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UNITED NATIONS — Kim Jong-Il, North Korea's reclusive ruler has peeked into the never never land of Shanghai and has witnessed what may be the panacea for his proletarian regime's economic woes. Whether Kim, the self-honored "Dear Leader" of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) can beat the reaper and temporarily turn the tables of fortune as did Communist China a generation ago, remains highly problematic.
China has mixed Marxism and markets; Shanghai remains the showcase and epicenter of the capitalist transformation. Kim has belatedly come to realize that his country's moribund Marxist economy has turned his "juche" policies of self reliance into a cruel joke on the Korea people. Between 1994 and 1999, the DPRK lost approximately fifty percent of its GNP, an economic hemorrhage which can't be sustained.
Kim visited China to network. While in Shanghai, his delegation visited the Stock Exchange, a General Motors Buick assembly plant, and a semiconductor facility. They were feted by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji; Kim stated that the "DPRK and PRC peoples are vigorously advancing towards a rosy future in the new century to develop the traditional DRPK/PRC relations." Beijing remains Pyongyang's only serious ally.
Whether North Korea's economy is terminal or able to be revived remains debatable. South Korea's "Sunshine Policy" of political and economic incentives has had limited effects on a North Korean land wrecked by famine, ingrained bureaucratic inepeteiude, and hyper-militarization.
Communist China has long cautioned its North Korean comrades that a controlled economic opening — as with China's — is far preferable to a catastrophic economic collapse. Recall that China's own economic experiment had little to do with markets but everything to do with sustaining a static socialist regime. In other words, since the late 1970's, Beijing used economic incentives to revive an ailing communist system. Though Kim is queasy over serious economic reforms, few options exist.
Since the historic South/North Korean Summit, Kim Jong-il once vilified by Seoul, has been politically morphed into a quirky if congenial politician. Interestingly some of the political superlatives used by DPRK media to describe dictator Kim "Dear Leader," or "Great Leader" have been curiously dropped in some communiques.
At the same time South Korean President Kim Dae-jung looks to entente with the North for lucrative political gain whereas Kim Jong-il plots for regime survival.
As a neighbor of Kim's "Paradise Lost," the People's Republic of China gains by even a mild economic revival in North Korea. Refugees already flee into Mainland China to forage for a better life — should the DPRK descend further down the abyss, China will feel the instability on its frontier. Moreover, Beijing knows that controlled economic liberatizations can rejuvenate the political regime thus ensuring that Pyongyang's communists will not collapse in the proverbial dust heap of history.
South Korea fearing a collapse of the North and an overnight "political inheritance" of their Korean cousins, will press for economic aid as to allow what policy types like to label a "soft landing."
For the United States, which retains a crucial military treaty commitment to South Korea with 38,000 troops along the DMZ dividing the two Korean states, any downgrade of the deeply troubling military standoff remains positive. Still, viewing North Korea through rose colored glasses as did certain elements of the Clinton Administration, does not serve American security policy well. Pyongyang has yet to resolve nuclear arms and missile proliferation issues.
Pyongyang has long tinkered with controlled economic changes; in 1991 it passed a joint venture law which was supposed to bring business to a free trade zone-- again following the lead from China. The plans have not been successful and the door to commerce in DPRK remains half open.
Similarly Pyongyang's political opening of diplomatic relations with a number of West European nations including Italy, France, Germany and most recently the United Kingdom points to a thaw to the outside world. Interestingly a meeting of South Korean Ambassadors in Seoul, endorsed North Korea's wider participation in the international community and pressed for a formal peace accord on the divided peninsula.
After his surprise visit to Shanghai, Kim Jong-il now plans to visit Seoul in March or April as a further step on the road to wider recognition. The question remains, can Kim outpace his circumstances?
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
