Korea, North

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, occupies the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, which juts out between the Yellow Sea (also known as the Korea Bay) and the Sea of Japan. To the north, the DPRK shares a 1,416-kilometer (880-mile) border—along the Yalu and Tumen Rivers—with the People's Republic of China, and a very short 19-kilometer (12-mile) border with Russia. North Korea's most conspicuous neighbor, however, is South Korea, which sits across a 238-kilometer (148-mile) border running from east to west. The border between North and South Korea, it is important to note, is no ordinary one. Known as the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, it is one of the most intensely guarded and heavily militarized borders in the world. Almost no human activity and development exists within the 4-kilometer- (2.5-mile-) wide zone, but nearly 2 million military personnel and a vast array of weaponry are positioned on both sides of it. The DMZ symbolizes the long-standing hostility and distrust between the two Koreas, which engaged in a brutal and highly destructive conflict (the Korean War) from 1950 to 1953.

North Korea's total area is 120,540 square kilometers (46,538 square miles), which is a little larger than Cuba and slightly smaller than Greece. The country has an estimated population of about 22.4 million, which is less than half of its rival to the south. Population density in North Korea is a moderately high 184 persons per square kilometer, which ranks fifty-seventh among the world's 236 countries and dependencies. However, because of its mountainous topography (about 80 percent of North Korea's land area is composed of mountains and uplands), the population density is slightly understated. Pyongyang is North Korea's capital and, with a population estimated at 3.08 million at the end of 2003, it is the country's largest city (for many years, Pyongyang's population was below 2.5 million, but it suddenly surged by 500,000 in the later half of 2002).

North Korea is an ethnically and linguistically homogenous society. Only a few Chinese and a handful of Japanese live in North Korea, some of whom were forcibly abducted by North Korean agents in the late 1970s and early 1980s. For most of its short history, emigration and immigration were virtually non-existent, although in the past few years North Korea's borders have become increasingly porous, especially along the Yalu River, which separates North Korea from China.

brief political history

Although Korea has a long and complex history, including thirty-five years of far-reaching occupation by Japanese colonial authorities from 1910 to 1945, North Korea's formal existence dates back only to 1948, when, after three years of provisional governance under "People's Committees" (which were also set up in South Korea but outlawed by the U.S. occupation authorities) and relatively light-handed guidance on the part of Soviet occupation authorities, an indigenous communist regime was established. The new regime was led by Kim Il Sung (1912–1994), who used his background as a leader of the only "independent" anti-Japanese movement (i.e., a movement not dependent on outside assistance) and his immense political skills to gradually build an unchallengeable power base after the division of the country in 1945.

The DPRK was formally established on September 9, 1948. Kim Il Sung was named premier, and, after a constitutional change in 1972, became president, a position he held until his death in 1994. During his time in power, Kim Il Sung oversaw an immense amount of change in North Korea, much of which has turned out to have profoundly negative consequences. In particular, Kim attempted to construct a "self-reliant" communist system with uniquely Korean characteristics. This effort is epitomized in the concept of juche, which, according to the DPRK Constitution, is "a revolutionary ideology with a people-centered view of the world that aims to realize the independence of the masses, the guiding principle of its actions" (Handbook 1996, p. 11).

Unfortunately, the policies of self-reliance, much of which involved the adoption of independent economic and military strategies, had largely the opposite result; namely, North Korea became increasingly dependent on the outside world, and particularly on other communist countries, for vital resources (especially fuel), foodstuffs, and capital goods. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 unequivocally exposed the weaknesses of the juche system, but, significantly, it did not immediately destabilize the North Korean political system. Indeed, since 1989 and despite chronic shortages of fuel and electricity, long-term economic stagnation, and, most important, periodic bouts of famine, the regime has remained firmly in control. This is partly due to the DPRK's disproportionately large military and security apparatus, which has been thoroughly integrated in North Korean society, but also partly due to ideological indoctrination and insular policies that have isolated the North Korean people from the rest of the world.

Following Kim Il Sung's death, which was due to natural causes, Kim's son, Kim Jong Il (b. 1942) took power. The younger Kim was named General Secretary of the Korean Workers' Party (KWP) in October 1997; a year later, he was reconfirmed as chairman of the National Defense Commission, the highest office of state in North Korea. The accession of Kim Jong Il was no accident. The elder Kim, according to most observers, began preparing his son to succeed him as early as 1971. Over two decades, the younger Kim was given positions of increasing importance and authority, culminating with his designation as supreme commander of the Korean People's Army in December 1991. When Kim Jong Il finally assumed formal control of North Korea, it marked the first dynastic succession ever in a communist regime. It should be noted, however, that Kim Jong Il's accession was not a foregone conclusion. In fact, it took three years after his father's death until he assumed complete control.

With only one major leadership transition in its first fifty years of existence, North Korea's political system is tightly controlled. Indeed, North Korea in practice has been a totalitarian dictatorship. Accordingly, political, social, and economic power in North Korea is highly centralized, although due to the extremely opaque nature of the North Korean regime, it is difficult to say exactly how power and authority is distributed and exercised. What is clear, however, is that the military and the KWP have been the two key political institutions in North Korea since the country's inception.

In the early years, the KWP played an instrumental and more autonomous role in North Korean politics as various leaders, including Kim Il Sung, vied for control of the party apparatus. By 1960, Kim had succeeded in purging all his rivals, and thereafter he was able to completely dominate the KWP. Since then, the KWP has served as the primary vehicle of policy making in North Korea. It operates through the national party congress, which is the supreme party organ. The party congress approves reports of the party organs, adopts basic party policies and tactics, and elects members to the KWP Central Committee and the Central Auditing Committee. Although North Korea also has a formal governmental structure—with a prime minister, a cabinet called the Central People's Committee, and a parliament (the Supreme People's Assembly)—most observers agree that none of the officials besides Kim Jong Il has real power. To a certain extent, the same can be said of the KWP, whose core membership has been handpicked by Kim Jong Il and a few loyal lieutenants.

The sheer size of North Korea's military—the fourth largest standing army in the world with an estimated 1.2 million soldiers—makes it a pivotal political and institutional force. Even more important, the North Korean army has, from the country's inception, been tightly integrated into the North Korean political system. It served as the essential base of power for Kim Il Sung and was a cornerstone of Kim's concept of juche, which was based as much on military self-reliance as economic self-reliance.

Since Kim Jong Il assumed power, moreover, the military has become even more entrenched. This is reflected in the status of the National Defense Commission, which not only exercises direct control over North Korea's armed forces, but is also, in practice, the highest state body in the country. As chairman of the National Defense Committee, therefore, Kim Jong Il became vested with supreme executive power. In this regard, it is worth noting that, unlike many other military-dominated dictatorships, the autonomy of the North Korean army has, for the most part, been held in check. In fact, there has never been a successful military coup in North Korea, although a planned coup was uncovered and derailed by secret police in 1995.

socioeconomic conditions

North Korea's isolation and extreme secretiveness make it difficult to assess accurately its level of socioeconomic development. The economy has fared very poorly, both in relative and absolute terms, since the early 1970s. Of course, many developing countries experienced economic difficulties during the 1970s, when oil prices rose sharply, but North Korea had not yet recovered by the beginning of the twenty-first century.

North Korea's economy was not always so depressed, however. After the Korean War (1950–1953) North Korea embarked on an ambitious reconstruction plan, which resulted in relatively rapid economic growth and the development of a heavy industrial and agricultural base. Much of this growth, however, was based on the ability of the regime to quickly and effectively marshal hitherto underutilized resources (especially labor and land) in a process scholars call "extensive economic growth." By the 1960s, North Korea, like many of its centrally planned counterparts, had largely exhausted this process, and economic growth slowed significantly. Still, the economy appeared robust, especially compared to South Korea's, which grew very slowly after the Korean War. Indeed, to many observers at the time, North Korea was considered the miracle economy, whereas few held out much hope for South Korea.

Beginning in the 1970s, the North Korean leadership attempted to reinvig-orate the economy with a large-scale modernization program, and for the first time the government turned to major Western countries for technology and financial capital. The program was largely unsuccessful. Part of the blame can be attributed to the oil crisis of the 1970s, which negatively affected almost all developing countries. Scholars also blamed North Korea's excessive military spending and its inefficient and ill-advised economic strategies, which were based on central planning and a rejection of free-market principles. Although these criticisms are valid, the South Korean government from the 1960s through the 1980s also had a disproportionately large military budget and engaged in centralized and heavily bureaucratized economic planning but it did not suffer the same setbacks.

In any case, North Korea was unable to finance its debts through exports, and the government ultimately defaulted on its loans from Western countries—becoming the first communist country to do so. In 1979, the country renegotiated its international debts, but a year later it defaulted again (except on loans from Japan). Beginning in 1980, North Korea has generally been excluded from international capital markets and has relied on "creative" methods to finance consistent trade deficits (e.g., arms sales, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, overseas remittances, and humanitarian aid).

By the 1980s, North Korea's per capita gross domestic product, which had once been higher than South Korea's, was only one-third of that of its rival. Kim Il Sung began to initiate several economic reforms. In 1982, Kim proposed a plan to increase agricultural production through land reclamation and development of the country's infrastructure. Two years later, in September 1984, he announced a joint venture law designed to attract foreign capital and technology. This reform proved to be largely unsuccessful, however; only sixty joint ventures were developed between 1986 and 1992. In 1991 the North Korea government created a Special Economic Zone, or SEZ, in the northeast regions of Najin, Chongjin, and Sonbong.

More seriously, the reforms failed to avert a severe food crisis, which hit North Korea in the 1990s. Some observers contend that this was the worst humanitarian disaster of the decade. According to one estimate, from 1994 to 1998, 2 to 3 million people died of starvation and hunger-related illnesses (as with other data related to North Korea, however, this figure is not completely reliable). Although the proximate cause of the food crisis was severe flooding, another contributing factor was the sharp reduction in imports of heavily subsidized food, equipment, and crude oil from the former Soviet Union and China in the early 1990s. At the same time, however, North Korea's heavy reliance on external sources—and its inability to respond adequately to the crisis—was exacerbated by deep and pervasive flaws in the country's economic and political systems.

north–south relations

Relations between North and South Korea have overshadowed virtually every aspect of political, economic, and social development in the two Koreas. Since the end of World War II (1945), and particularly following the end of the Korean War, the two countries have faced off as bitter and seemingly implacable rivals. Since the 1990s, however, the relationship has shown some signs of improvement, albeit in a very unpredictable and erratic fashion.

The most significant developments have been economic. In January 1992, for example, the chairman of the South Korean company Daewoo visited North Korea as the first officially invited business leader and reached an agreement on building a light industrial complex at Nampo. In other negotiations, Hyundai Asan, another major South Korean conglomerate, obtained permission to bring tour groups by sea to Kumgang-san on the southeast coast of North Korea, and, in August 2000, to construct an 800-acre industrial complex at Kaesong, near the DMZ, at a cost of more than $1 billion. This significant project could possibly serve as an essential building block for inter-Korean economic cooperation.

North Korea's embrace of economic cooperation with South Korea is driven primarily by its increasingly dysfunctional economy. It has led to important developments between the two states, including an historic summit meeting in Pyongyang between Kim Jong Il and then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung (b. 1925) in June 2000. Whether or when there will be a permanent improvement in North–South relations, fundamental reform within North-Korea, or even reunification of the two countries is very much open to debate. But, unlike previous "breakthroughs," North and South Korea remained engaged in a continuous series of meetings and exchanges during the early twenty-first century. Moreover, large-scale projects, including the Kaesong project, continued to move forward.

At the same time, North Korea pursued an increasingly aggressive stance vis-à-vis its nuclear weapons program. In January 2003 the country withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in August of the same year, it announced that it possessed nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. This issue held the potential to destabilize the Korean peninsula and the entire region for decades.

See also: Dictatorship; Korea, South; Totalitarianism.

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Timothy C. Lim