The Two Parties and the KORUS FTA

Before starting, let me briefly inform you of basic knowledge about the Korean domestic political party setting. Korea has several parties, but the main parties are the Grand National Party (GNP) and Democratic Party (DP). The GNP is currently the ruling party and it can be regarded as a conservative party in terms of its political characteristic. On the other hands, DP is considered progressive. Interestingly enough, recently both parties have changed their party names. In December 2011, DP changed its name as Democratic United Party (DUP) with unification of Citizens Unity Party (시민통합당) and Federation of Korean Trade Unions (한국노동조합총연맹). Most recently, yesterday (February 2, 2012), GNP also changed its name, “Saenori (새누리)” or “New World” party. (It does not offer any official English name, so I referred to the BBC News article. See here) However, this change is quite different from the DUP’s because GNP’s name change was not a result of unification among several parties. This dynamic party composition in Korean domestic politics is critical to understand Korea’s political problem.

As a fact, the South Korean economy has the highest trade dependence rate among the G-20 countries. Considering the severe trade dependence (it is almost 100% in 2011. See here), the importance of trade in its economy cannot be stressed enough. And having China as a no. 1 trade partner, South Korea’s asymmetric trade dependence on China is getting bigger. S.C. Denney’s recent post, Unnatural Alliances and Northeast Asia’s Shifting Geopolitical Landscape, also points this out:

Korea is extraordinarily dependent on exports for economic growth. Most important to note is the fact that Korea is becoming exceedingly dependent on China’s market to feed this growth.

In fact, Korea’s both imports and exports to China is almost double those to the US (see also S.C. Danny’s table1 and table 2). With this fact in mind, it is natural for South Korea to pay close attention to its relationship with China if it is a rational state. If Korea ruined the trade relationship with China, it would bring huge negative effect on Korea’s economy. No state wants a sluggish economy. It is natural. In that regard, the KORUS FTA ratified by the National Assemble of South Korea on in November 2011 can be assessed as an irrational decision because it would harm Sino-Korea trade relationship, which would hinder Korea’s economic growth as a whole. Moreover, the ratification process was even more problematic because it was ratified in surprise vote. It was the first time in history. Let me introduce an excerpt from the Korean newspaper, JoongAng Daily:

The long-stalled Korea-U.S. free trade agreement was finally ratified by the National Assembly yesterday after the ruling Grand National Party blindsided liberal opposition lawmakers with a surprise floor vote in a chaotic session complete with a tear gas attack in the main chamber.”[…] “The Blue House yesterday welcomed the news. “It’s fortunate that the FTA is ratified, although the process was difficult,” said Choe Geum-nak, the Blue House senior public affairs secretary. “We thank the people for giving unconditional support for the FTA. We also thank the lawmakers who have worked hard for the ratification.”

Despite the ratification, the severe debate between the two parties (Grand National Party and Democratic United Party) is still going on. About a week ago, the newly elected Supreme Council of the main opposition Democratic United Party pledged to fully repeal the disputed Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. According to the Korean Herald on January 17, 2012, the new DUP leader, Han Myeong-sook, who was the nation’s first woman prime minister under the Roh Moo-hyun government, said after being elected party head on Sunday.

All council members agree that the KORUS FTA was lopsided and flawed. We shall abolish the entire pact and restart the talks from scratch.

As seen above, Korea’s two dominant parties appear to be at the end of the line. Considering that Korea will have two big elections this year (the general election in April and the presidential election in December), the current tension between the two parties is dangerous. Consequently, the future of the KORUS FTA is unclear in spite of the ratification.

Grand National Party’s Rationale

Since GNP is the ruling party (of course, now the name changed to “Saenori” or “New World” Party. But let me use the old name, “GNP”, because the FTA issues in this writing deal with the past), its rationale for the KORUS FTA takes the same course with the Lee Myung-bak government. The rationale includes two factors: economic and security.

In order to find official statements, I visited the official website for KORUS FTA. This website is run by the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trades. One thing interesting about this web page was that only Korean was available in the website. I guess it is because the web site was designed to provide information for its people. However, I believe other languages (at least English, because it is a website for the KORUS FTA) should be available too in order to avoid misunderstanding or misuse of information. Anyhow, this site provides the entire official documents and informs Korean people of the details and specific impacts of the KORUS FTA. (Visit here, http://www.fta.go.kr/korus/main/index.asp)

Throughout looking at this website, I discovered one more interesting thing: the information provided on the website is all about economy. On one section called 한미FTA기대효과 ( KORUS FTA expected effects), in particular, includes six sub-sections, and each introduces specific effects by providing easily understandable materials. Let me introduce some to you.

[Picture 1]
Source: KORUS FTA website
(Click here to see the full text)

[Picture 1] says that the KORUS FTA opens economic highway (경제고속도로가 열린다!), which means it will accelerate Korea’s economic growth. If you click the full version, you will see how interesting it looks because it is filled with cartoons.

[Picture 2]
Source: KORUS FTA website
(Click here to see the full text)

[Picture 2] also talks about the economic effect. It says that the KORUS FTA will be the first step for a strong trade state (통상강국). The full version includes a lot of graphs, charts and diagrams. It even provides FAQs regarding the major issues such as agriculture, ISD, jobs, medical welfare and etc.

[Picture 3]
Source: KORUS FTA website
(Click here to see the full text)

[Picture 3] emphasizes the impacts of KORUS FTA on our daily lives. The full text consists of two parts: Ⅰ. 한·미 FTA 최대 수혜자는 ‘소비자’(The main beneficiaries of the KORUS FTA is ‘consumers’) and Ⅱ. 한·미 FTA 시대, 중소기업 경쟁력 高고GO! (Small and medium-sized companies’ competitiveness goes up!)

As seen above, all three pictures and the full texts seem to be very interesting and easy to understand, but I wonder how many people actually see this documents or how many people are aware of the existence of this website itself. Regardless of it, this KORUS FTA website is running well at this moment by offering economic effects. Security-related effect was hard to be found. I found one from a general document called “한ᆞ미 FTA, 우리 미래를 위한 선택입니다 (KORUS FTA, it is a decision for our future).” Out of the whole 162 pages, only three sentences were about security. It was on page 4 briefly saying, we can expect KORUS FTA to improve US-Korea relationship by expanding the scopes of the US-ROK military alliance into economy. But that was it.

Then, the GNP’s rationale is mostly about the economy? Of course, not. Since Lee Myung-bak’s government and the GNP value the US-ROK alliance as a cornerstone of its foreign policy, the KORUS FTA means a lot more than the economic effect. Korea’s official website, Korea.net shows this clearly:

Overall, President Lee’s latest U.S. trip produced win-win results for both countries. The most meaningful outcome of the trip comes from the agreement between the two leaders to upgrade the 58-year-old Korea-U.S. alliance by increasing its scope. […] The two leaders also agreed to renew and upgrade the joint vision for the alliance between South Korea and the United States which they initially adopted at the Korea-U.S. summit in June 2009 so that the two countries can work together to resolve challenges facing the international community, such as climate change, the global economic crisis, and poverty.

However, it seems hard to find the connection between the KORUS FTA and the US-ROK alliance. Professor Chung-in Moon at Yonsei University commented in his class last semester that the FTA is one thing and the military alliance is another. That is, Lee Myung-bak’s government is trying to appeal to the people with using the wrong information. I agree with his point. I believe Lee Myung-bak’s administration and the GNP should ask for popular support by providing appropriate information and answering what people wonder about. The Koreans and the DUP were angry not about the ratification itself, but upset about the method that GNP and the government had used in the ratification process. If they had proper and enough evidence to support their argument, would they have to ratify in surprise?

There is not much room for maneuvering by incumbent President Lee Myung-bak’s government during its final year. It is too risky to make a major move. Instead, it is best to try to maintain the status quo and lessen the burden on the next administration. The candidates running in the December presidential election should, in fact, be prepared to take up the challenge. They must thoughtfully study and concoct a long-term security blueprint for the country.
Ching-in Moon on January 3, 2012 in JoongAng Daily

Fortunately, if not hopeless at all, Korea has one more chance: this year’s two elections. I hope Koreans vote for the policy and not for the party itself. Before that, I do hope Korean politicians to appeal with great policies, not by criticizing the opposition party. People don’t need no more childish politicking between the two parties. Lastly, I do expect the future leaders to be prepared to take up this important situation.

One rather peculiar thing I’ve noticed about the South Korean media is that whenever a big-time Korea-related story occurs there is a tendency to report the fact that major non-Korean media sources also reported on that story. When I started reading North Korean media, I quickly noticed the North Korean tendency to do the same. I’m not a media analyst, so I don’t know how prevalent this practice is in other countries, nor do I have any idea about why and when it started on the Korean Peninsula. Feedback in this regard is most welcome. Since the last major story on the Peninsula was the death of Kim Jong Il, we’ll look at how two major media outlets in both countries dealt with the the “foreign reaction.”

Just for fun, here are the front pages from the North’s Rodong Shinmun, the most important—but not the only— newspaper in the North along with one of South Korea’s leading dailies, the right-leaning Dong-A Ilbo.

The Rodong Shinmun’s headline on the day after Kim’s death (written from top to bottom on the left-hand side) reads: “The Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il Will Be Immortal”

The Dong-a Ilbo’s headline is a bit more cynical: “NK Handed Over to a 29-year-Old Kid.”

Here though are the articles of relevance. Starting with the Dong-A Ilbo:

Translated* as follows:

Headline: “America’s CNN and Others Interrupt Regular Broadcasting to Report Breaking News [of Kim’s death]”
Body: Major news outlets around the world unleashed a flood of analysis about the future of North Korea’s succession system and its regime dynamics after news broke on the 19th of the death of National Defense Chairman Kim Jong Il.
The American news network CNN interrupted regularly-scheduled programing to report on the breaking news. CNN described Chairman Kim as a “constant thorn in the side of the US and South Korea.” AFP described Kim as a “politically-seasoned and ruthless dictator who maintained his barbaric power despite famine and economic difficulties.”
The New York Times called Kim “a man who sent disloyal subjects to political prison camps while arming his country with nuclear weapons” and, [called Kim] “a Hollywood stereotype of a wacky post-Cold War dictator.” The Times added, “He was a man who held on to his final nuclear card even as [his country] drew close to famine and collapse.”
China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that South Korean military authorities were raising the military alert level and urgently reported on the South Korean military reaction. Besides these countries, media in Russia, France, South and Central

America, Vietnam, the Netherlands, and others around the world reported [this story] as top news with in-depth coverage, while Cuba’s state-run media, despite that country’s close relations with North, remained silent.

*In my haste, I did not track down the original quotations from the English-language media used in the article so what you read here may vary in terms of phraseology from what was actually written.

For contrast, here’s the North’s take:

And my translation:

Headline: ‘The Official Announcement of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il’s Death [which was entitled] ‘A Message to All Party Members, Personnel of the People’s Army, and the Masses’ Was Reported by News Agencies, Newspapers, and Broadcasters in All Countries’
Body: When the Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il died on the 19th, every nation’s news agencies, newspapers, and broadcasters reported on the announcement by the Korean Worker’s Party Central Committee, the Korean Worker’s Party Central Military Commission, the National Defense Committee of the DPRK, the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly, and the DPRK Cabinet, [which was entitled] “A Message to All Party members, Personnel of the People’s Army, and the Masses.”
China’s Xinhua New Agency reported on the Korean Worker’s Party Central Committee, the Korean Worker’s Party Central Military Commission, the National Defense Committee of the DPRK, the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly, and the DPRK Cabinet’s announcement “A Message to All Party members, Personnel of the People’s Army, and the Masses,” as follows:
While “ A message to all party members, personnel of the People’s Army, and the Masses” says that Leader Kim Jong Il unexpectedly died, this “is a great loss to the Korean Workers Party and the revolution, and the greatest sadness to the Korean people and nation.”
[Accoring to Xinhua,] the announcement demanded that under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, sadness will be transformed into power and bravery, that today’s crisis be conquered, that all party members, military officers, and the people will faithfully respect the leadership of respected Kim Jong Un, and for all party members, the military, and the people to firmly defend national unity. Leader Kim Jong Il was born on February 16th 1942. He was installed as general secretary of the Korean Workers Party in October 1997 and was reappointed to that position on September 9th 2010.
China’s “People’s Daily” also relayed the contents of “A Message to All Party members, Personnel of the People’s Army, and the Masses.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency; Cuba’s Prensa Latina news agency; Japan’s Kyodo news agency, Jiji news Agency, and newspapers “Mainichi Shimbun,” “Asahi Shimbun,” “Tokyo Shimbun,” “Nihon Keizei Shinbun,” and broadcaster NHK; France’s AFP news agency; Australia’s broadcaster ABC; America’s AP news agency, UPI news agency, broadcaster ABC, broadcaster CNN, broadcaster VOA, and newspapers “Washington Post,” “New York Times,” “USA Today,” “International Herald Tribune,” and “Baltimore Sun” all reported on the death of the Dear General.

It’s interesting to note (though not at all unexpected) that the South Korean version gives the most column inches to the American response, while the North Korean version spends the most time on China. The second most referenced media in the South is China, while in the North runner-up goes to America (South Korean media is not mentioned at all). The body of the South Korean article mentions nothing about Japanese reactions though the caption below the picture reads “People watch a daytime breaking news TV report on the death of Kim Jong Il at an electronics market in downtown Tokyo on the 19th.” The big factual discrepancy between the two articles is that the South Korean report mention the Cuban media’s silence, while the North Korean report says Cuban media did issue a statement.

Finally, the North Korean report gives us an interesting tidbit of “Kremlinology” to ponder: Notice the ranking of the party and state organs:

1) KWP Central Committee (Led by Vice Chairs Kim Jong Un and Ri Yong Ho)
2) KWP Central Military Commission (Led Vice Chairs Kim Jong Un and Ri Yong Ho)
3) National Defense Commission (Led by Vice Chairs Chang Song Taek, Kim Yong-chun, Ri Yong-mu, and O Kuk-ryol)
4) The Presidium of the SPA (Led by Kim Yong Nam)
5) The Cabinet (Led by Choe Yong Rim)

Party first, Military second, State third?

If you chose to go along with the group despite your preference, you have engaged in “preference falsification:” the act of concealing one’s private preference (i.e. the choice one would make if given the opportunity to vote by purely secret ballot) due to perceived social pressure. The operative word here is perceived; one need not be bullied or threatened directly to engage in preference falsification, but one need only hold the belief that the consequences of believing what you believe to be an unpopular preference will have negative social ramifications. In the example above, objecting to eating Thai food when everyone else is unanimous in their opinion might cause others to think you are difficult and argumentative, and if you start earning that kind of reputation, people might stop wanting to hang out with you; no one wants to be “That Guy” (or Girl).

Besides a night out on the town, we encounter preference falsification frequently in our lives. The norms of polite society dictate so. Every male instinctively knows what to say when his wife or girlfriend asks, “Do these jeans make my butt look fat?”—lest he venture to spend a lonely night on the living-room sofa. And when you’ve been invited over to your boss’s house for the evening, it’s probably better to compliment his wife’s interior design aesthetics, regardless of how tasteless the decor. However, preference falsification is not limited to the social realm; it also plays an important role in politics and economics, and it plays an especially important role in the theory of revolutions.

Just months before the 1989 Revolutions, in a startling moment of prescience, Timor Kuran, a Turkish economist at Duke, wondered why revolutions tend to take everyone by surprise, and in doing so he developed a brilliant mathematical model based on his idea of preference falsification. Mathematically-inclined readers can read the original paper here, but for everyone else, I’ll try my best to summarize the results intuitively. (See here as well.)

First, we assume that an individual is faced with two choices: support the government or support the opposition, and that he has a private preference such that his preference for the government or the opposition lies somewhere between 0 and 1 where values closer to 0 indicate greater preference for the government and values closet to 1 indicate stronger preference for the opposition. An individual has to make a preference declaration. Whether or not he reveals his private preference publicly depends on the sum of two “utilities.” The first is the utility gained from having a reputation for believing a certain preference. The second is the utility gained from integrity. An individual’s reputational utility is a function of the amount of popular support each position has: the more popular the position, the greater his utility. Returning to our Indian/Thai food example, since the rest of the group was unanimous in their support for Thai food, you would have a higher reputational utility by choosing Thai food, and lower reputational utility if you had chosen Indian food. The second component, integrity utility, is the difference between your private belief and your public belief. Think of this as how bad you feel for betraying your values. If your preference for Thai food was only slightly greater than your preference for Indian food, then the “cost” of going along with the group wouldn’t be as great if you were—say—a hardcore vegetarian.

Putting these two components together we learn two things: first, as expectations about the share of collective support increases from the government to the opposition, individuals are more likely to publicly side with the opposition (and vice versa), while at the same time, as an individual’s private preference increases from the government to the opposition, they are more likely to side with the opposition. The boundary at which all supporters of the government switch to the opposition is called the threshold function. The threshold function tells us the levels of expected support for which it is it is optimal for individuals of a certain private preference to support either the government or opposition. Note that we’re talking about expected shares of support: how much support individuals believes either position has, not how much support it actually has. The latter is denoted by the weighted average of private preferences, weighted by the relative importance of each individual. The graph below depicts this situation. The top axis shows the actual share of the opposition, the bottom axis is the expected share, and the side axis are private preferences. In this particular situation the expected share in favor of the opposition in 70%, meaning it’s optimal for individuals whose private preferences are greater than 0.5 to support the opposition, while the actual weighted share of of individuals whose private preference is greater than 0.5 is 20%. This system is in equilibrium.

Revolution, defined by Kuran, is “a sudden and massive shift in collective sentiment which induces a fundamental transformation of the social order occurs when one or both curves shifts.” The following graph shows just a such a change. Notice that the weighted average of private preferences curve has shifted. Perhaps economic conditions in the country have deteriorated drastically. There are three equilibrium: one at 0, one at 0.5, and one at 0.8. As long as the opposition’s expected share stays below 0.5, the equilibrium will move back to 0, and if it moves above 0.5, it will revise itself upwards to 0.8 (0.5 is an unstable equilibrium). In the latter case, revolution will ensue.

This is just one possible type of change. Kuran summarizes the possible types of change as follows:

First, a rise in the expected collective sentiment can precipitate a revolution if the stage for a revolution has already been set. Second, a leftward shift of the threshold function can set the stage for a revolution, and it can also precipitate one. And finally, an upward shift of the density of private preferences can help set the stage for a revolution, but it cannot precipitate one by itself.

Let’s put this back into the context of the Indian/Thai food analogy. First lets assume there is a sudden jump in expected share of support. As you’re walking to the restaurant, you overhear one group member talking on the phone about his love of Indian food. Would this lead to a “revolution”? Not necessarily. It depends on the structure of the reputational incentives given by the threshold function. If the Thai food restaurant were owned by the uncle of one of the group members and choosing not to go would hurt his feelings, then the group might still choose to eat Thai food. Next, suppose that the threshold function moves. On the way to the Thai food restaurant, you bump into the Indian chef who promises he can get you a good deal if you bring your party over. Suddenly, it becomes optimal for people with lower private preferences to support eating Indian food, thus precipitating the “revolution.” The group eats Indian food. Finally, consider a shift in the weighted average of private preferences curve. Perhaps one of the group members finds an article online touting the health benefits of eating Indian food. Like a shift in expectations, a “revolution” may be precipitated, but it might not occur, depending on reputational utility.

There are some important caveats to this argument, however. Kuran does not explain how people overcome the collective action problem associated with revolutions. From an economic point of view, revolutions are “public goods.” They are non-rival in the sense that one person’s “consumption” of the benefits of a revolution do not take away from another person’s “consumption” of those benefits, and revolutions are non-excludable because you cannot prevent me from enjoying the benefits even if I did not “pay” for them (in the form of protesting or opposing the regime). There is also another problem: the costs of personally participating in a revolution are quite high: death, injury, arrest, financial ruin, blacklisting, and so on, while the benefits of participating are extremely low: one extra person in the main square doesn’t make much difference overall. So the question is: even if I strongly support the opposition, what incentive do I have to go out on the streets? This seems especially true if I believe that opposition support is quite high and that the revolution is likely to succeed. I might as well stay home, take it easy, and let other risk their lives.

Now, let’s bring this back to North Korea. what can this theoretical framework tell us about the prospects for revolution? First, let’s revisit what B.R. Myers wrote in his New York Times Op-Ed:

Membership in the great family is also thought to provide greater access to the elders’ wisdom. This makes the time Kim Jong-un spent away in a Swiss school especially problematic, but the propaganda apparatus may be planning to ignore that part of his life altogether. (The latest reports suggest that he is now being credited with having written, at the age of 16, a treatise on his grandfather’s thought, presumably while in Pyongyang, the capital.) In any case, the notion that army generals or any other important faction would object to Kim Jong-un’s takeover was an improbable one to begin with; no North Korean could oppose the hereditary succession without being opposed to the state itself. Such an attitude is unlikely to be held by anyone in the ruling elite.

and also:

By Communist standards, the North Korean masses would have to judge both the government’s economic performance and the succession in the harshest possible terms. It is because they judge them by very different standards that Kim Jong-un was able to take over so effortlessly while promising to budge “not an inch” from his father’s line. We should therefore not make too much of the fraudulence of all that on-screen wailing. Just because North Korean TV never films anything before rehearsing all spontaneity out of it does not mean the average citizen was unmoved. By ultra-nationalist, militarist criteria, which have more to do with North Koreans’ perception of where the country stands in the world than material living conditions, the Dear Leader did a very good job indeed: the Korean Central News Agency may well be correct in saying he made the country virtually impregnable.

And finally here was Joshua Stanton’s critique of this point:

Brian Myers thinks that the succession of Kim Jong Eun does not presage instability in North Korea, because the people with the power and the guns are invested in his survival. As much as I respect Myers’s understanding of North Korea’s official pathology, I don’t see how he could possibly have enough information to know this. The premise is probably true, but it was just as true that a year ago, men who now make up the Free Syrian Army were invested in the survival of Bashar Assad. When the people rise against a system like this (or at least somewhat like this), as history suggests they usually do eventually, it’s always in defiance of most expert predictions. Repressive regimes are very good at concealing nascent discontent from foreign observers, and foreign observers who get access to repressive countries tend to be selected for how easily they can be fooled.

Stanton’s critique seems right on the money in a number of respects: he notes that repressive governments are “very good at concealing nascent discontent,” and as Kuran demonstrates, the people themselves are very good at concealing discontent as well. He’s correct to point to the example of Syria (and Libya, Egypt, etc.) as a state with seemingly rock-solid regime suddenly suddenly began to dissolve in the face of widespread discontent. All of this is consistent with Kuran’s model. But what about the other factors? What empirical evidence is there regarding private preferences? In a recent Korea Times piece, Andrei Lankov, basing his finding on interviews with defectors, concludes:

[H]aving interviewed well over a hundred North Korean refugees over the last two years, the present author would probably dare to try to answer the question.

People who succeed under the new, de facto market economy, tend to prefer the current system. They remember the regimented life under Kim Il-sung as a nightmare ― especially if they came from underprivileged groups, whose members had no chance of social advancement under the old system. Youngsters are positive about the changes, too. These people take the current situation for granted and don’t feel much in the way of nostalgia for the recent past.

However, the older generation largely hold a different view. They frequently say that they would prefer to live in the times of Kim Il-sung in the 1960s and ‘70s. They are willing to admit that those times were not without serious shortcomings. They are not fond of the political indoctrination sessions and mutual criticism meetings which in those times took a couple of hours on an average working day (separate from the normal working day, meaning a longer day at work).

Other research conducted on North Korean refugees has found a similar patterns. Though noting that attitudes toward the regime are becoming more negative, Haggard and Nolan found that 58% of North Korean in China left the country for economic reasons, while only 27% left for political reasons and 8% out of “fear.” That is, they weren’t leaving because they hated North Korean society, but because they lacked opportunity. All of this is consistent with assertions made by Myers, Cho Myeong-chul, and others.

One must also imagine that the reputational costs of dissent are quite high in North Korea as well. Anyone’s who has spent time in South Korea knows that Korean culture is a high preference-falsification culture. Much import is placed on creating a good group “feeling” (cheong/청/靑) and good “atmosphere” (bunwigi/분위기). The pressure to conform and follow the dictates of seniors is quite strong (though this hasn’t stopped South Koreans from engaging in multiple attempts at revolution and uprising, nor has it stopped South Koreans from developing a vibrant political protest culture). Similar social pressures exist in the North. There’s also the very real and very deadly costs of taking a stand against the regime that can’t be dismissed. In South Korea, rebelling against your boss might be socially harmful, but in the North it could land you and your family in jail.

There’s also the issue of the expected size of the opposition. How do North Koreans form judgments about this? In his 1989 article, Kuran notes the importance of revolutionary leaders in this regard. This was, of course, before the era of the Internet, social media, and Al-Jazeera. The recent Arab uprisings have demonstrated that revolutions no longer require Khomeinis, Vaclav Havels or Lech Walesas. Civil society and telecommunications can help fill this void. But in North Korea, where civil society is non-existent, informants and spies are lurking everywhere, and travel and communications are highly restricted, how would North Koreans know what events were transpiring on the other side of the country? To borrow the phrasing of that oft-quoted thought experiment: if a protest erupts in Chongjin and no one from Pyongyang is around, does it make a difference?

So on the face of it, it seems highly unlikely that North Koreans will be taking up arms against their government any time soon. But to conclude so would be to miss the entire point of Kuran’s body of work on revolutions. His goal is not to predict when revolutions will occur, but to demonstrate precisely why they are impossible to predict. Revolutions, as Kuran shows, are nonlinear systems. A tiny change in one variable can have a profound change on the overall system, while a major change can have limited effect. Due to preference falsification, societies like North Korea’s are imperfectly observable. This is all the more true given outsider restrictions on access to the country. So the best advice I have: don’t bother predicting North Korea’s demise. Oh, and enjoy the Thai food.

Cumings and the Military-Industrial Complex

- I recently finished reading Bruce Cumings latest book Dominion from Sea to Sea.  I’ve got it slated for review sometime in the next month.  One of the major themes put forward throughout Cumings’ book (there are many, perhaps too many) is the notion that American development (particularly western development) was — and continues to be — built on defense contracts.  American industrial policy (yes, one exists! or at least existed) was underwritten by the needs of the defense department.  Cumings attempts at painting an accurate picture of American history by suggesting the following grand narrative:  America is a nation built on war and expansion lead by a small number of political and industrial elites, especially since 1945 when American enter onto the world.  This view is reflected in Cumings use of C. Wright Mill’s conceptualization of the “power elite” of American society.  Cumings states:

Somewhat like President Eisenhower, C. Wright Mill took a look around in the 1950s and discerned something entirely new in American life:  a military-industrial complex.  More than that, a ‘power elite’ made most of the important decisions: a tripartite group of corporate leaders, executive branch administrators, and military brass had a virtual monopoly on key choices, industrial production, and the use of force.  They talked to each other, exchanged jobs, sat on the same corporate boards, played golf together, and occupied the top portion of a pyramid of power (which suspiciously resembled the Masonic symbol on the back of your dollar bill).  Just beneath the top were ‘the middle levels of power,’ which corresponded to the democratic and pluralist theories about how the country works that people imbibed from first grade through their PhD programs.  Below that was a ‘mass society’ filling two-thirds of the pyramid and containing most Americans, who were mostly clueless about elite practices.

In the aftermath of Wolf War II, American found itself on top.  Elites like George Kennan would provide the theoretical framework from which America would shape her internationalist agenda and interventionist foreign policy and through which the so-called military-industrial complex would flourish.  As it relates to Asia, Cumings looks out towards the peninsula and the “forgotten war:”

The Korean War was the crisis that built the American national security state and pushed through the money to pay for it, and with victory in the war to reestablish the South (containment) and defeat in the war to topple the North (regime change), this war transformed and stabilized Kennan’s doctrine.  It also finally got the Japanese and West German economies growing strongly.

Stated alternatively, the American military-industrial complex drove the world and opposed anything that restricted America’s desire for “maximum, unhindered American freedom in the world.”  This, in short, lead to America’s drive west, across the Pacific and into the Oriental theater.

The implications for policy makers of understanding America’s proclivity to war and the existence of a military industrial complex is touched upon in this Lexington Institute report by Loren B. Thompson entitled:  “Keeping America Competitive: The Military Needs To Limit Its Industrial Roles.”  The gist of the argument is summarized as follows:

During the Cold War, the U.S. military acquired a vast network of public-sector industrial facilities and private-sector suppliers. Over time, a division of labor emerged between the two segments of the defense industrial base: private companies would develop and manufacture combat systems, while public facilities would maintain and repair them. Although this arrangement required the government to fund two parallel industrial systems, it worked reasonably well as long as the U.S. economy generated the wealth necessary to support a vast “military-industrial complex.”

However, in recent years the U.S. economy has begun to falter and the federal government’s debt has risen rapidly. That has led to a widespread belief that the government needs to reassess how its activities impact economic performance. One facet of the debate is the relationship between military spending and the nation’s industrial base. While it is indisputable that Pentagon research has led to important technological breakthroughs such as computers, jet engines, lasers and the Internet, other facets of the military enterprise may be impeding economic competitiveness and progress.

- William Astore, in this recent article at the AsiaTimes Online, is decidely more critical of the military-industrial complex, as is revealed in these passages:

When it comes to weaponry, to paraphrase Seger, we’re still young and proud and makin’ Predators and Reapers (as in unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones) and Eagles and Fighting Falcons (as in F-15 and F-16 combat jets), and outfitting them with the deadliest of weapons. In this market niche, we’re still the envy of the world.

Yes, we’re the world’s foremost “merchants of death”, the title of a best-selling expose of the international arms trade published to acclaim in the US in 1934.

….

As a country, we seem to have a teenager’s fascination with military hardware, an addiction that’s driving us to bust our own national budgetary allowance. At the same time, we sell weapons the way teenage punks sell fireworks to younger kids: for profit and with little regard for how they might be used.

Sixty years ago, it was said that what’s good for General Motors is good for America. In 1955, as Seger sang, we were young and strong and makin’ Thunderbirds. But today we’re playing a new tune with new lyrics: what’s good for Lockheed Martin or Boeing or [insert major-defense-contractor-of-your-choice here] is good for America.

- Arthur Herman’s review of Cumings’ book at the WSJ provides a good summary.  His comments at the end, however, are not so insightful.  I won’t go into here, but think Fareed Zakaria’s book about  illiberal democracy and his section on how referendums contributed no small part to California’s current budget woes.

“Fingleton Dialogue”

- My term to describe the (what seems now stalled or blown-over) debate about the truth behind Japan’s so-called “Lost Decade” (see my post at my homepage for more on the first slavo of articles).

- Eamonn Fingleton’s latest piece criticizes the Wall Street Journal for inaccurately reporting on the state of Japan’s trade — thus adding to perception that Japan is much worse-off economic than she actually is.  I’ll have a summary of the articles (with commentary sometime in the future, along with a reading packet with all the readings synthesized, if I can get Instapaper to do it correctly).

Asia-Pacific/Security Architecture

- Geoff Wade, at the East Asia Forum, discusses the establishment of an “Offshore Asia” security zone to compliment the Northeast Asia security zone.

The Darwin deployment is only one part of a much larger regional strategy, placing US forces far enough from Chinese missiles to be comfortable, but still sufficiently near to maritime Southeast Asian allies to swiftly engage if necessary. The proposed stationing of the US Navy’s newest littoral combat ships in Singapore and the growing American naval and air force cooperation with Indonesia serve a similar function.

This episode is the beginning of a major addition to US-led East Asian security architecture, involving the creation of a Southeast sector to the ‘Offshore Asia’ security zone.

- Wade links to another East Asia Forum article by Donald Emmerson.  In this article, Emmerson indicates something I’ve written on myself:  changes in the geopolitical landscape caused by the emergence of a new China-centered economic architecture in the Asia Pacific.  America has, to according Emmerson, become a half-super power in Asia.  Here’s the reason:

But back in 2003 America took in more than three times the share of ASEAN’s exports absorbed by China — 19 per cent versus 6 per cent. Seen from Southeast Asia, that American advantage over China has since disappeared. From 2003 to 2008, China’s share of all Southeast Asian trade burgeoned at an astonishing average annual pace of 26 per cent.

China’s economic importance to its southern neighbours will only increase as Western economies retrench. Certainly, China will not escape collateral damage if the euro zone implodes and American budget deficits and national debts spiral unchecked. But China could still emerge from such extreme turbulence relatively better off than Europe or America, thus better equipped to cushion the shocks to Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asians are by no means giving up on the American market. But the tendency in Southeast Asia is to think of Beijing and Washington as playing specialised roles: China the economic partner who facilitates prosperity, America the security provider who guards the peace.

Or the provocateur of war.  What if the Chinese moved 2,500 Chinese marines to a base somewhere in South America?

Papers, Essays and Reviews (PEAR), the Yonsei University Graduate Journal of International Studies provides an opportunity for scholars of International Studies, especially graduate students, to publish their work.  We accept submissions on all topics related to the study of international relations.

We are currently seeking submissions for our forthcoming Spring/Summer 2012 issue.

For more information on submissions refer to the ‘Call for Papers’ information sheet [.pdf] or visit the ‘Submit’ section of our website.

For inquiries, contact me (the Editor in Chief) at pear@yonsei.ac.kr.

The deadline for papers is March 10.  The deadline for essays and reviews is April 15.

Just a few interesting stories from a few places that interest me…

North Korea

-B.R. Myers pens an editorial in the New York Times in which he explains why Kim Jong-un’s succession will proceed smoothly. Here’s the gist:

By Communist standards, the North Korean masses would have to judge both the government’s economic performance and the succession in the harshest possible terms. It is because they judge them by very different standards that Kim Jong-un was able to take over so effortlessly while promising to budge “not an inch” from his father’s line. We should therefore not make too much of the fraudulence of all that on-screen wailing. Just because North Korean TV never films anything before rehearsing all spontaneity out of it does not mean the average citizen was unmoved. By ultra-nationalist, militarist criteria, which have more to do with North Koreans’ perception of where the country stands in the world than material living conditions, the Dear Leader did a very good job indeed: the Korean Central News Agency may well be correct in saying he made the country virtually impregnable.

Yes, this article is a few weeks old. I am bringing it up now, however, because Joshua Stanton made the following noteworthy point in rebuttle:

As much as I respect Myers’s understanding of North Korea’s official pathology, I don’t see how he could possibly have enough information to know [that the people in power have an interest in seeing Kim Jong-un survive]. The premise is probably true, but it was just as true that a year ago, men who now make up the Free Syrian Army were invested in the survival of Bashar Assad. When the people rise against a system like this (or at least somewhat like this), as history suggests they usually do eventually, it’s always in defiance of most expert predictions. Repressive regimes are very good at concealing nascent discontent from foreign observers, and foreign observers who get access to repressive countries tend to be selected for how easily they can be fooled.

(Yes, I know, that’s also a few weeks old, but I just read it today)

-Michael Madden details Kim Jong-un’s latest on-the-spot guidance visit to Air Force Unit #378. Kim Jong-un, accompanied by his father, visited the unit in early December of last year. The 378th has been become part of the “Oh Chung Hup 7th Regiment,” named after one of the partisans who allegedly fought alongside Kim Il Sung against the Japanese. According to the DailyNK:

Being an ‘O Jung Hup 7th Regiment’ is among the highest military honors in North Korea. The country claims that O Jung Hup 7th Regiment was responsible for protecting Kim Il Sung with their lives during his anti-Japanese guerilla days. Hoping to make more members of the military want to be like the fabled regiment, North Korea began touting the ‘O Jung Hup 7th Regiment title movement’ during the 1990s, with those in contention for the decoration first having to undergo an evaluation of their political loyalty.

-Chosun Exchange offers some commentary on a North Korean comic book entitled “The Secret of Frequency A”.

China

-The China Media Project looks at the legacy of Wukan. The Wukan protests erupted in December of last year over government land grabs and the mysterious death of a local party official. For a few days, protestors wrested control of the town, drove out the CCP and the local police, and eventually forced provincial and central government authorities to bow to their demands.

Myanmar

-Mizzima reports that thousands turned out in Dawei as Aung Sung Suu Kyi kicked off her campaign for parliament and announced her intention to revise the 2008 military-drafted constitution. For photos, see here.

Kyrgyzstan

-24.kg reports on protests and road closures in Bishkek over blackouts. Inflation is also on the rise in Kyrgyzstan (see here).

-24.kg also noted how the murder of an ethnic Kyrgyz by an ethnic Tajik in the village of Aidarken led to inter-ethnic tension that was defused only after the suspect’s family fled the village.

Kazakhstan

-EurasiaNet reports on the arrest of opposition OSDP party leaders Bolat Abilov and Amirzhan Kosanov following a two-hour, 500-person rally in Almaty yesterday. The rally was called in protest of the January 15th parliamentary elections and to “pray[] for those who died in Zhanaozen.” Both Abilov and Kosanov were given 18-day sentences.

-Eurasia Daily Monitor also has a rundown on the post-election crackdown.

Saudi Arabia

-Brian M. Downing looks at the possible ramifications for Saudi Arabia in the event of a war with Iran.

Azerbaijan

-RFE/FL reports that the Azerbaijani government has broken up an alleged plot by Iranian-backed Azerbaijani citizens to kill the Israeli ambassador to Baku. Azerbaijan is one of the few [only?] Muslim countries that maintains close diplomatic relations with
Israel.

Armenia

-EurasiaNet looks at growing Armenian-Iranian cooperation, including the construction of a gas pipeline between Tabriz (Iran) and Yeraskh (Armenia), in the face of Western sanctions against Iran. The article notes that some believe the West may be willing to turn a blind eye to the pipeline project as it would help to make Armenia less dependent on Russian pipelines.

-RFE/RL discusses recent parliamentary attempts by opposition parties to introduce electoral reforms that would make parliamentary elections subject to a party-list only vote, instead of the mixed-system currently in place. The article says that the opposition held a press conference attended by “virtually all of the country’s major political forces.” President Serzh Sarkisian and his ruling HHK party have vowed to block the bill.

North Caucasus

-Eurasia Daily Monitor reports on the latest insurgent attacks in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. Russia security forces apparently killed the “military emir” of the Caucasus Emirate (a terrorist group based out of Chechnya led by Dokka Umar that whishes to see the creation of a united Islamic state in the North Caucasus).

Egypt

AhramOnline reports on clashes yesterday between activists and “unidentified assailants” in Maspero, Cairo. (See also here).

Libya

-The Economist discusses the growing discontent in post-Gaddafi Libya over the slow pace of reforms. In the intervening months, deadly clashes have erupted between rival militias who refuse to accede to central government control, NTC Deputy Chief Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga resigned following a protest in Benghazi, reports have emerged about the torture and extra-judicial confinement of former pro-Gaddafi fighters, and last week, a pro-Gaddafi militia managed to seize all or part of the major town of Bani Walid before surrendering. Such discontent is natural and to be expected following a revolution, especially because politicians tend to look political solutions when more often than not, the underlying drivers of the revolution were economic in nature. Nevertheless, it’s clear that the NTC is having serious problems consolidating their control over the country.

Random

-Gene Expression asks: “Are social conservatives really less intelligent?”

According to the first story, early on the morning of the 18th of January, defector groups smuggled several thousand anti-Kim Jong-un leaflets into Chongjin and managed to disperse them throughout downtown Chongjin. (See here, in Korean).

The second story comes via the DailyNK. According to their source, four cadres including a National Security Agency officer, a prosecutor, and two officers from the People’s Safety Agency, were murdered. Allegedly, near the NSA official’s body was a note which read, “Punished in the name of the people” (인민의 이름으로 처단한다).

Taken against the backdrop of an increasing amount of refugees streaming across the border to China since the end of the mourning period (in Korean), a complete ban on cell phone usage in the border region for the next 100 days (in Korean) and a recent Rodong Shinmun editorial calling for “unity”, it would seem, on the surface at least, that something might just be afoot.

Or is it? A safer conclusion, if one takes all of the above stories at face value, is that the succession process is hitting a few bumps in the road. This would not be surprising, given that Kim Jong-il faced a period of quiet resistance during his first few years in office. But in order to draw that conclusion, one would have to assume that the sources used for the articles above are all correct, and doing that is something of a leap of faith.

Media outlets such as the DailyNK, Radio Free Chosun, RFA, and mainstream news outlets that rely on unnamed “sources” (소식통) in North Korea and along the Sino-Korean border that publish stories on the internal doings of the North must always be taken with a large grain of salt. The reason is that their reports simply cannot be corroborated, and are impossible to verify after the fact. Of course this is only natural and unavoidable when working in an environment with an all-pervasive security apparatus, and one in which speaking to foreigners without permission is tantamount to treason. Relying on the testimony of individual defectors is also unwise. Defectors naturally have an overly-negative view of the country; after all they did leave behind their families, friends, coworkers, and country. Their lives were so bad that they willingly left behind the “known” for a potentially very dangerous “unknown.” (Note that this should not be taken in any way shape or form as “knock” against defectors or NK-related media outlets).

But this does not mean that all hope is lost. Individual data points are not to be trusted, but the sum-totality of data points can help point us in the right direction. This process is called “consilience.” In the words of English philosopher William Whewell, “The Consilience of Inductions takes place when an induction, obtained from one class of facts, coincides with an Induction obtained from another different class,” or in less esoteric language, consilience occurs when multiple, independent strands of evidence point to the same conclusion. The classic example here is the link between smoking and cancer. When studies began emerging that showed a link between smoking and lung cancer, the tobacco companies were correct to point out that correlation is not causation and that other factors may be to blame for the link. But independent evidence began to mount: smoking unfiltered instead of filtered cigarettes increased the risk of getting cancer, quitting smoking was shown to decrease the risk, long-term smokers were more likely to develop cancer than short-term smokers, and so on. Taken together, these strands of evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that smoking was not merely correlated with cancer, but was actually a major causative factor.

Returning to North Korea: individual defector testimony may not tell us much about North Korean society, but when multiple defectors from different regions, leaving at different times are painting the same broad picture, we can be pretty confident in the veracity of our understanding of domestic conditions. The same is true with undercover reporting. When multiple individuals working with different media sources start reporting on growing disgruntlement and unrest (or any other story), and this reporting is corroborated (directly or indirectly) by NGOs and Chinese businessmen who deal frequently with the North, we can be relatively certain in our conclusions.

All of this is not to say that the events in Chongjin are indicators of potential unrest or succession issues. They may not have even happened, for all we know. But they provide a few tentative data points from which we may start to build up a constellation of facts to draw conclusions. But it should be remembered that unrest and disgruntlement do not necessarily herald the end of North Korea. As Dr. Cho Myeong-chul, a former professor at Kim Il Sung University told the the US Embassy in Seoul:

Cho dismissed the idea that increased hardship alone could make the DPRK’s working class revolt against the regime. The public would continue to sympathize with the
plight of the government so long as it believed the state was making a bona fide effort to provide for the people. Cho recalled from his days living in North Korea that local officials would visibly scramble to procure emergency food supplies for their districts in times of shortage. No
average North Korean would think that the state intentionally deprived the population of food under such circumstances. Rather, most would have been touched that the government worked so hard to provide for the people. Reports by outside visitors — and even North Korean refugees in the ROK — failed to take this factor into account, Cho argued.

North Korea

—Andrei Lankov profiles Colonel General Terenti Shytkov, NK’s first leader. Shytkov was the de facto leader of the North from 1945-46 and was responsible for the post-liberation land reforms. He stayed on as a power-behind-the-scenes in his capacity as Soviet ambassador until the outbreak of the Korean War.

—Stephen Haggard posts his in-depth analysis of this year’s annual joint editorial (신년공동사설). The editorial basically functions as Pyongyang’s version of the State of the Union Address in the US.

—Andray Abrahamian speculates about why Ri Chol, head of the North’s Joint Venture Investment Committee, left his post earlier this year.

—The DailyNK reports on the murders of four bureaucrats in Cheongjin, North Hamgyong Province. The source notes that the alleged murders were carried out as acts of rebellion against the government. No other source or media outlet has corroborated the story as of this writing.

Egypt

—Ikhwanweb has a profile of Egypt’s new Speaker of Parliment, Dr. Mohamed Katatni.

—The Arabist gives his take on the Egyptian Revolution, one year later.

Myanmar

—The Washington Post sits down with Myanmar’s president Thein Sein to chat about reform.

—Reuters explains why US sanctions on Myanmar have yet to be lifted, despite the enormous progress of reforms over the past year.

Kazakhstan

—Eurasianet looks at the Kazakh government’s lukewarm efforts to prosecute police responsible for firing on protesting oil workers in Zhanaozen.

—Eurasianet also wonders why amateur cell phone footage caught American Humvees in Zhanaozen on the day of the shootings. The Humvees were originally sold to Astana to help with the formation of a peacekeeping brigade.

Iran

—Barbara Slavin explains why the EU’s oil embargo on Iran is designed to avert war.

—Iran Primer analyzes the potential impact of EU sanctions on Iran.

North Caucasus

—The Jamestown Foundation runs down the latest spate of insurgent attacks in Dagestan.

Random

—The New Yorker profiles the oil industry in North Dakota.

Over the holidays, China’s CCTV13 broadcast an interview with the face of North Korea, Ri Chun-hee (리춘희/李春姬). Ri, KCTV’s long-time nightly news anchor, is best known for her over-the-top, emotional delivery and the tears she shed on air when announcing the deaths of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Prior to Kim’s death last year, she hadn’t been seen in public for some time, leading Pyongyang watchers to wonder if she had been purged or had fallen out of favor. But as Ri herself explains, she merely had been training new talent the whole time. Below you’ll find the report (which includes some behind-the-scenes footage of the KCTV studio) and my translation of that interview. Apologies in advance for not being tech-savvy enough to overlay subtitles on a YouTube clip.

(Tip o’ the old hat to North Korea Tech)

CCTV Anchor: Up next we take you to meet an old friend from our line of work. She appears frequently on North Korean news broadcasts and wields a profound influence.

Reporter: Just beyond this door, we finally get to meet North Korea’s most famous news anchor, Ri Chun-hee. Hello, Mrs. Ri.

Ri Chun-hee: Hi, I’m thrilled to be able to meet a reporter from CCTV during the Lunar New Year.
　
Reporter: I’m also very happy. I have always wanted to meet you.

Ri Chun-hee: Is that so? Thank you.

Narrator: Ri Chun-hee believes that each broadcast should be special and that the audience should be able to notice the differences at a glance. The tone of the broadcast (播音方式) should match the content. Some stories should be read full of militancy (战斗性), while others should not.

Ri Chun-hee: (Take, for example,) when I say “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” If I just shouted that, there would be no feeling, and no purpose. It was like that in the past, but now our target is the audience and to reach them we have to present like we are conversing. We speak softly.

Narrator: When she heard this report would be broadcast during the Lunar New Year, Chun-hee recorded a special, impromptu, warm message for us.

Ri Chun-hee: Ladies and gentlemen, today is Lunar New Year, a traditional holiday celebrated by people in both Korea and China. KCTV will now begin broadcasting.

Narrator: The elderly Chun-hee seems friendly and delighted behind the anchor desk. Recently, though, she has slowly moved from behind the desk to backstage to train new people. With the exception of important broadcasts, she rarely appears in public so that younger people may have more opportunities.

Ri Chun-hee: These days, I don’t spend much time as an anchor. My younger colleagues look quite beautiful and are very young. On the screen, you need beautiful people.

Narrator: Lunar New Year is a holiday shared by both Chinese and Koreans. Chun-hee is very happy to face our camera lens and send a Lunar New Year message to the Chinese people.

Reporter: From Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, we wish everyone in China…

Together: A happy new year!

Ri Chun-hee: Thank you.