is affecting people not only within but also beyond the borders of China. The issue’s impact is especially acute for North Korea, whereby the lockdown in China resulting from this outbreak complicates North Korean refugee journeys. A vast transportation lockdown, which is meant to contain the spread of this new virus, is responsible for exacerbating the already laborious journey of North Korean refugees. Chinese authorities have imposed an unprecedented lockdown to contain the viral outbreak, which has infected over 24,000 people and has claimed the lives of over 500 people worldwide. Public transportation links have been shut down, access has been restricted to major highways, and strict ID and temperature checks have been imposed. These actions have effectively placed tens of millions under quarantine. While the lockdown disrupts the daily lives of millions of people within China’s bounds, it is also simultaneously responsible for disrupting the main path through which North Koreans make their great escape. The route traditionally taken by North Korean defectors has been blocked due to obstacles such as road closures. As a result, these refugees are forced to indefinitely pause their journeys. They also face the threat of certain punishment if they are sent back home. China is a crucial link in the dangerous journey that North Koreans take in their endeavour to escape the draconian policies and measures of the tyrannical North Korean regime. These refugees make their way down through China and then find their way into Southeast Asian countries, such as Laos and Thailand, before they finally end up in South Korea. This journey can take months or longer to complete and is thousands of kilometers long. It also involves trekking over mountains by foot and using tiny boats to get across rivers. The part of the trip which pertains to China is especially risky, since North Korean refugees are forced to use fake ID cards. With China trying to control everyone’s movements, this trip has become even more dangerous. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are at various stages of their respective journeys through China. Some of them have decided to settle there illegally. However, as the lockdown expands to include house inspections, North Korean refugees may be in danger. North Korea’s most important international backer, China, refuses to grant these defectors refugee status and instead returns them to North Korea, where they could very likely be subject to torture or long prison sentences. An increased restriction of movement has additionally been felt inside North Korea itself as a result of the North Korea’s enhancement of restrictions to block the spread of the Coronavirus to its own territory. Staff of foreign embassies and international organizations in Pyongyang face increasing isolation from contact with North Koreans over fears of the spread of the virus. Moreover, North Korea has apparently temporarily stopped demanding that China repatriate defectors, since North Korea fears that these defectors may bring the deadly virus into North Korea. Thus, it is ultimately unclear what would happen to North Korean refugees who are discovered by Chinese authorities during their increasingly invasive inspections. Yet, there is room for optimism. People in this line of work are quite creative and have the potential to find backup routes –as they have done so before. North Korean defectors’ movements may be increasingly restricted as a result of the lockdown. But the North Korean regime has also stopped demanding repatriation of these defectors. Thus, while one avenue closes for the North Korean defectors, another avenue opens. What remains to be seen is how these defectors continue making their journeys and what type of help they will require as their respective journeys become especially dangerous and tricky. Source 1Source 2
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3rd & 14th Field Hospital and PW Enclosure #10, Pusan, Korea. Announcement being made from a truck. SourceBy Neo Paul Korea has been known historically by two names in the West, The Land of the Morning Calm (a reading of its name in Chinese characters, 朝鮮 or Joseon) and the Hermit Kingdom, due to its reclusive nature up until the colonisation of Korea by Japan in the early 20th century. The epithet of the Hermit Kingdom has now been used to describe the Korean country on the northern half of the Peninsula, commonly known as North Korea (officially The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). To borrow from Voltaire, North Korea is neither Democratic, nor a Republic, nor of or for the People of North Korea. North Korea has been described a rogue nation, an international pariah, or more poignantly by former US President George W. Bush as a member of the “Axis of Evil”. While these claims hold some truths, it is far more constructive to analyse the behaviour of the North Korean state through a Stalinist/Communist lens than simply writing off North Korea as a nation ruled by a “pygmy” and a maniac (these terms have been applied to the ruling Kim dynasty-currently headed by Kim Jong Un). The purpose of this blogblurb is twofold, one to explain a brief history of the North Korean state and two, to explain the seemingly outrageous actions of North Korea on the world stage in a rational light, if possible. “Rocket man” must have his reasons for pursuing a dangerous game of nuclear chess after all. Flash backwards to the end of the Korean War (1950-1953) - 10% of civilians dead - North Korea was in ruins. Its cities had been flattened by US carpet bombing. The once industrious heartland of the Japanese colonial empire outside its home islands lay in ruins - but the Communists quickly remedied this. By 1956 North Korea had been rebuilt, and up till the 1970’s the CIA was dazzled by double digit growths - even outstripping its Southern-soon-to-be K-pop brother, South Korea in all areas of economic production (with one important caveat being agriculture). This impressive growth can be explained through the benefits of being a member of the Communist bloc coupled with authoritarian leadership. The then Soviet Union had loaned (given) Kim’s government 2 Billion rubles, and a veritable army of technocrats to aid in development. Meanwhile, the PRC (China) had effectively given Pyongyang the labour of the remnants of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) in North Korea for use as construction workers. This, plus a strong, centralised state with the support of the people (initially) allowed it to surpass its politically chaotic and divided southern nation (ROK). The Communists of the time were able to achieve such high rates of growth through mainly extensive development, or the effective mobilization of its resources, workers and whatnot. By the 1980’s however this growth had stalled. Grandiloquent projects, like spending (wasting) 4.5 Billion on athletic events, statues to the Great Leader etc., and the drop in Soviet aid after Korea had taken Peking’s side in their rift of the 50’s - as well as the neglect of intensive development (development focused on efficiency-new tech, etc.) all meant the economy was pretty sick. The final nails in the proverbial coffin of what is now the ruined North Korean Economy was the collapse of the soviet union and with it, its trading partners. The largest question here is - why did the famine of the 1990’s happen? Here we turn to the Stalinist interpretation of the regime. North Korea, like many Eastern Bloc states, fetishised heavy industry above all else - for how could true socialism be achieved in a non-industrialised country? After Marx himself said a Communist Revolution could only happen in an advanced country, not a provincial backwater like Korea or Bulgaria. Therefore the North Koreans sunk millions of dollars into developing glass factories, steelworks and so forth and neglected consumer goods and agriculture akin to the Warsaw Pact states. We can see similarities in China’s Great Leap Forward and in Eastern Europe, where Hungary turned into a primarily grain exporting country to a grain importing country by the end of the 50’s. North Korea already had a limited agricultural base, for only 20% of its land is arable and the South had always been more agriculturally productive. So, North Korea was the most advanced poor country in the world, so to speak. This focus on heavy industry was justified not only by Marxist dogma, but also by Juche, a philosophy of Autarchy promulgated by Kim Il Sung in 1956. A large Industrial base was the sine qua non of a powerful military, particularly to counter the US 8th army in South Korea. Factories were needed for production of missiles etc. In this North Korea was successful, for food can always be freely given but Missiles? Not so much. A disproportionate percentage of the GDP was thus diverted for military purposes. All this is of course in conjunction with a cult of personality around the Kim dynasty (after three consecutive Kim’s it would be fair to call it a monarchy, not a People’s Republic), a murderous secret police with an elaborate concentration camp system, and to top things off, a state of constant warfare against the US and South Korea (in parallel with the Eastern Bloc’s constant paranoia of “counter revolutionaries” and Fascists - or university students who were anti Rakosi - but I digress). All this coupled on dependence to Moscow and Beijing were a recipe for disaster when the drought and floods appeared. The effects of these catastrophes are still evident to this day, most strikingly illustrated in the fact that the average height for a North Korean male is 3-8 centimetres shorter than that of a South Korean male. All this being said, with North Korea exhibiting many similarities to a Stalinist Eastern European state or Maoist China, there are some striking differences. One has to merely look to the survival of a hard core Stalinist North Korea post 1991. North Korea was never truly a vassal state on Moscow or Beijing, and was never fully integrated into either bloc. In this sense North Korea exhibits more similarities to the Iran of the Ayatollah than to Communist China. When China moved away from a command economy in the 1970’s and when the USSR collapsed in 1991, North Korea remained obdurately on its course - even after a catastrophic famine, we can see how durable the regime really is. And though millions left for China and South Korea, the resistance of the regime is remarkable. Its allegiance to Juche meant that it could never fully integrate itself into the global economy, which resulted in famine, but its self-reliance and hermetic nature meant it could weather such things as famine and the collapse of Communism in Europe. And that is one of the reasons why North Korea adamantly refuses to give up on nuclearisation, for nuclear weapons are essential to the regime’s survival. It is the only card North Korea possesses, and a reason why such a poor and economically insignificant country wields such international clout. In any case it is my hope that a better understanding of their doctrine will enable us to combat this rogue nation in the future for the benefit of its people. Source 1: Robinson, Michael Edson. Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: Honolulu, Hawai'i: Univ. of Hawai'i Press, 2008.Source 2Source 3Source 4 |