North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

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led to a training program for young North Korean programmers at the Hanna Program Center in Dandong, China. 42 (Dandong is just across the Yalu River from North Korea’s Sinuiju Special Economic Zone.) Interestingly, another report indicates that Pyongyang has sent a number of officials to Ho Chi Minh City and to Hanoi for training on market economies with professors from the Stockholm School of Economics. 43 Of course, neither Dandong nor Hanoi is anything close to cosmopolitan, but these are still major steps for North Korea. To put it in perspective, defector Yun Seong-su says he fled in 1998 because he was accused of having too much overseas experience as a State Security Department agent in northern North Korea. Yun’s job was to return North Korean refugees who had fled into China. His overseas experience was traveling across the Tumen River into parts of northeast China far less sophisticated than Dandong. 44 It would be nice to think that a new high-tech day is dawning over North Korea, but that would be a mistake. A number of qualifications must be considered. First, while there is surely at least a kernel of truth to everything presented above, it may be exaggerated by North Korean propagandists or South Korean sunshiners. Second, exaggerated or not, North Korea’s high-tech ventures will fail to save its economy without a systemic overhaul, of which the regime is incapable. The third point to consider is that Kim Jong-il’s regime will remain what it is, so long as Kim is there. The most expansive aspects of North Korea’s IT efforts involve only a few people who no doubt are highly trusted - and highly monitored. They will be asked to turn their new talents toward strengthening the Kim regime, including using information technology for more effective propaganda and social control. We should recall the words of Hwang Jang-yop: Only a select few people are allowed to go overseas, and when they return, they are permitted only to stress the negative aspects of foreign countries. They also have actively to propagandize how the North Korean leader is respected even in foreign countries. 45 So, the point here is not that a new high-tech generation will transform the Kim Jong-il regime; rather, it is simply that some of the few selected for this kind of experience will begin to question the tenets of the regime drilled into them since infancy. And these people are all the 42 FBIS Report, “DPRK-ROK IT Venture in China Developing DPRK Software Expertise,” January 4, 2004, KPP20040107000119. 43 “DPRK Officials Receive Training on Market Economy in Vietnam,” Seoul Yonhap, January 5, 2004, 0902 GMT, FBIS translation KPP20040105000091. 44 Interview with Yun Seong-Su, North Korean Defector, May 16, 2002. 45 Hwang Jang-yop. V-10
more susceptible because they are more exposed to information than other members of the elite. The window may be open just a crack, but it could be made to open wider. G. DIPLOMATS: LICIT Another subset of the elite with uncommon access to information is the diplomatic corps. Diplomats always have a perspective different from other officials because their experience is different from their colleagues’. They speak languages, analyze world situations, entertain foreign visitors, see information from abroad, and serve at foreign posts. In this sense, North Korean diplomats share some traits with South Korean, Japanese, or western counterparts. This may be unremarkable in our societies, but in North Korea it places at least some of them, particularly the younger ones, in what Oh describes as the new opportunities group. They may be at varying stages of disillusionment with the Kim Jong-il regime, looking for fresh ideas consistent with the interests of their country. But as in all things North Korean, commonalities with the outside world are limited. The North Korean diplomatic corps is a service like no other. Its members are carefully watched by the various security agencies of their own country and, when abroad, kept under careful surveillance by the host country. Their movements are limited and their contacts are confined to countries with which they have diplomatic relations. Compared to South Korean, Japanese, or western diplomats, their experience is very limited, but it is expansive compared to other North Koreans, including members of the domestic elite. A North Korean diplomat in New York, for instance, would not get more than a formal “good morning” from an American diplomat. He would have to receive permission from the U.S. State Department to travel outside a prescribed radius around the city - but there is plenty to see in New York City. It would not take more than the ride in from JFK Airport to observe that New York, not Pyongyang, is the center of the universe. Though they remain first-class rhetoricians on behalf of Kim Jong-il’s regime, many North Korean diplomats must be silently seeking alternative explanations. H. DIPLOMATS: ILLICIT Sadly, North Korean diplomats also bear another distinction: they are part of Kim Jongil’s worldwide mafia, charged with bringing in cash to support their own diplomatic missions as well as the Dear Leader’s regime. North Korea’s economy is a shambles and getting worse. Recent Congressional testimony of the Heritage Foundation’s Larry M. Wortzel sums up the situation nicely. V-11
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INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSES Nort
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INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSES IDA
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CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY & INTROD
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To write accurately about North Kor
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technocrats, provincial and county
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PREFACE This paper will examine in
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ABBREVIATIONS AGI CCSKA COMSEC DoD
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information streams, and from him t
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within the hands of a few individua
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and whether or not he will embarras
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to the lowest-levels of the KPA. As
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strengthening of all armed forces,
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esearch institutes and “think tan
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The primary missions of the Reconna
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communication that generally fall o
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of the State Security Department or
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maintaining strict control over the
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agencies in the ROK and Japan began
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The Guard and Security Commands, wh
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eports that are funneled up through
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Complicating the entire “Kim-cent
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Within the military, this dynamic c
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him that all significant orders and
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Until the 1990s, the electronic med
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II. THE NORTH KOREAN LEADERSHIP: SY
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TABLES 1. Key Family Members in the
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The factional struggles in North Ko
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A. INTRODUCTION By definition, a to
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C. THE TECHNOLOGY OF POWER A Party
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document control bureaus in each mi
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Originally implemented in 1994 and
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Table II-1. Key Family Members in t
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of associates who trace their relat
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September 9, 2003, showed a change
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Chart II-2: Secretariat 5. Kye Ung-
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Members 1. Yi Ul-sul 4. Yi Yong-mu
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Table II-6. Kim Chong-il’s Princi
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Table II-7. Kim Chong-il’s Person
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chance to unfold. In terms of syste
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domestic policy arena, the split is
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At the second echelon of power, Kim
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D. FLOW OF INFORMATION George Kenna
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about things that affect their care
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(ID) and External Liaison (ELD) dep
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For the rest of the North Korean le
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the focus for not only a significan
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At the 11 th Supreme People’s Ass
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There is little doubt that one of t
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decision-making process. Moreover,
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III. THE WELL-INFORMED CADRE RALPH
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY DEFINITIONS AND A
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greater access to first-hand inform
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The first question addressed by thi
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But this lack of enthusiasm is prob
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as the 1950s. 16 The security organ
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Another way to look at divisions wi
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Because the Kim regime governs acco
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guess is that anyone who rises in t
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But even though the media serve as
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Newspapers The DPRK’s premier new
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motivation in its readers through m
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Page 2: • Kim Jong-suk’s develo
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This selection of news items presen
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in the wake of the U.S. propaganda
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the general audience in a two-step
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also countries surrounding the Kore
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that the war in Iraq was “a test
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and transform us internally through
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eceived with little thought and has
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outside world than the ordinary wor
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cognitive dissonance, particular ca
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IV. INSIDE NORTH KOREA’S BLACK BO
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The North Korean
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A. BETTER, MERRIER, MORE HOPEFUL LI
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In contrast, the optimists believe
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to the throne. The State Council us
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1976-1977, 4 and in 1986-1987 (see
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Bulgarian Trade Unions, after which
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Second, the principal objective of
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southward expansion, and, last but
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controlling some of North Korea’s
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also against the second-tier family
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Kim Sung-ae, who is Kim Il Sung’s
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“National Security Establishment
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October 1980. Many of them (Yon Hyo
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severe draught in 1988 and the dram
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The advent of the “Songun Era”
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Page 196 and 197: Bearing in mind Kim Jong Il’s rec
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Page 208 and 209: “Foreign Wind” The “foreign w
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Page 212 and 213: Table IV-11. The North-South “Han
Page 214 and 215: Song Sok Hwan Vice-Minister Cha Sun
Page 216 and 217: Table IV-13. Korean-American “Int
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Page 220 and 221: Northern security, military, and pa
Page 223: APPENDIX B TONGIL STREET FREE MARKE
Page 227: V. REACHING INTO NORTH KOREA DAVID
Page 231 and 232: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY North Korea is no
Page 233: message right to Kim Jong-il, and m
Page 236 and 237: isk escape from the hermit kingdom.
Page 238 and 239: Society is divided into three broad
Page 240 and 241: contradictions.” 17 This makes se
Page 242 and 243: Internet is not specifically mentio
Page 246 and 247: North Korea’s exports from legiti
Page 248 and 249: een the biggest buyers of ivory ove
Page 250 and 251: worker who travels throughout North
Page 252 and 253: If we want to reach into North Kore
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Page 256 and 257: Although the future of cellular tel
Page 258 and 259: There are a host of other things on
Page 261 and 262: Each of the five papers in this col
Page 263 and 264: promotions) and punishments (e.g.,
Page 265 and 266: although presumably all calls are m
Page 267 and 268: cultural rules.” Given the “str
Page 269: Speaking of Kim, whom does he consu
Page 273: Terms of Reference: North Korean Po
Page 277 and 278: Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. is an intern
Page 279: APPENDIX C ASIAN VIEWS OF NORTH KOR
Page 282 and 283: In any case, the reforms provide a
Page 284 and 285: View from Seoul The single most imp
Page 287: Form Approved REPORT DOCUMENTATION
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