North Korea is going to hack off a bit of
its backside called Sinuiju, to become a capitalist enclave; (see
this Chosun
Ilbo news link for a summary).
Does nobody smell a rat? The air is full
of oohs and aahs, admiration, a smacking of lips. So a blip on the
North Korean/Chinese border is going to be the new Hong Kong. How
clever. Sinuiju will have different laws, issue passports, give
foreigners full citizen rights. A fast talking Chinese businessman
is going to be it's supremo. Wow. North Korea's leadership class are
going transform from international pariahs to international
darlings, innocent of xenophobia, juche slogans,
secretiveness and all the other qualities that have made them
smelly.
Now it is true that in politics good
things can and sometimes do come out of warped ambitions by
unlovable power gluttons. That is, there can be collateral benefit
as well as collateral damage. But let us not get our illusions mixed
in the North Korean equation. What is really going to happen in
Sinuiju? Well the bit about a Hong Kong-cum-Bahrain of North East
Asia is a long shot. Other things are more certain.
The first certainty is that almost the
entire population of the Sinuiju district is going to be
disinherited of their land, their homes, their community, their
identity. Yang Bin, the new supremo, says that they will gradually
be "relocated" (around 200,000 people according to Chosun
Ilbo newpaper, conveniently designated as "mostly military
personnel". Who knows? Another report said 500,000). In any case,
they are impediments, the unclean masses, and given the dynamics of
that country, will effectively become refugees within the North
Korea. Since the North Korean leadership has a sudden interest
in international image, they may even finesse the 'resettlement
plan' in public. This is a political clique that has let millions of
its own citizens starve to death, so we can be sure that
the actual future of Sinuiju's real citizens will
be bleak. It is striking that not a single news report or
editorial seems to have picked up on this impending tragedy. All
fascination is with the visa free access for carpet-baggers from
anywhere but North Korea.
Another certainty is that the Sinuiju
experiment is not being mounted for the future benefit of Korea,
divided or united. Like Hong Kong, it may turn out to be beneficial
sometime in the future. Or it may morph into a strategic nightmare.
Regardless, that is collateral to the real interests involved. The
real interests of course are those of that ruling clique in
Pyeongyang. Cult of the Dear Leader notwithstanding, it is a fair
bet that the overwhelming majority of North Koreans would like to
tear that clique limb from limb and roast them over a slow fire.
The economic-military mess that is North
Korea has reached a point where it can't be much fun even for the
dictators. When you have to travel for tenty-four days in an
armoured train just to visit the neighbouring potentate, well, the
most armour-plated egos must take a hit. Heck, you are not even
welcome to spend your ill-gotten gains in the twenty-first century's
real palaces. That is, you can't strut in those international luxury
hotels which live off the corporate criminal classes and respectable
political scoundrels from richer climates. I'll lay five bucks to a
container load of soju that Mr Yang Bin has seen this crying need of
the Dear Leader & Friends. He has flogged them a dream, to own
their own pleasure dome, uncontaminated by dour, hungry Koreans,
where the world's glitterati can come to visit and admire. Still
more practically, when the real working classes of Korea come baying
at Pyeongyang's door with axes, kalashnikovs and bombs, the Dear
Leader can scamper to his helipad and make a swift hop to a bolt
hole called Sinuiju where Korean law and low class Koreans are not
welcome. There is an old Chinese proverb, no doubt familiar to Yang
Bin, that a clever rabbit always has three burrows....
Well, what are Sinuiju's chances at glory
anyway? In a rational, equitable world they would be pretty poor. A
hundred years ago you would have said that about Hong Kong too,
since it was little more than a back door anchorage for the
drug-running British empire. As it turned out there was more money
in opium than any foreigner has made out of China since, regardless
of the damage it did to mere Chinese citizens. Let's hope that
Sinuiju's contribution is a bit more benign. On the face of it,
things don't look good. Not only is the North Korean economy a
shambles, most of Manchuria's economy is also a shambles. The heavy
industrial cities of Northern China like Shenyang, Changchun and
Harbin are a rust belt of polluting, decaying, state-owned
factories. Frantic attempts by the Beijing and regional
administrations to rid themselves of these liabilities have
dissolved into endemic corporate fraud, terrifying levels of
unemployment, and frequent, sometimes violent protests by thousands
of ex-workers who are looking poverty in the face.
The refrain we hear from Beijing, Tokyo,
Seoul, Pyeongyang and Moscow is that a Eurasian railroad from Busan
to the European seaboard will resurrect this whole region. And
Sinuiju of course will be a handy rail junction on the magic express
train. Well maybe... The el Dorado theme song from Dear Leaders,
East and West, has some odd flat notes. For example, the real
dynamic is supposed to grow from an iron umbilical cord between
Europe and Japan. The trouble is, this umbilical cord has been there
for decades -- and rusting. Japanese companies prefer to send their
stuff to Europe by ship, thanks very much, even if the paper
calculations say it takes much longer. Why isn't Vladivostok the
Singapore of the North Pacific? It is not only the real rail-head of
the trans-Siberian railroad, it has an excellent harbour, ice-free
for most of the year. Vladivostok is only a short boat hop from
Yokohama. Why would any sane Japanese businessman deal in a cut for
regional Korean and Chinese pirates when he can ship directly to
Vladivostok and just pay off the Russian bear in vodka? The answer,
almost certainly and sadly, is in the shortcomings of the Russian
rail system and its masters. No champagne party in Sinuiju is going
to change that.
* Note on personal names:
all names in this Korea Diary have been changed to protect the
privacy of individuals, unless stated otherwise.
"North Korea - The Smell of Rat"...
copyrighted to Thor May 2002; all rights reserved
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