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Winds of Change in North Korea
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17693 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1990 |
3,282 Words |
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Selig S. Harrison
Selig S. Harrison, a senior associate of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, has specialized in South
Asian affairs and American policy problems in Asia for forty
years as a foreign correspondent and author. He served as AP
correspondent in New Delhi from 1951 to 1954, returning as
South Asia bureau chief of the Washington Post from 1962 to
1965, and Northeast Asia bureau chief from 1968 to 1972. A
former managing editor of the New Republic, he has served as
senior fellow in charge of Asian studies at the Brookings
Institution, senior fellow at the East-West Center, and
professional lecturer in Asian studies at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies. |
Seemingly impervious to the winds of change form Eastern Europe, Kim II Sung retains his firm grip on North Korea after four decades. But even in Pyongyang, one of the last bastions of Stalinism, pressures are building up for domestic reform and for an end to the North's costly confrontation with South Korea and the United States.
The popular hunger for more and better consumer goods is forcing the communist regime to pursuer two closely related goals: (1) a rapid influx of advanced industrial technology, facilitated by an economic opening to the West, and (2) a reduction of defense spending that would permit a diversion of scarce resources and labor to light industries.
Pyongyang is making increasingly explicit proposals to Seoul and Washington for an arms control agreement that would link phased reductions in to armed forces of the North and South with a parallel withdrawal of U.S. forces. These overtures have been accompanied by a significant reversal of earlier proposals for a unitary form of unification. Pyongyang now talks of a permanent confederation in which the South's capitalist system would remain inviolate and the two "regions" would retain tier separates armies.
Koreans on both sides of the 38th parallel are watching the movement toward German unification with special fascination. The two situations are not directly comparable because the German drama is now unfolding so rapidly. But West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's initial proposal last year for "confederative structures" intensified a debate over the terms of Korean confederation that has been raging for the past year not only between Pyongyang and Seoul but also within South Korea.
In contrast to Eastern Europe, where television leapfrogs frontiers, the North Korean regime retains tight control over communications access to the outside world. Only the top echelon of the ruling Workers Party elite has an inkling of the scope of the convulsions taking place in other communist countries. It was not until 10 days after the event that Nicolae Caeusescu's execution was briefly noted by North Korean media, even though Pyongyang had immediately recognized the National Salvation Front government.
Kim II Sung is not a hated figure like Ceausescu, Erich Honecker, or Gutav Husak. As a leading State Department specialist on the North, John Merrill, acknowledged on January 16 at a meeting of Korea specialists in Washington, Kim has acquired "charisma and legitimacy" by
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