EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 8

저자

Woo Seongji is currently an Associate Professor at the College of International Studies, Kyung Hee University. Before joining Kyung Hee, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) from March 2003 to February 2005. Dr. Woo received his Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington. His English articles include “The Park Chung-hee Administration amid Inter-Korean Reconciliation in the Détente Period: Changes in the Threat Perception, Regime Characteristics, and the Distribution of Power” (Summer 2009, Korea Journal), “Triangle Research and Understanding Northeast Asian Politics” (Summer 2003, Asian Perspective), “South Korea’s Search for a Unification Strategy” (Summer 2003, Orbis), and “Adversarial Engagement and Alliance Relations: Triangular Politics on the Korean Peninsula, 1988-94” (March 2001, Issues & Studies). His research interests include North Korean Politics, Inter-Korean Relations and International Relations Theory.

The division of the Korean nation into two separate political entities that came about with the defeat of Japanese imperialism continues after more than sixty years since it began. South Korea, or the Republic of Korea (ROK), has aligned with the United States and vi-gorously pursued a strategy of export-oriented development, which has resulted in re-markable economic growth and, in turn, laid the seeds for gradual democratization. South Korea is currently seeking to enter the rank of advanced-nation status.

Meanwhile, North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has allied with two continental powers, China and Russia, and has endeavored to build an au-tonomous planned economy with as little intervention from the outside as possible. Pyongyang’s self-imposed isolation under the slogan of Juche (self-reliance) has brought about economic stagnation and persistent backwardness. In the era of globalization and interdependence, the Kim Jong Il regime is making little effort to remedy its malfunctioning economic system and, rather, is focusing on protecting its regime security through the development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It will be difficult for the DPRK to escape its fragility and isolation so long as it sticks to its Military-First Politics and Mili-tary-First Economy.

In the early twenty-first century, the world is facing formidable challenges in the fields of human rights, environmental protection, climate change, the North-South divide, and so on. As a key member of the G20 Summit, South Korea is playing an active role in fighting and finding solutions to these problems. Seoul is beginning to transform itself from a rule-taker to a rule-setter as it has assumed a role as a link between the advanced states and the developing states on the global stage. It is making a positive wave to the creation of a new global economic order.

With the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, states are competing in a race for peace and prosperity. North Korea, however, is one of the few exceptions in this race. It is doubtful whether North Korea will be able to achieve the goals of democracy, opening, and growth along with South Korea if it continues with the grand strategy of Military First and nuclear armament. Yet it is urgent that North Korea struggle hard to escape from its stagnant identity as a “fortress state” and transform itself into a state that can capture the merits of both sea powers and land powers and become a truly “amphibious” power.

North Korea under Kim Jong Il has shown some hints of change as it sought reconcil-iation with South Korea and dialogue with the United States and Japan with the goal of eventual diplomatic normalization, and it practiced partial reform measures in the early 2000s. Yet these efforts have fallen short of satisfactory political, economic, social, and diplomatic change. The basic problem lies in the calculation of the current leadership, which views reform and opening as detrimental to the core interests of Pyongyang’s ruling circle. As long as North Korea sticks to its inefficient planned economy and strengthens its authoritarian rule over the people, it will not be able to reach the paths to either democracy or prosperity.

What would be necessary for North Korea to escape its isolation and backwardness and join the ranks of advanced states? Advancement can be defined in two ways: one as a process and the other as a final destination. As a process, the term refers to efforts to adopt and implement global standards; as a final goal, advancement means a situation where the actor itself becomes a creator of global standards. Therefore, North Korea’s advancement can be summarized as the sum total of Pyongyang’s proactive efforts to narrow the gap with extant global standards and/or to create its own path-breaking standards.

My purpose here is not to predict a most likely scenario for North Korea’s future under today’s conditions but to design a gradual roadmap for North Korea’s transformation on the assumption that its development into an advanced state is a necessity. This essay is thus a policy proposal to the current and future ruling elites of North Korea for changes that include a series of incremental steps toward advancement. Once the ruling circle in Pyongyang comes to the conclusion that Military First is no longer sustainable and the normalization of state governance is necessary, what is a possible roadmap for that trans-formation? What steps and programs are necessary for Pyongyang to enter the ranks of advanced states? How can it prevent a tragic collapse of the state in the form of either an implosion or an explosion? Instead of a revolution or a state breakdown, I suggest a less painful and less dramatic, incremental reform process composed of three stages: a first stage (the short term), a second stage (the medium term), and a third stage (the long term).

The first stage belongs to the period of decay: the regime’s internal and external con-tradictions deepen as the policies of Military-First Politics persist. The Military-First re-gime will be unable to find an exit for development and democracy. The second stage will be a transitional period when a new leadership emerges with the aim to get rid of Military-First governance. In this period, North Korea will opt for a partial reform and opening. In the third and final stage, North Korea’s unique Suryong (leader) system of governance will finally come to an end, and a tantalizing balance between the conservatives and the liberals, which characterizes stage 2, will be resolved by the victory of the latter. North Korea will enter a stage of fundamental transformation, following a motto of “wealth first” and “the people first.”

The Evolution of North Korean as a Fortress State

The Fortress State

A state can assume the benign characteristics of a provider or a protector, or it can take the villainous role of a predator exploiting its own people. How should we characterize the nature of North Korea as it now stands? The notion of a fragile or failed state is helpful in characterizing, or making sense of, the North.

Fragile states are those that are incapable of performing their necessary functions, and under these states people’s lives are heavily constrained. More specifically, such states do not (1) protect their people from violence, (2) provide the public goods that satisfy the basic needs of their people, or (3) possess a representative and unified government within a given territory (Lee J. 2008). Similarly, a failed state refers to a situation where the basic requirements for the provision of welfare, defense of national boundaries, and representa-tion of the people are not met. Collapsed states and fragmented states are extreme cases (Chesterman, Ignatieff, and Thakur 2005; Vinci 2008).

North Korea can be categorized as both a failing state, if not a failed one, and a fragile state. North Korea’s governance is not successful in that it fails to deliver goods and service that are basic to its people’s lives. However, North Korea stands apart from other fragile states in that it is at once fragile but also able to sustain its monopoly of power and is seen as threatening by its neighbors. The duality of economic frailty and military resilience gives North Korea a special status...(Continued)