A great point. We tend to live in the present. As a counterpoint to your very well-thought out future scenario, Billy:
* What if the governments of China and North Korea both implode in the next decade? Both seem inevitable; the only question is whether it will be gradual or sudden. -- Ernie P. On Apr 30, 2012, at 9:31 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > > NY Times > > The Day After > By BILL KELLER > > Published: April 29, 2012 > > THE one thing everyone knows about North Korea is that we know very little > about North Korea, except that it is miserable, totalitarian, nuclear and > erratic. It is the hermit kingdom, the dark side of the moon. > > But thanks to many thousands of refugees who have reached freedom by way of a > long underground railroad through China, we know a lot more now about the > grim reality. We understand better how the government sustains its dreadful > power, and where that power could be faltering. Among people who follow the > country closely, there is fresh discussion of whether this most durable of > monster-states could be nearing its end days, and what we should do about it. > > In recent weeks the news spotlight has focused on the 29-year-old novice > tyrant Kim Jong-un, performing his family’s time-tested repertoire of > bellicose bluster. Like a lunatic waving an assault rifle as he dances on a > high window ledge, Kim galvanizes our attention. > > But the more interesting story is down below. > > I’ve just read Blaine Harden’s “Escape from Camp 14,” the harrowing story of > a young man’s flight from one of the slave labor camps where as many as > 200,000 political unreliables — a category that includes not just those who > run afoul of authority but their relatives for three generations — are sent > to be starved, tortured and ultimately worked to death. The political camps > are just part of a larger network of detention sites designed to crush any > spark of free will. Harden’s story of Shin Dong-hyuk differs from the best > previous refugee narratives — “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” by Kang Chol-hwan, > Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy” — because Shin was in every sense a > product of Camp 14. Born in captivity to a pair of inmates picked by camp > commanders for a loveless bit of procreation, Shin grew up with no awareness > of anything beyond the electrified fences. He is like the boy-narrator of > Emma Donoghue’s novel “Room,” whose entire world is the backyard shed where > he and his kidnapped mother are held captive. Except that the boy in “Room” > knows love. > > Harden’s book, besides being a gripping story, unsparingly told, carries a > freight of intelligence about this black hole of a country. It explains how > the regime has endured longer than any of its bestial prototypes: longer than > Hitler, longer than Stalin, longer than Mao, longer than Pol Pot. The tools > are enforced isolation, debilitating fear, dehumanizing hunger and utter > dependence on the state. By the time he was a teenager, Shin had watched a > teacher beat a 6-year-old girl to death for hoarding five kernels of corn; > worse, he had betrayed his own mother and brother, and had witnessed their > public execution without remorse. > > Yet Shin, who is not exactly a master escape artist, manages to evade the > state’s controls, and along his stumble to freedom he encounters many others > who — not in words, certainly, but in practice — are defying the system. What > strikes you is how the shackles of totalitarianism are being corroded by > bribery, barter and black-marketeering, including a thriving cross-border > trade with China. It’s still a crushingly oppressive regime, arbitrary and > brutal. But more often than you would imagine, need trumps fear. > > Harden’s narrative is reinforced by more systematic studies. When David Hawk > of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea researched the first edition > of his camp exposé “The Hidden Gulag” in 2003, some 3,000 North Koreans had > found asylum in the South, including several score of former political > prisoners. When he returned for the second edition, just published, the pool > of refugees was 23,000, and included hundreds who had endured detention. The > updated report is a vivid chronicle of horrors, illustrated by crisp Google > Earth photos that make the slave camps as palpable as suburban real estate on > Zillow. > > And yet, Hawk told me, “The numbers who want reform and opening, and the > numbers of people outside the state system, are growing.” > > Fifteen years ago, when many Korea scholars were predicting that — with the > end of life support from the former Soviet Union — the Pyongyang regime could > not survive, Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International > Economics wrote a contrarian piece in Foreign Affairs explaining “Why North > Korea Will Muddle Through.” He was right at the time, so he is worth > listening to when he says that these days he suspects the regime is as > fragile as it has ever been. Many of the most watchful experts agree. The > obvious reason for doubt about the regime’s stability is the new leader, who > seems even less qualified than his father and grandfather to manage his > threadbare police state. His first attempt to prove his manhood by firing off > a long-range rocket ended in an emasculating misfire. > > More important, Kim Jong-un inherits a system whose legitimacy, such as it > ever was, is being rotted away from below. Korea-watchers have an expression > to describe what seems to be happening, as a lawless commerce undermines > central control. They say “the market is eating the state.” > > Along with food, clothing and tools, the border trade has brought the North > Korean populace information about the world outside. North Korea has almost > no Internet, but smuggled radios, TVs, DVDs and cellphones have become more > common, circumventing the propaganda monopoly. > > “North Korea has not discussed the Arab Spring,” Noland told me. “But in the > marketplaces, people were talking about Egypt.” > > > Don’t expect a popular uprising of that kind in North Korea. There is no > Twitter-equipped youth brigade, no Muslim Brotherhood. As one Korea hand told > me, “People surviving on 800 calories a day literally don’t have the energy > to confront the regime.” The more likely scenarios involve some kind of > collapse, sparked by Borgia-style infighting, an army coup or a military > exchange with one of the neighbors. > If the regime is truly tottering, we may have been focused on the wrong > questions about North Korea. > > The engagement camp asks: How can we lure them back to the table so that we > can persuade them to disarm? I’m all for diplomacy, and would be overjoyed by > a verifiable peace deal. But the North Korean leaders have established to all > but the most wishful thinkers that they have no intention of shedding their > weapons programs, and that they cannot be trusted to keep a bargain. > > The regime-change camp asks: Where can we squeeze to hasten the collapse? We > can tighten sanctions aimed at the elite and amplify the honest information > we broadcast to the populace. And let’s stop soft-pedaling the truth about > the slave camps. But there’s no strangling the Kim regime without the help of > China; and China has legitimate fears that a bursting North Korea would spill > over its borders. > > The big question we should be asking is: What about the Day After? If the > regime’s days are numbered, the end is likely to be messier than anything > we’ve seen in the Arab Spring. Why aren’t we sitting down with the Chinese, > South Koreans, Japanese and Russians and making a plan to prevent nuclear > material from being sold to the Russian mafia or the Chinese triads; to keep > some panicky general from incinerating Seoul (minutes away as the artillery > shell flies); to dissuade China or Russia from sending in troops to take > advantage; to prevent Nuremberg-minded prison commandants from bulldozing the > evidence into mass graves; to fend off an even more monumental human calamity > than the famine of the mid-90s? Then, how do we reunify Korea without > bankrupting the South? These are the questions we and North Korea’s neighbors > should be asking, together and urgently. > > Because when North Korea goes, the Day After is likely to last 20 years. > > > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
