Brookings: Experts - Kongdan Oh

The World of North Korea's Kim Jong-un

Kongdan Oh — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In December 2011 the second generation leader of the Kim dynasty, Kim Jong-il, reportedly died of a heart attack at age 70. His father, Kim Il-sung, the founder of the dynasty, was a guerilla fighter who fought against the Japanese in China and later fled to Russia, where he became an officer in the Soviet army. Although he returned to the northern half of the Korean peninsula after the Japanese had surrendered to Soviet troops, he claimed credit for liberating Korea single-handedly, just as he falsely claimed to have defeated the UN coalition forces during the Korean War. This founding Kim set North Korea on the course that it now follows under the leadership of his grandson, who has consciously imitated his grandfather’s clothing, mannerisms, and “military-first” policy.

The Kim dynasty has successfully maintained a large measure of secrecy about how it operates. It is believed that for the last 20 years of Kim Il-sung’s reign, his son was running most of the country’s day-to-day affairs. When that son took over the leadership on his father’s death from a heart attack in 1994, he ruled in an even more secretive fashion than his father, sometimes not appearing in public for months on end. Throughout his lifetime, Kim Jong-il made only one public speech—of less than ten words—and that may have been due to a mistake made by a sound engineer. Now the world wants to know what is going on in the grandson’s mind as he publicly defies his erstwhile ally China and threatens destruction on South Korea, the United States, and Japan.

North Korea is in the news for two reasons: it has expanding nuclear weapons and missiles programs and it threatens to attack South Korea, the United States, and Japan. The nuclear program is hardly news. The Kim regime has been working since the 1980s on this program, and despite occasional denials of any desire to have nuclear weapons, it has forged ahead relentlessly, even during the days when it had reached a non-nuclear agreement with the United States. It is highly unlikely that the North Koreans were ever willing to completely abandon the program, no matter what incentives they were offered, and in recent years they have firmly renounced any interest in even discussing the program. In 2013 they officially stated that the program is their most important weapon and is not subject to negotiation. This should surprise no one, and it should also save other countries much time and effort that they would otherwise have put into trying to negotiate a new nuclear deal with North Korea.

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Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: Global Experts

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Understanding North Korea

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:27:00 -0400

Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in the March 2013 issue of the Foreign Policy Research Institute's E-Notes bulletin.

When the third son of dying leader Kim Jong-il was designated as the successor of his ailing father in December 2011, the media asked me to comment on the young (28 or 29) Kim’s inclination to reform North Korea’s politics and economy. Journalists pointed out that Kim Jong-un had received several years of education in Switzerland, where he could savor prosperity and freedom. Moreover, as a relatively young leader, he might favor new ways of doing things. He might, in short, reveal himself to be a reformer. Interestingly, this is what many people said about Kim Jong-il when he took over after his father’s death. The reformation of North Korea would make a great story for the media, but most of life is humdrum and repetitive rather than newsworthy and so I did not expect anything new from the young Kim. My favorite cautionary example was the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose four years of post-graduate school in London failed to turn him into a political reformer when he took over from his father.

Not long after Kim Jong-un came to power, he was frequently seen in public with a woman who turned out to be his wife. Again I was asked if this was a sign of change. Kim’s father, who had at least one wife and numerous mistresses, never appeared in public with any of them, and North Koreans knew better than to ask whether their leader was married. Once again we can turn to Assad, whose wife was raised and educated in England but has not had an appreciable influence on the political attitudes of her husband.

I have been studying North Korea for over three decades. Back in the year 2000 I co-authored a book with my research partner, Ralph Hassig, titled North Korea through the Looking Glass. The title was meant to suggest that North Korea is just the opposite of what Westerners are familiar with. Most of the book was written during the period when Kim Jong-il seemed to have abdicated leadership and abandoned the North Korean people to suffering and famine—a dramatic change from the days when his father (assisted by Kim Jong-il) kept a firm grip on the lives of his people. Optimists saw the younger Kim’s abdication of power as a possible harbinger of political, economic, and social change. Yet, we were not convinced that Kim had adopted any kind of new thinking. Rather, we believed the North Korean press when it quoted Kim as saying, “Expect no change from me.”

Over a decade later, North Korea’s newest leader has taken firm control from the outset. He has purged those whose loyalty he questions. He has strengthened control over the border with China to reduce the flow of North Korean defectors. Although it was rumored that he favored some modest rural reforms, he has failed to announce or implement them. And most discouragingly, he has devoted most of his attention to preparing his people psychologically for another Korean War. Against the express wishes of the Chinese, who provide most of the economic support for the North Korean people, Kim has sided with the army and moved ahead with missile and nuclear development. Toward South Korea, the United States, and Japan, the North Korean regime has issued increasingly harsh threats of impending war.

South Korea’s new president, Mrs. Park Geun-Hye, has offered to implement a trust-building process with North Korea, and her unification minister has said that South Korea is willing to resume humanitarian aid to the North. In the United States, critics of the Obama administration have likewise suggested that a softer approach to North Korea might pay dividends. This strain of optimism is to be found at the beginning of every new administration, but in my opinion it is not the case that previous administrations have missed something. They have tried and become discouraged. Unlike his father, who back in 1994 at least pretended to be willing to make accommodations with the international community when it came to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Kim Jong-un has spurned offers of reconciliation and is staking North Korea’s future on Chinese willingness to support his regime, despite the obvious dissatisfaction of the Chinese.

It would seem that Kim Jong-un can only be moved by the wrath of his people or by strong pressure from the Chinese. No one else has leverage over him. China voted for the most recent UN resolution on additional sanctions against North Korea following Pyongyang’s third nuclear test, but whether the Chinese leadership will back up their sanction vote with action remains to be seen. In the past they have spectacularly failed to do so, fearing regional instability more than possible nuclear proliferation.

During my visit to China in November 2012, young Chinese intellectuals and party cadres expressed to me their unhappiness with the Kim regime, although they know better than to directly contradict official Chinese policy. “The ‘First Fat,’ Kim Il-sung, was sort of a comrade to us, fighting against the colonial Japanese. The ‘Second Fat,’ his son Kim Jong-il, was disliked by most Chinese but we continued to support North Korea. Now this ‘Third Fat,’ Kim Jong-un, seems to be the worst of the lot.” China’s new leadership may continue with its traditional “noninterference policy” for a while, but the young Chinese elites have already lost patience with their troublesome neighbor, a fact that Kim Jong-un and his supporters must surely be aware of.

Inside the two Koreas

North Korea today is not one republic but two: A “Pyongyang Republic” and a “Republic of Everyone Else.” The distinction is both geographical and political. The capital city Pyongyang is clean, orderly, and modestly prosperous. Pyongyangites, most of them Party members, dress better than they used to, buy food at restaurants and street-side stalls, and talk on their cell phones. Foreign visitors, expecting to see a land of starving people, are impressed. The regime has the power to make the city—or the most visible parts of the city—to its own specifications. After all, there is no private enterprise to interfere with government plans. Kim Jong-un and the top elites live even better than the other citizens of Pyongyang. No matter how many economic sanctions are placed on North Korea, there always seems to be enough money to support the political elites, with plenty left over for nuclear weapons and missiles.

Outside Pyongyang, North Korea is a different world. In 2009 Ralph and I wrote The Hidden People of North Korea. These are the people we were talking about. In Pyongyang, the main streets are as wide as parking lots. Outside the city, most roads are unpaved. Vehicles are few and far between (even visitors to Pyongyang can see that). Trains creep along twisted tracks. Although North Koreans have more freedom to travel than they used to (not officially but unofficially), they mostly hitchhike to get to their destinations. Travelers pay bribes of homemade wine and cigarettes to get rides on military trucks, or they simply trudge along the side of the road. People are thinner and much more poorly dressed than they are in Pyongyang. They are also hungrier and sicker. Only local party leaders and the black-market entrepreneurs who bribe them are pear-shaped; everyone else is banana shaped.

How can the Kim regime be moved?

The United States has long appealed to China to put more pressure on North Korea to stop its nuclear and missile programs and initiate economic reforms. The Chinese have by and large resisted this appeal and instead repeatedly called on “all parties” to remain calm and work out their differences in the Six Party Talks, hosted by China but not convened since 2008. For that matter, neither the United States nor South Korea officially favors any sort of political revolution in North Korea, preferring to wait until something causes the regime to change its own mind.

If China cannot be moved, and neither the United States nor South Korea is willing to do more than call on the Kim regime to reform, can 23 million North Koreans take their fate into their own hands? Since the famine of 1995-1998, when the government stopped providing food to most of its citizens, they have pursued a bottom-up economic revolution and now survive for the most part by their own means, even though these means are mostly illegal. Not having the wherewithal to care for its people, the Kim regime has acquiesced to this revolution, although it occasionally cracks down on private enterprise and continues to insist that socialism is the only acceptable economic system.

Interpreting the regime’s acquiescence to private enterprise as a softening of its views, some politicians, political pundits, and analysts in the United States argue that our government should initiate high-level talks with the Kim regime, agree to North Korean demands to sign a peace treaty replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement, and normalize diplomatic relations with the government in Pyongyang. These actions would satisfy some, but hardly all, of the demands North Korea has made on the United States. In my opinion, the United States tried its best to reach an agreement in 1994 but the effort ultimately failed. Part of the fault lay with the United States, which, as a democracy, was unable to fulfill all of the obligations that the Clinton White House had made. Much of the fault lay with North Korea, which arguably had no intention of actually giving up its nuclear weapons, but rather was playing the United States for all it could get. Regardless of how blame for the agreement’s ultimate failure is allocated, the failure itself exemplifies the theme of our Looking Glass book: that the two countries are on opposite sides of most issues and can no more meet in the middle than a person can pass through a looking glass—except in a dream.

Almost everyone who tries to deal with North Korea, politically, economically, or socially, comes to realize that this is an almost impossible country to deal with. There is an obvious reason for North Korea’s recalcitrance: only by keeping itself separate from the modern world can the regime hope to perpetuate itself generation after generation. People often forget that the regime has been a great success, even though the country is a basket case. The first two Kims lived lives of luxury (after the elder Kim established himself as leader) and died natural deaths. The third Kim presumably believes he can do no better than follow in their footsteps. He and his supporters have little reason to change their policies because they do not suffer from international sanctions or their ruinous economic policies.

So what about the 23 million citizens of North Korea who are not living a life of luxury? Do they have the will and the means to change their condition? Human beings are highly adaptable. The North Korean people have learned how to make their own living, even if for most of them it is not a very good living. They live in constant fear of punishment; most of them endure a measure of hunger and sickness. But this has always been the case. They have never had political power, and the few who have tried to resist the regime have been quickly arrested and put away in prison camps. Hope is the last word in the people’s dictionary. For them, the scope for change is their immediate economic environment, nothing more.

Koreans living in both halves of the peninsula are a hardy and resourceful people. South Korea in the 1950s was in many respects not that much different from North Korea. Both countries were dictatorships and both were poor (North Korea actually got an economic jump on South Korea in the 50s and 60s). In the 1960s, under the authoritarian president Park Chung-hee (the father of the current president), South Korea experienced an economic revolution—instituted by the government rather than the people. Only in the 1980s did the government gradually relinquish its authoritarian powers and move toward full democracy, which arrived in the early 1990s after years of popular demonstrations. Arguably the key difference between political fates of the two Koreas was that the United States had a large military presence in South Korea and successive Korean governments recognized their dependence on the Americans. This presence, and South Korea’s desire to join the international community, constrained the South Korean presidents in their use of force against protesting citizens.

The United States has no presence in North Korea. Kim Jong-un’s only constraints are the fear that the Chinese might someday pull the plug on his economy, and the fear that his hard-line military might turn against him. As a far away force, is there anything the United States can do to help the North Korean people stand up for themselves against their government? In the final pages of our Hidden People book we suggested that the only way North Korea would change is if its ordinary citizens took it upon themselves to bring about change, and we recommended that foreigners do everything in their power to provide the North Korean people with information about their government and the outside world to empower themselves. The United States has extended very modest assistance to North Korean defectors who have devoted their lives to transmitting information back to their comrades in the North. But beyond that the United States, with its hands full in the Middle East, has been unwilling to go.

The Obama administration’s official policy toward North Korea is “strategic patience.” The virtue of this policy is that it does not stir up any hornet nests. The weakness is that it fails to control the situation. Rather than working to remove the Kim dynasty, which judging by its own words and history is unlikely to change, the United States (and South Korea) bolster their defenses so that if the Kim regime should act on its threats of war, the allies can win the war as quickly as possible. As for the North Korean people, they are on their own.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: Foreign Policy Research Institute

Image Source: © David Gray / Reuters

Outlook for South Korea’s First Female Leader President Park Geun-hye

Kongdan Oh — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in The Korea Herald.

With the election of Ms. Park Geun-hye as president of South Korea, Korea has its first woman leader in over a thousand years. The last woman to govern Korea was Queen Jinsong, who ruled in the ninth century. Ms. Park comes from a famous political family. Her father, President Park Chung-hee, was the architect of Korea’s economic miracle. Something of a dictator, he was assassinated in 1979 by his own intelligence chief in a dispute over how long his 16-year-rule should continue. Ms. Park’s mother had died five years earlier in an assassination attempt on her husband by a Korean resident of Japan.

Their daughter kept her distance from national politics until 1998, when she felt called upon to do something to help Korea recover from the Asian financial disaster of 1997 that threatened to ruin her father’s economic legacy. Running for a seat in the Korean National Assembly from her hometown, she was elected in 1998 and has remained in the Assembly since then, where her popularity and political skills have earned her the nickname “Queen of Elections.”

As a high-profile name in Korea’s rough world of politics, Ms. Park has endured political betrayals, attacks on her character, and even an assassination attempt. Korean politics are very personal in nature. Political parties frequently rename and reinvent themselves. Ms. Park is a member of the conservative party, whose candidate won the last presidential election in 2007. Her main opponent was a member of the liberal political administration that won the 2002 presidential election and pursued a policy of accommodation toward North Korea for his five years in office.

South Korea was and still is a land of male chauvinism. A woman’s place is supposed to be in the “inner court yard” serving her father, then her husband, and finally her oldest male child, to keep alive the family tradition. Until the 1970s, women could gain national prominence only in the worlds of art and entertainment. In the government, the top position in the ministries of education, environment, and women’s welfare was often set aside for women as a political gesture.

Today, Korean women have found a place in many professions but the old culture that discriminates against them survives. In the recent electoral race, Ms. Park’s political opponents claimed that she could not be a strong national leader because she has not had the experience of being married and having children.

In the election campaign, Ms. Park’s slogan was “the president who is prepared.” Indeed, she is honest, sincere, and hard-working. Despite coming from a privileged family, she shows genuine concern for the welfare of less fortunate Koreans. Ms. Park is not without her faults. Her opponents and even some of her supporters criticize her for being reserved and secretive. Her aloofness and self-assurance is sometimes interpreted as a sign that she views herself as a political princess.

Being the daughter of a former president, who was a dictator to boot, has not endeared her to the younger generation of voters. If anything, she has been perhaps too calm when her country faced challenges from North Korea. For example, she failed to issue strong public statements when a South Korean naval ship was sunk and a South Korean island was shelled in 2010.

South Korea faces many challenges in the years ahead. The North Korean government, armed with missiles and nuclear weapons and possessed of an implacable distrust of South Korea, is a constant and unpredictable threat. North Korea is also a country that South Korea must eventually come to terms with. China, which is at the same time South Korea’s largest trading partner and North Korea’s only supporter, looms over the Korean Peninsula.

Domestically, the South Korean economy is buffeted by global stress and income inequalities are a frequent source of conflict. The second President Park will need the same level of intelligence and determination that her father had to meet the expectations of a Korean electorate that has become accustomed to peace and progress.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: Korea Herald

Image Source: © POOL New / Reuters

The Death of Kim Jong-il

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:54:00 -0500

According to North Korean news reports, the dictator Kim Jong-il died at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday, December 17 (6:30 Friday evening Washington time). His death was announced on Korean radio at noon on the following Monday (10 pm Sunday night in Washington), an interval that provided time for the North Korean authorities to figure out their next step.

According to the North Korean press, Kim died from “mental and physical overwork” (the medical cause was said to be a heart attack) as he made a train tour of various military and civilian sites, something he had been doing for years even though he has not been in good health since his stroke in 2008. He was especially busy during the last week of his life. On December 10, he made an “on-the-spot inspection” to installations in South Hamgyong Province, including shoe and chemical factories. On December 13, he visited the Pyongyang Capital Guard Unit. On December 15, he was shown triumphantly standing on an escalator at the recently completed Kwangbok Region Grand Mart, presumably inspired by a large fashion mart he saw on his visit to China in May 2011. In his final days Kim also visited the Hana Music Information Center, where North Korean DVDs are produced. These visits were part of his personal campaign to encourage the North Korean economy ahead of next year, when the people have been promised a Kangsong Daeguk [mighty and great nation] to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung―who was of course Kim Jong-il’s father. Needless to say, Kim Jong-il’s personal encouragement has done little stimulate the North Korean economy, and most North Koreans ceased to pay attention to his guidance and exhortations.

Like his father, Kim Jong-il wielded power in a relentless fashion and resisted reform and opening. At 69 years of age, he was one of the world’s longest ruling dictators. Kim Jong-il assumed responsibility for leadership in 1994 and formally took over positions of leadership following a three year mourning period in 1997, but his father began handing over the country’s affairs to him around 1980. By contrast, Kim Jong-il designated his 29 year-old third son, Kim Jong-un, as his successor less than two years ago, so the young Kim will not enjoy the same long period of acclimation as his father. Is the third generation Kim up to the job? Most North Korea watchers predict that he will have to share some power with top party and military officials. If he can survive the first few years, he may be able to hang on for quite a long time, just as his father did.

But times are changing. North Koreans now have almost a million cell phones with which they can cautiously share information with each other, although they cannot make calls outside the country. Social networking is becoming very popular among North Korean youth. The 23,000 North Korean defectors who live in South Korea send money and information to their families and friends back home through Chinese connections. Thousands of Chinese traders cross the border and bring goods and information into North Korean society. North Korean diplomats deployed overseas, traders earning foreign currency, and students studying at foreign universities all recognize North Korea’s diminished place in the world. In short, the Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un eras are very different: one was analog, the other digital.

From now until the end of Kim’s funeral on December 28, the entire North Korean nation will focus on the funeral business. The first 100 days after the funeral will be an official mourning period, which may be followed by a three-year mourning period in which the new leader keeps himself somewhat removed from daily affairs. (Although this period may have helped Kim Jong-il consolidate power after his father died, it took place at a time when the country was undergoing severe domestic problems and desperately needed a strong leader). Kim Jong-un needs this kind of traditional ritualistic practice to demonstrate his filial loyalty, just as Kim Jong-il did, because biological legitimacy is the only rationale the Kim family has for staying in power.

Although the situation is very uncertain, it seems most likely that a calm period will follow Kim Jong-il’s death. For top North Korean cadres, it will be a time to watch carefully as new power configurations form. Kim Jong-un has reportedly already purged some people whom he deems insufficiently loyal to him, and with his father gone more people are likely to fall. In the most optimistic scenario, political infighting will keep the North Koreans too busy to start trouble with South Korea and the rest of the world.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Image Source: Â© KCNA KCNA / Reuters

On Korea's Role in the 2011 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Organization Meeting

Kongdan Oh — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:55:00 -0400

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization, established in 1989, has failed to become the premiere economic forum in the Asia-Pacific. In recent years, APEC meetings have received most of their news coverage for the leaders’ talent shows and photographs of leaders in the traditional or national dress of the host nation. The annual photo gallery is quite a hilarious collection of world leaders in elegant and funny outfits.

The most recent financial crisis, this one sweeping through the European Union and especially centered on Greece, is causing concern to all the world’s economies. Ironically, in the midst of this global financial crisis, Asian economies are doing quite well, presenting the image of Asia as a leading economic engine that may assist struggling old economic powers in the EU and the United States. As Asia rises as a result of its robust work ethic and continuous innovation in management, production, and technology, the African continent is also beginning to stir. It is as if Africa wants to be the new Asia, Asia plans to be the new Europe, old Europe struggles to stay alive, and America is in a mid-life crisis. Given current trends and the shifting of wealth and power to the Pacific, APEC may indeed turn out to be the premiere economic forum that it was originally intended to be.

At the APEC meetings in Honolulu, South Korea will be showcasing some of its innovative programs, showing how APEC can be used to advance development around the world. One is a program called “innovative and bold consulting” which helps small- and medium-sized Korean companies establish branch offices and factories in other developing economies of APEC, such as Indonesia, Peru, and Vietnam. In this program, the Korean government’s Small and Medium Business Administration and the Corporation of Small and Medium Business Promotion jointly offer free consulting to Korean companies who are planning to enter developing APEC countries. These consultations develop methods for raising the image and status of Korean products overseas, transferring appropriate technology to other countries to assist their economic growth, and the use Korean managerial tools to help local businesses. The fundamental assumption behind this effort is that the APEC region will not become an economic powerhouse if many member countries are struggling.

A second program that Korea will promote at APEC is one that supports Korean businesswomen in their rise to higher levels of business and corporate management. Korea is more business-friendly to women than most Southeast Asian countries but it lags far behind the United States and Japan in terms of women-owned businesses.

The third program is active promotion of a trans-Pacific free trade pact. Korea has already signed free trade agreements with the United States and Peru, and the current government in Seoul in generally supportive of free trade efforts.

In part because of its relative lack of concrete goals and results, the APEC gathering is an excellent counterweight to the painful meetings currently taking place in Europe at the G20 and among EU members. But it is not just costumes and talent shows that differentiate APEC from Western Europe. The Asia-Pacific region is currently the engine of the world economy and is set for further growth in the future. Europe will remain important, but the United States should pay more attention to the rising star, the Asia-Pacific region.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Electing the Next President in South Korea

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

In presidential elections, domestic politics and the domestic economy play a key role in the minds of voters.

In American politics, this role is symbolized by two famous phrases. The former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill is famous for recognizing that "All politics is local," and a pithy guideline of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign was "It’s the economy, stupid."

Yet international politics and the global economy, most especially conditions in neighboring countries and relations with major trading partners, have a strong impact on the national economy. Although these broader forces are difficult for voters to understand or even appreciate, more often than not they are the underlying forces that determine such things as employment and prices.

So what global forces are likely to impinge on South Korea in the years ahead, and how do the presidential candidates view those forces? In 2012, the presidential election year, Seoul will host the Global Nuclear Summit, and Yeosu, the beautiful port city in South Jeolla Province, will host the World Expo. The year 2012 may also prove to be a turning point in relations with North Korea, thus determining the future of the Korean Peninsula.

Start with North Korea, which looms over South Korea like a gathering storm. The leadership succession in Pyongyang will continue to develop, and however it goes it won’t be a pretty sight. Back in 1994, some foreign analysts suspected that Kim Jong-il would prove to be a reformer. Hardly anyone today is saying the same thing about Kim Jong-un. If the next South Korean president does not have a correct understanding of North Korea, the coming years may see more trouble between the two Koreas. Where will the candidates stand on important issues such as holding talks with the North, providing humanitarian aid, and maintaining economic relations?

China presents another headache because its economy will continue to grow, as well as its military. For much of the 20th century the United States influenced events in almost every corner of the world. In the 21st century, China may gain the same influence, and Korea is one of its closest neighbors. In Beijing, the Supreme People’s Congress in 2010 announced the goal of making China an economically and militarily strong nation, a larger version of North Korea’s "gangseong daeguk" (strong and prosperous country). While this is an empty phrase in North Korea’s case, it will likely become true for China. The next South Korean president must have clear ideas about what the country’s relations with China should be.

China will continue to be an important trade and investment partner, but it will be much more than that. Economic interests invariably give rise to political interests, and China has its own views on what kind of political and economic neighborhood it wants to live in. A Korean president who focuses only on bilateral economic relations will be shortchanging Korea’s future. Korea needs leverage over China to assure its own security and prosperity. Where will that leverage come from?

And then there’s the supreme challenge of national unification, which must inevitably be realized. This is something that most Koreans don’t like to think much about except in very abstract political and nationalistic terms. It is a challenge with perplexing economic, political, military, social, and moral dimensions. Perhaps unification can be "managed," but on the other hand it may come quickly and with little warning, like an unwelcome relative paying a visit to one’s home.

And in the meantime, what is to be done about the suffering people in North Korea who are held hostage by their government? The "sunshine" policy of two previous Korean administrations did little to help the North Korean people, and by strengthening their leaders, that policy may even have hurt them. Yet, the cold-shoulder policy of the current administration is not satisfactory either, and may even invite further military provocations from the North. Korea’s next president must say how he or she will approach this momentous national challenge.

Finally, it is an unfortunate fact that politics, especially on a national level, is political theater. The candidates present themselves as actors who desperately want to please their audience. They say whatever they think will get them elected, or if they are more honest, they at least steer clear of saying anything that might keep them from being elected. To avoid "buying a pig in a poke," to quote the expressive English phrase, Korean voters must push the candidates to state their policies clearly, while recognizing that even a president is constrained by future events and political obstacles from carrying out promised policies in their entirety.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: The Korea Times

Foreign Policies of Emerging-Market Democracies: What Role for Democracy and Human Rights?

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 14-15, 2011

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

The rapid growth of emerging powers in recent years has raised many questions about the future of global governance. A vital bloc within this group is that of the emerging-market democracies, the leading group of developing countries that are governed democratically. While much attention has been paid to how these powers influence the world economy, not enough consideration has been given to these powers’ foreign policies, including how they influence the advancement of human rights and democracy.

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On April 14 and 15, the Managing Global Order project at Brookings and the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy hosted a conference on the foreign policies of emerging-market democracies and their efforts to advance human rights and democracy. Leading experts on Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and multilateral affairs explored these countries’ strategies and tactics and made suggestions for U.S. policymakers. On April 15, Samantha Power, special advisor to the president and senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights at the National Security Council, provided commentary on the administration’s efforts to work with the emerging democracies.

After each panel, panelists took audience questions.

Video

Transcript

Event Materials

Participants

Panelists

Marc Plattner

Director, International Forum for Democratic Studies
National Endowment for Democracy

Moderator: Francine Frankel

Professor and Founding Director, Center for the Study of Contemporary India
University of Pennsylvania

Author: Pratap Bhanu Mehta

President
Center for Policy Research

Commentator: Satu Limaye

Director, East-West Center

Moderator: Diego Abente

Deputy Director, International Forum for Democratic Studies
National Endowment for Democracy

Author: Roberto Abdenur

Former Brazilian Ambassador to U.S

Author: Soli Ozel

Professor, Istanbul Bilgi University

Moderator: Akwe Amosu

Africa Advocacy Director
Open Society Policy Center

Author: Moeletsi Mbeki

Deputy Chairperson, The South African Institute of International Affairs

Commentator: Pauline Baker

President, Fund for Peace

Moderator: Brian Joseph

Senior Director, Asia and Multiregional Programs
National Endowment for Democracy

Author: Rizal Sukma

Executive Director
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta, Indonesia

Commentator: Donald Emmerson

Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Author: Youngshik Bong

Senior Researcher, Asan Institute for Policy Studies

Author: Chaibong Hahm

Director, Asan Institute for Policy Studies

Commentator: Scott Snyder

Director, Center for U.S.-Korea Policy
The Asia Foundation

Introduction: Carl Gershman

President, National Endowment for Democracy

Samantha Power

Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director, Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights
National Security Council

Moderator: Richard Gowan

Associate Director
Center on International Cooperation

Commentator: Peggy Hicks

Global Advocacy Director
Human Rights Watch

Moderator: Larry Diamond

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University

Thomas Carothers

Vice President for Studies
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Moises Naim

Senior Associate
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Bad Timing for a Sensitive Political Issue in Japan-Korea Relations

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0400

There is never a good time for an earthquake, and a week after the great quake that struck northern Japan, I’m not talking about how unfortunate it was that the disaster happened when it did.

March 11, 2011 was for Japan what September 11, 2001 was for the United States. The agent of destruction for Japan was natural rather than human, but the immediate and long-range impacts are likely to be equally important. In both cases, the international community offered its sympathy and support, even though the terrorist attack was against the world’s most militarily powerful state and the earthquake was visited on one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Disasters bring out the best in people everywhere. Japan has been a model citizen in terms of extending aid to the less fortunate. Now the world is helping Japan.

An old Korean saying goes, "True friendship will survive rough times together." Koreans, both ordinary people and technical experts, have taken it upon themselves to help their neighbor. In daily newspapers and internet blogs thousands of Koreans offered their sympathy. "Let’s forget about the unfortunate past and let’s help Japan, our close neighbor." In one of the highest profile responses, Bae Yong-joon, better known to the Japanese as "Yon-Sama," the much loved hallyu star, sent a check for 1 billion won, equivalent to $900,000, to the earthquake victims. Already worshipped as an entertainment god, he now takes the form of a handsome good-hearted angel.

Japan-Korea relations have had their ups and downs. The recent tragedy provides the opportunity for better relations, which are sorely needed to deal with many current problems and to weather future political storms. It would be of great mutual benefit if these two peoples, living so close and sharing so many traits and values, could put the past behind them and establish a more solid relationship.

Alas, the earthquake was not the only news story about Japan that was in the Korean papers this week. In a case of very bad timing, it seems that Japan’s certification process for a new selection of history textbooks is moving forward, and it is reported that in one or more of these textbooks the controversial statement is made that Dokdo, a group of rocky islands in the sea between Japan and Korea, is alleged to be Japan’s legal territory and that Japanese citizens are encouraged to register Dokdo as their birthplace.

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) certifies national history textbooks every spring, and if textbooks with these statements are approved, the consequences for Japan-Korea relations will be exactly the opposite of the mood that has emerged in Korea in response to the earthquake. In fact the political earthquake of the Dokdo issue will almost certainly have a longer-lasting effect than the humanitarian consequences of the physical one.

It is reported that the Korean minister of foreign affairs and trade has met with the Japanese foreign minister and requested that Japan should not kindle the flames of the textbook controversy at this time of mutual help and emotional bonding. Minister Matsumoto is reported to have said that he would look into the situation.

Sensitive political issues can be likened to a tsunami that swamps everything in its path. A few rocky islands occupied by a handful of Koreans and to which Koreans have strong claims are not a major economic or strategic issue to either Korea or Japan, especially in light of the many other relationships that bring these two nations together. Neither in light of the aid that Korea is now sending to Japan nor in light of the long-term relationship, must these two nations consider this issue worthy of being disputed.

Japan faces an almost unprecedented social and economic challenge to recover from the earthquake disaster, and no one doubts that Japanese national resilience, patience, creativity, and pragmatism will succeed in repairing the physical damage. Time, personal support, and human sympathy will go a long way toward alleviating the human suffering which is ultimately a more urgent and important issue than repairing physical damage. We can all recognize on a personal level that life and health are more imperative than money and possessions. Likewise, working to repair the social relationship between Korea and Japan should take precedence over arguing about a few small rocky islands.

Let us hope that the politicians, and those people who live in the grip of political passions, will have the wisdom to see what is more important and what is less important.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: The Korea Times

Piracy Incident is Good News for China-South Korea Relations

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Thanks to the current media coverage of Middle East turmoil, I almost missed reading a very heartening report on Chinese-South Korean cooperation, namely the February 10 Chinese navy rescue of the South Korean cargo ship Daisy that was being pursued by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Given the less-than-cordial state of Chinese-South Korean political relations, which have suffered from China’s failure to condemn recent North Korean attacks on South Korea, this anti-piracy incident is a particularly welcome sign of Korean-Chinese relations.

Trends in the piracy business are not encouraging. Somali pirates have attacked hundreds of ships, and as of February 2011 they were holding about 50 ships and 800 crewmembers for ransom in Somalia. Most ships and crew are eventually released unharmed after payments of millions of dollars, but some crewmembers die of natural causes and others have been killed in rescue attempts. The pirates have enlarged their area of prey to cover much of the western Indian Ocean. With their ransom lucre they can buy the latest in navigation and communication equipment and arms to help them find and attack vulnerable targets. Pirate mother ships, often ships they had already hijacked, act as floating pirate bases seemingly protected by the law of the sea. Even when pirates are apprehended, they are usually freed unless they are caught in the very act of attacking a ship. In short, the rewards for piracy are big and the punishments small.

Over two dozen nations have sent ships to the region to participate in or cooperate with a NATO-EU Combined Task Force against piracy, including naval assets from Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey, not to mention the larger military powers such as the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and India. South Korea has stationed one of its six destroyers in the area, and Japan has two. Unfortunately, the Task Force has been unable to find a winning strategy to defeat the pirates, who always seem to be one step ahead. The obvious solution, which is to hit the pirates in their home bases in Somalia, would mean conducting intensive and long-lasting military operations in a country with no government and many poor and desperate people, and no nation is ready to undertake such a task.

As a consequence, counter-piracy operations have been piecemeal maritime affairs. Some operations have been great successes, killing pirates and rescuing ships and crews. In January of this year, South Korean commandos from the destroyer Choi Young, which had been shadowing the hijacked South Korean ship Samho Jewelry for a week, attacked the pirates and freed the ship’s 21 crew members. Other operations have failed. Recently, four American sailors were killed on their ship when pirates, perhaps made nervous by U.S. Navy vessels, shot them. Even the Samho Jewelry rescue was not without casualties: The ship’s captain was shot in the stomach but survived. This was the ninth South Korean ship to be hijacked since 2006. One of those ships, the Samho Dream, was released only after payment of a reported $9.5 million ransom.

Fighting piracy cannot be a man-against-man, ship-against-ship operation. Even in the absence of a winning strategy to fight piracy it is clear that a key ingredient of success must be international cooperation. Because finding pirate boats is like finding a needle in a haystack, many navy ships are needed to cover a large expanse of ocean. Out on patrol, ships from every nation help whatever vessels are in distress, no matter their nationality, sometimes making for unusual acts of cooperation. In May 2009 a South Korean naval helicopter chased off pirates pursuing a North Korean freighter. And in October 2007 a helicopter from a U.S. navy ship, coming to the rescue of hijacked North Korean freighter, distracted the pirates so that the North Korean crew could fight them off and regain control of their ship. After the firefight, three wounded North Korean sailors were taken on board the U.S. navy ship for treatment.

People and nations learn to cooperate when they are faced with a common threat. This is probably the only virtue of the piracy threat: that it provides an occasion where nations that do not otherwise enjoy close relations can cooperate, if only for the moment. Such cooperation opens the possibility that nations can discover the common values and interests that they share, and with this discovery, take the first steps toward a better relationship.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: Korea Times

As Egypt Has Revolted, So Will North Korea

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500

On the evening of Oct. 2, 1990, I drove to Koblenz to celebrate German unification, which occurred one minute after midnight.

I was spending the academic year in Germany to research unification, and that midnight celebration was the emotional high point of my stay. In the early 1990s, many others and myself included were writing articles about how the political "winds of change" might blow on to reach the Korean peninsula. Alas, nothing changed, and here we are, two decades later, with the two Koreas still separated and no prospect for unification in sight.

I am reminded of that happy time in Germany by the recent popular uprising in Egypt. Even after 30 years of ruling the country President Hosni Mubarak is not the dictator that Kim Jong-il is, but still, no one predicted that the Egyptian people would have the power to contest his rule. Nor, for that matter, was German unification foreseen. We must not, however, confuse the unpredictable with the improbable or the impossible.

Vaclav Havel, the first president of post-revolution Czechoslovakia, spoke of the "power of the powerless." This kind of power is notoriously difficult to measure. It is not something countable like money or guns or people. One day it can be almost invisible and the next day it is being exercised by thousands of people in the streets. In this sense, it is more potent than the power that powerful people wield because their power is often out in the open for everyone to see.

Revolutions, whether peaceful or violent, successful or unsuccessful, occur for many reasons. Most of the time, they are sparked by an unpredictable event; for example, the death of a dictator, a natural disaster, or revolution in a neighboring country. But for the people to rise up, the spark of revolution must have some fuel to burn.

At the very least, mass discontent is required to spread the flames, and for the revolution to be successful, usually an organized opposition. These facilitating factors are often not easily observed; after all, dictators try to control information about their countries in order to keep both citizens and foreigners ignorant. But after a revolution has occurred, we can look back and identify these factors, and with hindsight we can see that revolution was to some degree probable, even if it was unpredictable.

If we take a very long view, it is safe to say that no matter how seemingly docile and powerless people are, they will ultimately find an opportunity to seek political and economic freedom. As the saying goes ― in English as well as in Korean ― "Even the smallest worm will turn on you if it is stepped on." That is why we can be confident that someday the Kim regime of North Korea will fall, even though we cannot say when that day will come.

There may be little we can do to precipitate an event that brings down a regime, but there is much that can be done to prepare for it. To employ a different metaphor, the underlying currents of change are often well hidden, and their magnitude and velocity may not be remarkable. But they are nonetheless eroding the foundation under dictatorships, little by little.

In North Korea, revolutionary influences are already emerging. Like the Egyptian people, most North Koreans are poor and dissatisfied with their economic and political situation. Also like the Egyptians, they are gaining knowledge about their rulers and about the outside world through new communication technology. By a strange coincidence, it is an Egyptian company that is building North Korea’s cell phone network, enabling over 300,000 North Koreans to communicate with each other.

Computers are also becoming more popular in North Korea, although few of them are connected to the Internet. Even without access to Internet connections or links to the international media, most North Koreans know at least something about life in South Korea and the rest of the world, thanks to clandestine radio broadcasts and thousands of DVDs smuggled into the country.

The North Korean people are already exercising their "powerless power" by ignoring their leaders as much as possible and making a living for themselves in the marketplaces. A time will come when this power will express itself not just as a rejection of their government but as a force to push it aside.

Koreans inside and outside of North Korea who are working to bring political and economic freedom to the North Korean people may sometimes become discouraged. Seventeen years after Kim Jong-il formally took power his son seems on the verge of inaugurating yet another dictatorial regime. But the day-to-day efforts to bring information to the North Korean people are not wasted. Information is power. And when the time is right, another worm will turn.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: The Korea Times

A New Round of Talks Between North and South Korea

Kongdan Oh — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0500

After walking out on the six-party talks in 2008 and vowing never to return; after torpedoing a South Korean naval boat, shelling a South Korean island, and on numerous occasions threatening nuclear war; the regime in Pyongyang has decided to see if the atmosphere might be favorable for a new round of talks.

This early-season fishing expedition comes as no surprise. North Korea’s antics have alienated the entire world with the exception of the Chinese, who bite their lip and continue to shelter North Korea under their wing. The North Koreans need a continued infusion of foreign aid and the Chinese may be squeezing them pretty hard. After months of tension, perhaps the world will be so relieved to see North Koreans talking rather than shooting that they will take the bait.

The bait comes in the form of the January 5 "Joint Statement" carried by North Korean radio and television and released to the foreign community by KCNA in an English translation. This united front appeal purportedly comes from "the DPRK government, political parties and organizations at a joint meeting," but of course it was drafted by Korean Workers’ Party elites and endorsed by Kim Jong-il himself. The statement proposes talks with "political parties and organizations of south Korea including its authorities." As one would expect from the extremely hostile attitude that the DPRK government has taken toward the ROK government, the statement is insincere and insulting.

Although the statement purports to come from the government and organizations of the DPRK, it is not addressed to the ROK government, as if South Korea is a state without a government. This omission alone should be sufficient to invalidate the request for talks.

Then the statement goes on to call for "unconditional and early opening of talks between the authorities having real power and responsibility." Who might those authorities be? Will Kim Jong-il be willing to sit down with President Lee Myung-bak, whom the North Korean media invariably refer to as a "traitor?" Will there be a seat at the table for the so-called "puppet Unification Minister Hyun In-taek," characterized just last month as a "pathetic pro-U.S. stooge and colonial henchman"? This is a textbook example of North Korea’s Jekyll and Hyde diplomacy.

In the statement North Korea undertakes to forgive itself for its past misdeeds by offering to "meet anyone anytime and anywhere, letting bygones be bygones," as if 60 years of armed provocations, starting with the Korean War and including countless armed attacks, abductions, hijackings, and territorial incursions (in the West Sea, the East Sea, and across the DMZ), were somehow South Korea’s fault.

What will the North Korean leadership get out of this? The delegates to the meeting are supposed to talk about "détente, peace, reconciliation, unity and cooperation." And there it is: "cooperation", which is North Korea code for foreign aid. The winter is long and the food supply is dwindling. China is not contributing as much as North Korea needs, so it is time to pass the hat once again.

But the regime foresees another, more immediate, reward, which is so important that it is made a precondition for the ``unconditional” talks: ``We propose discontinuing to heap slanders and calumnies on each other and refraining from any act of provoking each other.” Obviously the renewed effort of government and non-government organizations in South Korea to send truthful information to the North Korean people is causing considerable concern to the regime in the North. It’s good to know that one’s efforts are successful. As I have argued in the past, information should be the weapon of choice for South Korea.

If you remember the Aesop fable ― not the one about the sunshine and the north wind but the one about the boy who cried wolf ― you will understand why it is wise to be skeptical. This time around, North Korea says "we will discuss and solve all the issues related to the important matters of the nation." But the deal-breaking nuclear issue is not mentioned. Way back in 1993 Pyongyang promised "If the United States accepts the DPRK-proposed formula of package solution [later embodied in the Agreed Framework], all problems related to the nuclear issue including the compliance with the [IAEA] safeguards agreement will be solved and it will not take much time." Not quite.

An old Korean saying goes, "Well, let’s try to be fooled one more time since we are in the same family.” The two Koreas must one day cooperate, although I think that day still lies some years in the future. But today, China, Russia, and the United States are eager for the two Koreas to resume contact because without that contact the six-party talks, so useless yet so loved by diplomats, cannot resume. What then should Seoul do?

I am always in favor of dialogue. Let the two Koreas meet in that bare room at Panmunjom. Put a glass of water in front of each delegate. No need for expensive air travel, hotels, banquets, and the inevitable bribes disguised as gifts. Just talk. The North Koreans can say what is on their mind and the South Koreans can do the same. Past experience suggests that actually negotiating with them is useless because any agreements they make simply strengthen their regime and give it time to pursue its own agenda, which includes being a military-first power with nuclear weapons. But at the very least it is worth letting them know that they are not fooling anybody and that it is too early in the season to catch many fish.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: The Korea Times

Same Old News from North Korea

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

2010 was a dramatic year for Koreans and for the global media covering Korea. In March a North Korean torpedo sank the South Korean naval ship Cheonan and on Nov. 23 the North Korean army shelled the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.

As it turns out, whenever hostilities flare up in Korea, I receive many phone calls from the media asking me to comment. This year eager media representatives even called on Thanksgiving, two days after the island shelling. My response: "Please let me enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner in peace. Until North Korea is gone, you will have no shortage of this kind of news."

From a business standpoint, bad news from Korea is good news for me, because for the past 25 years I’ve been studying and writing about North Korea. North Korea is also good news for the media, who are always looking for something sensational to report about. In saying this, I don’t mean to be callous or sarcastic. A nation has been attacked and people have been killed.

Unfortunately, extensive international news coverage of every North Korean threat and provocation only serves to reinforce this kind of bad behavior. The Kim regime loves to see its name in the papers. It needs to cause consternation in the international community to avoid being forgotten and left to its own miserable fate. News of most North Korean military confrontations is also brought to the attention of the North Korean people by their domestic media, who put a very different spin on the stories. Periodically reminding the people that they are on the brink of a shooting war heightens their nationalistic fervor and helps keep them dependent on their government for protection against "invasion."

But what is news? Most people think that an item worthy of being headline news is something that is new and important. Commentators such as myself are asked to explain it and predict the future course of events. But to be more accurate, news, as many people have observed, is whatever the media chooses to talk about. I’m sorry to say, but there is little new or important that comes out of North Korea. The attacks in the West Sea deserved to be covered, but they are simply the latest in a long line of North Korean provocations, some more serious, for example the 1968 attack on the Blue House or the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air Lines plane, and some less serious, such as the ill-fated North Korean submarine incursions of 1996 and 1998. But underlying all these news items is the same old story: the political division of the two Koreas and the desire of the North Korean regime either to rule over the entire peninsula or at least to obtain support for their continued rule over the northern half of the country.

As long as this political dynamic persists, there will inevitably be flare-ups, and it is particularly worrisome when news stories influence national policy. With the media screaming about the North Korean artillery attack, President Lee was virtually forced to issue dramatic threats toward North Korea and take drastic steps to strengthen the South Korean military. Unfortunately, as long as a dynastic North Korea continues to exist, especially as long as it is guided by "military-first politics" and ruled by so-called "great generals," South Korea will be vulnerable to surprise attacks. People must accept this. It is not news.

What the South Korean government needs to do is adhere to a long-term policy that addresses, as best it can, the incompatible nature of the two Koreas. For many years that policy was Cold War containment under the ultimate protection of American forces. As long as North Korea remained a frontline state of the communist bloc, this was the best that could be done. After global communism retreated, a policy of engagement held out hopes of weaning North Korea away from its old ways and leading it to peaceful unification. But as it turned out, the Kim regime had no intention of reforming, even if it ended up as the world’s last hard-line communist state, so the generous and well-meaning gestures of the Sunshine Policy ended up helping to keep the Pyongyang Kims in power.

Under the Lee administration, South Korean policy toward North Korea has become, in my opinion, more realistic. South Korea’s greatest strengths lie in its politics, economy and society. South Korea should take prudent steps to protect itself and punish North Korean provocations in a proportional manner, but it should put its greater efforts into using non-military power to wear down the North Korean regime until it finally collapses. South Korea’s free elections, its growing economy, and its vibrant society are the important news, and North Korean military provocations should not distract people from that.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: The Korea Times

Korea Specialist Thinks North Korea Will Stage Response to South Korean Artillery Drills

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In an interview with Voice of America News, Katy Oh explains why she believes North Korea will stage a response to South Korea's artillery drills.

KATY OH: I think this is a classic North Korean game. When there is an expectation of some kind of retaliatiion and counter attacks, North Korea remains silent. But, when the United States and South Korea are relaxed, perhaps over the national holidays then North Korea could launch a surprise attack, which is a recurring tactic of the North Korean regime.

VOA NEWS: So, you do expect a retaliation and quite soon?

OH: Whether it is a retaliation or a new provocation, they will not be sitting quiet for long. They will continue to seem to be doing so, but they will use the best mix of surprise and shock.

VOA NEWS: Could diplomacy prevent North Korea from going ahead with retaliation or with another provocation?

OH: Basically, my answer is 'no', because in a sense that the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China urge North Korea to return to the six-party talks, we always send them a signal, 'look, we're really seriously ready to sit down with you'. As long as we wanted to talk about this real substantial issue, North Korea always walked away. They would like to control the situation with their own agenda while keeping their nuclear option open. In that case, the United States and South Korea will not talk to them. But, it does not mean we gave up on diplomacy. I think North Korea has its own agenda and they will use a combination of diplomacy and provocation to reach their own goals. North Korea is a regime that needs an external crisis, for two reasons: to have social control and to continue the legitimacy of the regime that is not really legitimate in terms of delivering welfare and economic benefit for the population. So, with that mindset, I think there will be a provocation in the near future. I think that other countries, particularly the United States, South Korea and Japan should be fully alert and possibly use assymetrical warfare to deal with this unpredictable nemisis...this country.

Listen to the full interview at voanews.com »

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: Voice of America News

The U.S.-Japan Alliance and Evolving Challenges in East Asia: Freedom of Navigation and North Korea

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 09:00:00 -0500

Event Information

December 15, 2010
9:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Recent developments in East Asia have illustrated evolving challenges to the U.S.-Japan alliance. Freedom of navigation has become one of the key geopolitical issues in the region following territorial disputes and tensions from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea. Uncertainty on the Korean peninsula regarding the Kim Jong-il regime's succession process, North Korea's increasing aggression toward the Republic of Korea, and new developments in North Korea's nuclear program add new urgency to a traditional challenge.

On December 15, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings and the Slavic Research Center and the Global Center of Excellence (GCOE) Program at Hokkaido University in Japan hosted Japanese and American experts to discuss whether and how the U.S.-Japan alliance should address the evolving challenges of freedom of navigation and North Korea.

After each panel, participants took audience questions.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

1215_us_japan_transcript

Participants

Panelists

Takeo Akiba

Minister, Head of Political Section, Embassy of Japan

Akihiro Iwashita

Professor, Slavic Research Center, Global Center for Excellence
Representative, GCOE Program on Reshaping Japan’s Border Studies, Hokkaido University

Peter Dutton

Associate Professor of Strategic Studies, China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College

Shin Kawashima

Associate Professor of History, University of Tokyo

Koichi Sato

Professor of Asian Studies, J.F. Oberlin University, Tokyo

Mitsuhiro Mimura

Associate Senior Research Fellow, Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia

Yuki Asaba

Associate Professor of International Studies, Yamaguchi Prefectural University

Korea’s Path from Poverty to Philanthropy

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

On a beautiful May day in 2009, President Lee Myung-bak held an impressive ceremony at Cheong Wa Dae to inaugurate World Friends Korea, the country’s version of the Peace Corps.

The president and first lady were surrounded by a group of smiling young volunteers who were preparing to travel abroad to build a better global village.

This was quite a change from the early days of the country when Koreans depended on foreign aid to help them recover from the Korean War.

The early struggle

I remember what it was like growing up in Korea in the 1950s and 1960s. Per capita income was less than $100 - about what it is today in the poorest south Asian and African countries. The Korean War of 1950-1953 devastated the country, killing and injuring millions of people and scaring those who survived. In the early days of the war North Korean soldiers poured across the border and swept through most of South Korea, and in the aftermath of the war the economy was ruined and millions of families were separated and relocated. Our family, which had come down from the North before the war, fled to Busan at the southern tip of the peninsula to escape retribution from the North Koreans.

Food was sometimes scarce in the 1950s. In the springtime, after the autumn harvest had been eaten and before new crops could be gathered, poor people would scour the hills for edible herbs and plants - just as they do in North Korea today. Schoolrooms lacked desks and chairs and had little heat in the winter.

Many school children depended on foreign food donations like powdered milk for their lunch.

Tall and healthy American soldiers, staying on to deter the North Koreans, both attracted and frightened curious Korean children, who gratefully accepted presents of candy and chewing gum, foods that were totally foreign to their taste. No one could be sure that the North Koreans would not attack again.

During the 1950s, Korea’s economy slowly began to recover, but there wasn’t much to work with. Foreign aid and assistance came in from the International Development Association, the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and bilateral agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund of Japan. In the 1960s, South Korea under President Park Chung-hee launched economic and social development plans, and soon the economy began to grow, although the lives of ordinary people were hardly affected until the 1970s. By the time of Park’s death in 1979, income was over $1,500. Life was still difficult, but it was definitely getting better.

In his 1961 inaugural speech, President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans with the words, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” That same year, Kennedy launched the Peace Corps, based on an idea he had proposed as a senator, and in 1966 the first Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Korean cities and villages as teachers and as representatives of American society. Many Koreans did not know what to make of these young volunteers who had left their comfortable life in the United States to live among the poor Korean people. Some Koreans even suspected they might be American spies - why else would wealthy foreigners come to live in poor Korea- By 1981, when the Peace Corps had completed its work in Korea, almost 2,000 volunteers had lived and worked with their Korean hosts, convincing them that they were indeed there to help. The Peace Corps also spread values that are important to American society, such as the importance of individual human rights, democracy, and transparent governance - and the virtue of volunteering. The Americans were in turn influenced by their Korean hosts, and many Peace Corps volunteers later became diplomats, professors, and researchers who devoted their lives to studying Korea or working there. The incumbent American ambassador to Korea, Kathleen Stephens, was one of those volunteers.

Success finally achieved

The Korean economic miracle that was achieved under President Park’s leadership in the 1960s and 1970s is a story of dazzling national transformation from poverty to wealth.

The capstone of this achievement was the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where Koreans displayed their ability to host successfully a world-class event.

The traffic was calm thanks to the willingness of Seoul citizens to restrict their driving. Streets were cleaned and flowering plants decorated the fronts of homes and businesses. Even the roughest of bustling Seoul citizens put smiles on their faces to welcome their foreign visitors. As important as what visitors could see was the transformation that took place in the hearts and minds of the Korean people, who found in themselves a “we can do it” spirit.

This inward and outward transformation of Korean society was the first big step toward full participation in the international community.

Yet, until the end of the 1990s, Koreans still felt vulnerable and weak. Economic success brought them better jobs, salaries, and living conditions, but one could sense an endless desire to get more and more, perhaps a legacy of the many years of struggle and deprivation that Koreans had experienced. A kind of “me first” syndrome characterized much of Korean society, showing itself in pushing and shoving and the frequent resort to corruption to get ahead. Traditional values such as sharing with the community’s less fortunate seemed to have been eclipsed. Hence, the phenomenon of Seoul divided by the Han River, with the “South Han River” side becoming a new center of finance and economic power as many wealthy families moved to high-rise condos, while the north side was left out of the new development.

Korea’s new-found wealth also made it possible for Koreans to travel abroad, something that they previously had been prevented from doing both by lack of funds and by government restrictions. Unfortunately, some of these Korean travelers, having little experience with foreign cultures, took the worst of their everyday behaviors with them. It was not uncommon to see Korean travel groups sitting on the floors of airport terminals drinking soju and loudly playing the Korean card game called “hwatu.”

And then in the late 1990s Koreans reached another turning point in their national psyche and began to show a sensitivity and concern for others - in their society and in the world beyond. Perhaps this change can be attributed in part to how quickly and successfully Koreans overcame the financial crisis that swept through Asia in 1997. Today, Korean tourists of all ages, smartly dressed and sophisticated, are found in popular tourist spots around the world. Korean popular culture is also spreading throughout the world. The famous “hallyu” (Korean wave) of music, television shows, and films has swept through Asia, and Korean dishes such as kimchi are widely appreciated all over the world.

Time to help others

Today, Korea’s nominal per capita GNP is approximately $20,000, and Korea has become the world’s 14th largest economy. The Republic of Korea became a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1996 and joined its Development Assistance Committee in November, 2009.

Korea, once an international aid recipient, has now become an aid donor. Korea was the first case since OECD’s birth in 1961 that an OECD member transformed its status from recipient to donor. It will greatly contribute to enhancing Korea’s prestige around the Seoul G-20 meeting of the major economies, scheduled for November in 2010. Korea’s industries are known throughout the world by their manufacturing and construction products. The time has come for Korea to take its place in the world. In 1991, the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) was established to administer Korea’s aid to other countries. More controversially, Korea has also been participating in security and reconstruction efforts in the some of the world’s hotspots, such as Afghanistan, not forgetting that it was once a hot spot itself.

And now there is the launch of World Friends Korea, an umbrella or “brand” covering numerous Korean volunteer programs already in operation.

On the government side, these programs include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ KOICA Volunteers, the Ministry of Public Administration’s Internet Volunteers, and the Ministry of Education’s University Volunteers and Techno Peace Corps. By the end of the year, some 3,000 Korean volunteers, young and old, will be working with foreign governments, schools, and other non-profit organizations in some 40 countries, making this the second largest such program after the U.S. Peace Corps. In the years ahead, the program is expected to expand to more than 10,000 volunteers.

By coordinating its volunteer efforts within government agencies and with Korean NGO’s and private companies’ volunteer programs, World Friends aims to strengthen the brand name of the country (which some people still confuse with its troublesome neighbor, North Korea), as well as enhance volunteer training, overseas support, and services for returning volunteers.

Each of the volunteer programs has its own particular field of expertise and its own objectives. For example, the Korea Internet Volunteers, founded in 2001, provide information and communication training to foreign ICT experts and students in some 40 countries, while the Techno Peace Corps, established in 2006, sends volunteers on one-year assignments to teach foreign students about technology transfer.

Under the unified coordination of World Friends, the common goals of all these programs will be to improve the quality of life for people in the host nations, strengthen friendship and mutual understanding with the people of Korea, and help the volunteers fulfill their own potential. Like members of the American Peace Corps and similar volunteer organizations in other countries, Korean volunteers often discover their overseas experience has become a defining part of their life and a path to future success in their careers back home.

What is KOICA?

The Korean International Cooperation Agency was established in 1991 as a government agency to administer aid grants to developing countries. KOICA was modeled on JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), which had been operating since 1974 to administer Japan’s substantial foreign aid program. KOICA’s three main goals are to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable social and economic development, to help alleviate poverty, and to promote humanitarian assistance and human security.

KOICA’s focus areas are education, health, governance, rural development, information and communication technology, industry and energy, environmental protection, and gender equality.

KOICA is an important institution in the Korean government’s Overseas Development Aid (ODA) framework, which administers three types of aid: bilateral grants, bilateral loans, and multilateral assistance. KOICA is responsible for implementing the aid programs and promote international cooperation.

Specific KOICA tasks include recruiting foreign trainees, dispatching Korean experts and volunteers, conducting development studies, providing emergency and disaster relief, and supporting aid programs with capital, facilities, and supplies. In addition, KOICA promotes cooperation with multilateral organizations, engages in research and policy planning, and supports the implementation of overseas Korean government projects.

KOICA reaches every corner of the globe, with an emphasis on countries in South Asia and Africa. An important goal is to integrate Korea’s own development experience and comparative advantage with current development cooperation projects. To leverage its resources, KOICA enlists the cooperation of government and civil organizations and businesses in the host countries.

Today, KOICA staff members are in the vanguard of Koreans who are demonstrating the country’s willingness and readiness to share the wealth and knowledge they have gained through years of hard work. This volunteer work is more impressive given Korea’s tumultuous history and past experiences as an underdeveloped nation, and holds out hope that many of the countries now benefiting from KOICA’s work will one day themselves be able to extend a helping hand to less fortunate countries.

Korea’s overseas medical aid

Korea today benefits from a modern health-care system, ranking above the United States in life expectancy. It was not always so. In the 1950s, the life expectancy for Koreans was little more than 50 years. One could almost say that in those days modern medical treatment was a luxury. One of the major policy objectives of KOICA is to improve healthcare and medical knowledge in poverty- stricken countries. In this endeavor, KOICA joins the ranks of Korean NGOs whose expertise in the fields of public health and medicine have contributed substantially to improving global health. KOICA and NGOs are experienced in providing urgent medical assistance in disaster-hit areas, as well as establishing long-term public health programs.

For example, after the tsunami devastated Indonesia’s Aceh province in 2004, Korea joined international disaster relief teams to provide medical personnel and medicine.

The same was true after the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010. In 2007 KOICA donated funds to build a Public Health Center for mothers and children in Ecuador, a rehabilitation center in Columbia, and a medical center in Cambodia. In Cambodia, KOICA also provided medicine for the center, training courses for the junior doctors, and management skills to run the center. In 2008 the Korean government provided new blood banks for the Irbed, Mafraq, and Ajlun areas of Jordan. In short, Korean doctors, nurses, and public health workers participate with KOICA and other agencies of the Korean government to alleviate suffering around the world and address the same kind of shortages in medicine and public health that Korea once faced.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: The Korea Times

Embracing North Korean Defectors: The "Small Unification" of Korea

Kongdan Oh — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:07:00 -0400

A defector’s story

In 2004 I conducted a series of interviews with North Korean defectors who had recently settled in South Korea. My most interesting case was a Ms. Lee, who listed her current employment as “restaurant attendant,” meaning she could be a dishwasher, waiter, or kitchen helper. In North Korea, she had received a vocational college degree in public health and nutrition and worked as a chef at a resort facility for military veterans. South Korea generally does not recognize degrees that are earned in North Korea, because the content and standards of education are very different.

Ms. Lee cautiously entered my hotel suite and looked with keen interest around the room and then at me. Before we began the interview, she asked, “Dr. Oh, were you born in Korea?” I told her that I was born in South Korea after my parents had come down from North Korea. She seemed to be relieved that I wasn’t an American government official and openly shared with me her bitter life story.

She had decided to leave her home town when her husband, recently discharged from the military, was unable to get a job because her younger brother had fled to China. Her husband and his side of the family bitterly complained that his wife’s brother had ruined them—which he probably had, thanks to the North Korean government policy of blacklisting the entire family when one member departs without permission for China. Ms. Lee also discovered that her husband was in a relationship with another woman in the village. So she decided to escape from her uncomfortable home life and go to China to look for her brother.

The biggest problem with this plan was that she had a six year old son, but on one snowy winter day she embarked on her uncertain journey to China. The previous night she had given the boy a warm new sweater and a bag of candy. “Mommy needs to go to Pyongyang to do some errands and will be back soon. Be a nice boy and be good to grandma and daddy until I return.” The innocent boy was too pleased with his presents to mind. “No worries, Mom. I feel like today is my birthday with candy and new clothes.” She had told her husband, “I will leave you so you can report me to the authorities as a “missing person,” whereabouts unknown. Then you can get a job. Please take care of our son when you remarry and ask your new wife to treat him as if he was her child. I will save money to send for him.”

In the early dawn she slipped out of the house. At the last spot on the road where she could look back at her house, she sat down and cried. She managed to get to China and eventually reach South Korea, using her savings and selling her wedding ring. She was now diligently saving up the $5,000 it would cost to hire a broker to retrieve her son.

My first question to Ms. Lee was, “What is the most difficult thing to bear living in South Korea?” “Missing my son, surely. My job at this large Korean restaurant is dish washing, which is not difficult, but what I hate more than anything is that we throw away tons of food, including meat and rice that would be a delicacy in the North. Whenever I throw this food away, I cry thinking of my son, who rarely had a chance to eat meat and rice.” I asked her, “If this work is unbearable, what kind of work do you want to do?” “I would like to work at a coffee shop or tea house where I don’t have to waste meat and rice.”

A few days later, I happened to visit a coffee shop whose owner was a wealthy Korean who had studied in the United States and opened the café in order to meet interesting people. There I met an old friend who happened to be a school friend of the café owner, and the three of us had a good talk. When the owner complained that it was difficult to find a reliable person to manage the café, I remembered my recent interview with Ms. Lee. Ms. Lee, who had a nutrition degree and said she wanted to work in a café! I told the owner that I might be able to find her a good manager. I described Ms. Lee’s qualifications and the owner sounded interested. Then I added, “The only difference between this candidate and others is that she is a North Korean defector.” The owner almost shouted at me, “You must be kidding. Look at our café. The place is filled with valuable porcelains and paintings and antique furniture, and I have a very sophisticated clientele. How can I trust a defector, who may steal things and alienate my customers? Does she even know the difference between latte and espresso?”

On my way to the airport the next morning I received a call from the owner. “I apologize. I’ve been thinking about your candidate and our mutual friend has convinced me that I should interview her for the job.” I thanked her and asked her to give Ms. Lee a fair chance and be patient with her for a month until she could learn the new job. “And please treat her with respect and give her a good salary since she needs to save money to bring her son out of North Korea.”

So Ms. Lee got the job, and a year later when I visited the café I couldn’t recognize her at all. She wore a smart new hairstyle and dressed in a stylish but conservative manner. The owner thanked me profusely. “Since she came here we have more customers and are making more money. Everybody loves her. She is a great asset.” When I talked with Ms. Lee, she was equally satisfied. "I love my job. People are very kind to me. I appreciate my new life in the South these days."

18,000 defectors and counting

Over 18,000 defectors now live in South Korea, and despite the best efforts of the North Korean and Chinese police, they keep coming at a rate of two to three thousand a year. Most of them are women, who find it easier than men to slip out of North Korea unnoticed and find employment in China while they plot the next move of their escape, which usually takes several years. Once they arrive in South Korea, usually after having trekked across China to Southeast Asia, they are taken in hand by the National Intelligence Service and interviewed for several weeks to determine that they are bonafide refugees and not spies or Chinese-Koreans. They are then sent to the Unification Ministry’s half-way house, Hanawon (“one people”) for three months of social orientation and job training. After they graduate from Hanawon, they are given financial assistance and help in finding housing, and turned loose into South Korean society.

Objectively, their living conditions are much improved over what they were in the North. They needn’t worry about finding food, adequate housing or transportation. They can go wherever they want and associate with whomever they wish. Instead of communist party cadres poking into every aspect of their lives, they have freedom. In fact, many now feel anxious about having too much freedom. One of my interview subjects explained, “During the weekend, I don’t know how to choose among so many things to do. In the North, we had to stay home because we didn’t have money or even physical energy to move around.”

Yet, they feel something is terribly wrong with life in their new society. Especially in the first year, most defectors suffer from a combination of suspiciousness, anxiety, and depression—a reaction that is typical of new immigrants in any society. They badly miss the families they left behind, and feel guilty for having left them at the mercy of officials who will persecute them for having a family member who left the fatherland. Defectors also suffer from a variety of physical complaints caused by their difficult lives in North Korea and by their stressful transitions to South Korean society.

Defectors don’t feel they are fully accepted by their new society. Whenever the media report bad news from North Korea, defectors feel ashamed and guilty about their origins. On a personal level, they suffer from loneliness because it is difficult to make new friends and find romantic partners. Because they speak a different dialect of Korean in which traditional words are used instead of foreign loan words, they are easily identified as North Koreans and usually looked down upon as country bumpkins. As one defector said, “I was a member of the elite cadre circle and now I’m a computer-illiterate senile old man.” And another, “I graduated from a good college but now I’m enrolled in a vocational computer school with youngsters.” And yet another, “I was a relatively wealthy foreign trader for the government but now I drive a pick-up truck and sell vegetables.”

South Korea is a status-oriented, conservative society—as is North Korea, although the status measures are quite different. In the South it’s not what position you hold in the ruling political party that matters but what schools you attended, what degrees you obtained, where you live, where you work, and what your family background is. Defectors bitterly joke that they left one class society in the North and now find that South Korea is equally class conscious, and the defectors are not members of a favored class.

To get ahead in South Korean society, one needs personal connections. Although North Koreans often have extended family members living in the South, they have been completely cut off from them for over 50 years so the relatively wealthy South Korean side of the family often wants nothing to do with them. After they have left the care of the South Korean government, defectors are on their own, and encounter one failure after another. For young defectors, the school dropout rate is high. Those who find full-time employment with a South Korean company usually have to start at the bottom of the ladder, even if they had senior positions in the North, where all official employment is controlled by the government. Former North Koreans in the South typically change jobs every year or two, dissatisfied with their wages and lowly job status. Almost half of them engage in day labor, which offers no job security or future. Many end up being permanently unemployed and living on welfare.

An urgent task

Most South Koreans just don’t want to bother with defectors, although they favor their arrival in principle. They don’t understand the larger issues of cultural acclimation that prevent the defectors from becoming integrated into South Korean society. Christian and social welfare organizations extend a helping hand, and defectors often turn to other defectors and defector groups for assistance and comfort. It is widely recognized that the South Korean government needs to do more for their new citizens, but the government always seems to be playing catch-up.

More of the same programs that are currently in place would improve the situation for defectors. The government already has plans to plans to expand Hanawon, set up local Hanawon centers, and offer more job training to defectors. Hiring incentives, especially for small businesses who have trouble finding employees, may be expanded. But as Park Jin, the chairman of the South Korean National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Unification Committee has noted, “The settlement of North Korean defectors in the South is not something that money alone can accomplish.”

When cultures meet, they often clash. South and North Korean cultures have been diverging for over half a century, and it will take a long time for them to blend. For South Korea’s government and people, the bigger question is whether they should continue to offer a measure of support to the North Korean regime in the hope that it will gradually relax its hold over the people and allow them to become acquainted with South Korean culture and capitalism, or whether South Korea should work for the early collapse of North Korea so that cultural assimilation can begin sooner rather than later.

Korean unification is the greatest national task for South Korea. Some day, perhaps years or decades in the future, the 23 million people in the North will join the 46 million citizens of the South under one government. However, unless the South Korean government and people learn how to deal with the several thousand defectors each year participating in what Assemblyman Park Jin has called “small unification,” national unification will be unimaginably difficult.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Image Source: Reuters

Bureaucracy-Think Tank Partnership Powered Korea

Kongdan Oh — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

One of the most prominent characteristics of an underdeveloped or developing state is the corruption of the ruling class. Failed states throughout the world are plagued by deep-seated structural corruption that spins a nation in a vicious cycle of power abuse, poverty, poor education and underdeveloped infrastructure.

Korea was one of the world's poorest nations at the time the three-year Korean War ended in 1953, but in less than a half century the country became a leading global economic power with a vibrant democracy. How did the Korean bureaucracy contribute to this remarkable national development?

Legacy of Korean Bureaucracy

The last dynasty before Korea's modernization was the Joseon Dynasty, lasting 600 years from 1392 to 1910. During this period, the typical public servant was either appointed by the royal court or recruited through national testing, thus respecting two moral principles of Korean society: selfless loyalty to the king and the value of knowledge.

Korean public servants, in principle and largely in practice, believed in living a life of service and rejecting the lure of materialism, as conveyed in the famous precept: "Pretend that you have eaten a hearty meal even though you have only had a drink of water."

To be sure, many lower ranking bureaucrats in the provinces chased after personal wealth by using the powers of their office, but for the most part, Korean public servants retained a certain dignity and pride in their work and rejected gross structural corruption. One famous case is that of the court-appointed musician, Uruk, who invented a Korean zither or "keomungo."

One day it rained so hard that Uruk's house roof began to leak. Uruk sat still in the room holding an umbrella over his head while composing a piece of music. When his wife complained about their poverty, Uruk cheerfully encouraged her to listen to his music to fill her stomach and take her mind off their poverty.

When the Japanese ruled Korea from 1910 to 1945, they installed the Japanese civil service system, based on the German model. The emperor reigned, the prime minister ruled, the politicians engaged in factional struggles - but the bureaucrats actually governed. The Japanese economic development miracle was made possible by these disciplined and well-educated bureaucrats.

In Korea, Japan's colonial rule was in many ways brutal, but it provided a basis and model of hard-working and disciplined public service, even if during the colonial era the service was ultimately to Japan rather than to Korea. After the Japanese left, Korean bureaucracy functioned with a very similar morale and standard. Korean bureaucracy has been noted for low corruption and a disciplined and dedicated work force that carries out the national agenda without being disturbed by national-level politics.

Korean Work Ethic

The most important reason why Korean bureaucrats are disciplined and hard-working is that civil service is considered to be a highly respectable career. To become a public servant is an honor and pride for the individual and his or her family. This is especially the case for those who come from low and lower-middle class families.

A notable case is that of the current secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, a Korean foreign services bureaucrat who rose to become the foreign minister. Ban is famous for his hard working, disciplined and clean life as a Korean public servant, merits that have contributed to creating a reputation for Korean service to the world community.

A second reason why Korean elite bureaucrats are dedicated to their service is the collective work ethic they share. Korean bureaucrats work in large government office rooms that are not separated into individual cubicles.

The large office floor serves as an open public space that is transparent to all workers. Western visitors to Korean government offices may experience the sensation of being in a large public hall with no privacy; however, working in such a place brings people together like family. As a standard of productivity prevails in an office, sharing a common space motivates workers to match the performance of the hardest working individuals.

A third reason why Korean administrators are so dedicated is that the bureaucracy respects certain rituals that create and sustain group solidarity, community obligations and personal self-esteem. For example, immediately after the celebration of the New Year, every office begins the next workday with a speech by the department head, who tries to instill encouragement and New Year's resolutions.

On national holidays, officemates find ways to celebrate their work and life together to promote bonding and a collegial mood. Throughout the year, most officemates share happy, sad and important occasions together, and build solidarity and mutual support systems.

Promotion is based on seniority plus merit, leading to the expectation that loyalty and hard work will advance one's career. Of course, at times human nature and a competitive spirit prompts individuals to try to take advantage of others to get ahead, but in the long run only brilliant and steady bureaucrats move on to the highest levels, while many self-promoting bureaucrats are weeded out.

Role of Korean Think Tanks

A criticism that has been justly leveled at bureaucracies in Korea, and everywhere else for that matter, is that they do not promote creativity. Bureaucrats play it safe. The same ethic that promotes solidarity tends to discourage those who have new and different ideas. Besides, the bureaucrat's workday is filled with office work, small duties and mandatory items to be handled, leaving little time to engage in strategic thinking.

Yet strategic thinking is exactly what is needed to help an organization ― whether it is a company or a country ― meet new challenges and thrive in an ever-changing world. Bureaucrats have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in this kind of thinking. Especially when the environment is unfavorable, officials seem to put their head in the sand and adhere ever more closely to business-as-usual principles that have worked in the past. To provide strategic thinking, the role of Korean think tanks is vital.

To use another analogy, think tanks are like the weather forecasters and pilots that help a large ship navigate difficult waters. Without them the ship could sail perfectly well on its prescribed course, but if that course is headed into a storm or bound for the wrong port, the efficiency of the bureaucrat becomes a weakness.

Korean think tanks with their trained researchers, who come from a very different background than bureaucrats, provide analysis and policy suggestions that can help turn the sticky rudder of state policy. Think tank analysts (along with researchers at universities, who often lack the government connections and national security clearances of their think tank colleagues) can analyze long-term trends and tackle vexing problems. The frequently overlooked role of these think tanks is thus vital to good governance.

In Korea, notable think tanks like the Korea Development Institute (KDI), which plays a leading role in building the Korean economy, and the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), which is the country's predominant national security and defense think tank, have contributed enormously to national welfare. These committees are staffed by a group of well-educated professionals selected specifically for their expertise. They devote their time to thinking about problems and formulating policy suggestions to help bureaucrats do their work.

In foreign policy, Korea's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) produces policies and reports on regional as well as global international relations to advise busy bureaucrats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on long-term foreign policy directions. Ministry diplomats who are between assignments often reside as fellows at IFANS to retool their brains with refresher courses before heading out on another busy assignment.

Not that the relationship between think tanks and government bureaucracies is always smooth. To some extent, the two institutions have different goals. Bureaucrats seek calm water in which they can do their work. Think tanks like to make waves. But rather than being trouble-makers or second-guessers, in the final analysis think tanks provide new and objective analysis to the government.

Certainly, this ideal cooperation sometimes does not work, especially if top bureaucrats try to pressure think tanks to provide support for preferred government policies. In the short term, such support may be comforting, helping to keep the waters smooth. But if objective analysis is distorted or ignored, short-term calm may lead to long-term danger, or at least sub-optimum policy formulation. Korea is noted for having first-rate think tanks whose existence must be counted as one of the important reasons that Korean government bureaucracy has been both efficient and effective.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: The Korea Times

North Korea in 2009: The Song Remains the Same

Ralph Hassig and Kongdan Oh — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:36:00 -0500

Introduction: In 2009, government officials in the United States and South Korea took a step closer to publicly acknowledging the intransigent nature of the Kim family regime that rules the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). The regime alternates between a hard line, which is conducted by canceling agreements, issuing threats, and withdrawing from dialogue, and a softer line in which officials agree to resume dialogue—at the price of requiring their interlocutors to modify previous demands and offer additional rewards. By using this elementary negotiating strategy and playing upon the exaggerated hopes and fears of the international community, North Korea is able to control the direction and pace of negotiations. The abstracts for the past two North Korea year-end articles in this journal illustrate this strategy. In 2007, the opening words were, “The year 2007 witnessed a gradual rapprochement between North Korea and the world” and for the following year, “In 2008, North-South relations worsened.”

In the first seven months of 2009, North Korea continued to take a hard line with South Korea and adopted a hard line toward the rest of the international community as well. Then in the latter part of the year, the North Koreans embarked on a charm offensive. Members of the news media with an optimistic nature and a short memory hailed this warming trend; however, political realists were not fooled, and diplomats in South Korea and the U.S. vowed they would not be taken in again by this strategy. South Korea’s unification minister, Hyun In-taek, said, “I don’t see the North’s moves as a sign they have altered their stance.” The U.S. point person on North Korean affairs, Stephen Bosworth, agreed, saying, “I don’t think there’s been any fundamental change.” Indeed, North Korea’s song remains the same, and everyone is finally learning the tune.

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Authors

Ralph Hassig
Kongdan Oh

Publication: Asian Survey