The news emerging from Pyongyang makes for grim reading. The rhetoric that is threatening regional war dashes hopes that the Swiss-educated Kim Jong-un will be different from his predecessors – his father Kim Jong Il and his grandfather Kim Il Sung.
The entire population is encouraged from a very young age to be prepared to die in the defence of their motherland
The regime warned resident diplomats in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) that it will not be able to guarantee their security after mid April. The secretive nature of the regime makes it harder for analysts to predict its next move.
The principal aim of most nation states is to safeguard their survival and existence. This objective informs policy choices at different levels and sections of government.
North Korean resources are geared toward the self-preservation of the regime. This regime is sustained by a personality cult centred on the Kim dynasty and a totalitarian system which tolerates no form of dissent. This cult pervades all aspects of daily life.
The education system encourages the perpetuation of an ideological conflict which has its roots at the height of the Cold War. The economic model adopted led to persistent famines and widespread malnutrition. Civil society is non-existent and all forms of social life revolve around the State and the Workers Party of Korea.
All forms of opposition are immediately suppressed. The lack of an adequate technological infrastructure makes it difficult for such groups to flourish. The entire population is encouraged from a very young age to be prepared to die in the defence of their motherland.
This state of affairs has effectively neutralised the population and robbed them of the necessary tools to bring about any immediate change in the country.
Despite the changing political and security milieu, the conflict on the Korean peninsula is a continuation of failed Cold War politics. Japanese imperial control of the Korean Peninsula was brought to an abrupt end abruptly following the Axis defeat in World War II. Both the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to jointly administer the Peninsula; the former administered the North while the latter administered the South.
Efforts to hold free and fair elections failed and the North invaded the South in 1950. After three years and an estimated death toll of 2.5 million, a cease-fire was agreed between the two warring factions. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought to an end all armed hostilities but no peace settlement was ever reached. Both countries remain in a state of war.
There were frequent attempts to bring the two sides together. Both sides touted the possibility of eventual reunification. This proposal, although laudable, will only be tenable if eventual reunification will result in a political arrangement which respects the rule of law and secures regional stability.
Seven decades of division and animosity created two countries with distinct cultures, experiences and world views. These differences together with the disparities in standard of living, infrastructure and economic model make this proposal seem utopic if not naïve.
The proposal of reunification brought the two sides around the discussion table. However, this has not led to a permanent reduction in the bellicose rhetoric and belligerent attitude from North Korea. Moreover, North Korean developments of nuclear technology and long-range missiles have exacerbated the mistrust of the international community.
Policy makers are right to distrust the North Korean regime. Some analysts believe that North Korea possesses missiles which can reach the US territorial waters around Hawaii or the US territory of Guam.
South Korea and Japan face a more imminent threat. This would constitute a serious threat to the region and may have wider destabilising consequences.
This behaviour is also alienating traditional allies. The governments in Beijing and Moscow previously turned a blind eye (at least in public) to the shenanigans of the Pyongyang administration. This time round things seem to be changing and both administrations seem to be getting impatient.
The regime may thus deepen its isolation with the threat of violence as its only bargaining tool. If this threat were executed North Korea could be plunged into a deeper crisis.
On the other hand, North Korea stands to gain from the resumption and extension of scope of the six-party talks involving China, Japan, South Korea, the United States and Russia. Engagement, rather than isolation and unprovoked belligerence, is the only way North Korea can begin to hope in a positive change in its dire economic and political conditions.
andre.deb@gmail.com