Beware Of North Koreans Bearing Gifts
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday September 15, 2000
Kim Jong-il, the ruthless dictator, is now being confused with Kim Jong-il, the genial reformer and polished media performer, writes David Lague.
ATHLETES from North and South Korea will march together under the one flag at tonight's Olympic Games opening ceremony in a move that will fuel the euphoria over an apparant thaw on the Korean peninsula.
The sudden and heady shift from Cold War stand-off to a measure of co-operation between the two sides follows the historic June summit in Pyongyang between the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, and his South Korean counterpart, Kim Dae-jung.
This week negotiations began for Kim Jong-il to make a return visit to Seoul as planning continued to pull up the barbed wire and mines across the demilitarised zone so that work could start on a highway and rail link between the two capitals.
However, it is still far too early to applaud North Korea's Kim for his decision to launch what still remains a modest opening and relaxation of the Stalinist regime he inherited from his father, the late Kim Il-sung.
The ease with which the younger Kim has rebranded his repressive regime as a force for Korean unity and regional harmony says as much about the susceptibility of the international community to self-delusion as it does about the Dear Leader's hitherto unsuspected talent for spin.
Already the talk is of scaled-back military preparedness in the south, US troop withdrawals, Western investment in a cheap labour economy and gradual moves towards reunification on the peninsula. Unfortunately, there are few true breakthroughs in the affairs of nations, especially when dealing with cruel, authoritarian regimes.
If you need a reminder of the power that the truly ruthless can exert over the rest of us, ponder the cynicism of Kim Jong-il as he exploits the misery of families needlessly separated for 50 years since the Korean War.
It is in his power to bring happiness to 1.7 million families with blood ties across the border but after the summit he chose to allow just 200 families a fleeting moment together before dragging them apart. Rather than fury, this exercise won the gratitude of many.
In a sense, the North Korean leadership has held the world and its own people hostage for so long that a collective Stockholm syndrome has emerged. Kim, a leader capable of overseeing one of the world's biggest gulags while ensuring his vast army is fed as his people starve, is now the genial reformer and polished media performer.
This shift should be regarded with deep suspicion, because Kim's strategy has not changed, only his tactics have. Like all authoritarians, his ultimate motivation is personal survival and preservation of the privileges that he and his accomplices have accumulated over the suffering of millions. There is no point fantasising over fundamental changes of heart. Any genuine liberalisation would spell doom for Kim and the North Korean elite.
What he now wants, and desperately needs, is more outside help to achieve his goals and he doesn't have to look far for a working model. Just across his northern border, the Chinese Communist Party has proved that it is possible to maintain the central elements of a ``people's republic" while enticing outsiders to pay a healthy slice of the bills.
What is required for Kim to replicate this feat is the skill to manipulate the fear, greed and weakness of the international community. Certainly he will have no trouble in instilling fear. There are still more than a million North Korean troops poised to strike against the South.
Pyongyang might have nuclear weapons. It certainly has substantial stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. No-one doubts that the North Korean military has enough missiles, rockets and artillery to deliver the weapons of mass destruction in its armouries.
While the country remained in the grip of a famine for much of the last decade, its military was modernised and earlier in the year conducted some of its biggest and most comprehensive exercises for years. And North Korea threatens the wider world with its missile sales, sponsorship of terrorism, drug trafficking and currency counterfeiting.
Through his diplomatic offensive, North Korea's Kim has also dealt his country back into the big power competition that will shape the future of North Asia. It wasn't so long ago that North Korea was a pariah. Now it is poised to play a key role in regional security as China, Russia and Japan jostle for influence in an uncertain post-Cold War world.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that opening up carries great risks for Kim. Like the Beijing authorities, Pyongyang's leadership will eventually be swept away by the changes they have unleashed. In the interim, however, a misguided international community too anxious to help could make North Korea stronger and a bigger threat to South Korea and regional peace.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald