[Column] North Korea’s internal changes through external observation

The city of Hyesan, Yanggang Province, along the upper Yalu (Amnok) River as viewed from the Chinese border

Last week, I returned from a survey of the border region between North Korea and China. I’ve experienced some issues in the past with the perennially poor road situation and the control measures by Chinese border guards, but it’s an event I have taken part in almost every year, apart from my period as a government official from the mid-1990s. It’s a journey I started making to slake a thirst for knowledge about the North Korean economic situation that the literature and defector accounts alone could not provide.

But even when I arrived at the border regions closest to North Korea, all I could really do was look at the landscapes; there was no way of knowing what was actually going on internally. Instead of losing heart, I kept making the surveys, tracking the changes in a time-series analysis of the North Korean economy’s true face. It was the only way I could identify the North’s internal changes through external observation.

I spent 20 years observing like this, with so little change happening to the region’s underdeveloped conditions that it was rare to see a single new home being built in one North Korea’s border cities or villages.

Everything changed when the Kim Jong-un era arrived. In 2014, signs of transformation began appearing all around the border region; by 2015, the phenomena had become even more pronounced. New construction and rebuilding of shared housing and public institutions were taking place all around. The number of transportation vehicles increased, and reforestation efforts began on hills left ragged by paddy farming. I could see all sorts of efforts testifying to North Korea’s economic growth.

I skipped the survey last year due to the situation with the ultra-tough sanctions imposed on North Korea following its sixth nuclear test. This year, I felt more curious than ever before as I embarked on my border investigation. How much of the life had these historically intense pressure tactics and sanctions sapped from this long-awaited recovery in North Korea’s border regions? At the time, the Bank of Korea had announced a 3.5 percent decline in North Korea’s real GDP growth rate for 2017.

Surprising activity in spite of sanctions

The result came as a surprise and a shock. If anything, construction activities all around North Korea were taking place more vigorously than two years earlier. Hyesan, a city in Yanggang Province on the upper course of the Yalu (Amnok) River, had broken out of decades of recession, with huge apartment construction efforts under way. A train station and customs office building had just been rebuilt. Trucks and taxis traveled around constantly carrying minerals and loads of freight. On the railway line between Manpo and Hyesan, I could see trains filled with cargo for the first time in ages.

Factories were running more frequently, the house gardens had noticeably shrunk, and the reforestation areas had grown significantly. For the first time in 23 years of surveys, I saw cement dikes going up to protect farmland on the Yalu’s middle and upper stretches.

During my visit, I saw a more vigorous North Korean economy than ever before. The “toughest-ever” pressure and sanctions did not appear to be working. And this economic vitality did not appear all too heavily connected with the economic cooperation currently under way between North Korea and China.

There was indeed more North Korea tourism in China, but in the trade industry people were still complaining of the effects of sanctions, and there was no sign of North Korean seafood even in the North Korean restaurants. This suggested there haven’t been any real problems in terms of the sanctions front.

Possible developments in North Korea’s economic independence

The inevitable conclusion was that the energy in North Korea’s economy was coming through its own independent development momentum. We may not have any way of knowing all the reasons, but the chief import items of North Korea from China under the Kim Jong-un era have shifted from mineral oil and grains to things like electrical equipment, machines, and automobiles and automobile parts – with the result that North Korea certainly seemed to be establishing a base for expansive reproduction economically. I had the sense that the Bank of Korea’s GDP figures for North Korea might have overlooked some of the economic elements influencing its economic vitality.

What are the implications for us from this gap between the “ultra-tough” sanctions and the vitality of the North Korean economy? More than anything, they are evidence that the sanctions are not driving the North Korean economy into an extreme situation – which in turns signals the need for a change in the approach to sanctions. Keeping these sanctions in place to achieve denuclearization would obviously be an effective approach if the “maximum pressure and sanctions” were leaving North Korea in a critical state, forcing Kim Jong-un into announcing his willingness to denuclearize.

The fact that North Koreans are not missing out on their three meals a day in spite of the sanctions signifies that Kim’s announcement of his commitment to denuclearization was not meant to escape immediate economic woes.

Lee Jong-seok, former Unification Minister

The reason Kim has agreed to denuclearize is not to escape North Korea’s present hunger, but to help usher North Korea to economic prosperity by having the sanctions lifted and setting up a springboard for rapid economic growth. The US’s bureaucratic group seems to be overlooking this. Under the circumstances, the framework that they prefer – denuclearization based on North Korea’s abandonment of nuclear capabilities as a first step – is not a viable option.

The only path lies in give and take. A more effective approach now may be to proactively present Kim with a vision for the sanctions’ removal and tie that to denuclearization.

By Lee Jong-seok, former Minister of Unification and senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute

Please direct comments or questions to [[e-mail]]