No Exit from Dear Leader Just Yet

Will North Korea collapse? Many people in the democratic world hope for no less. For them, however, South Korea-based scholar Andrei Lankov has some advice: Don’t count on it.

Writing in a Nov. 17, 2011, Asia Times opinion piece, Lankov, an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and adjunct research fellow at the Australian National University’s Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, grants that North Korea is in miserable shape and that an implosion thus seems likely sooner or later. But his money is on later: He looks ahead to 2020 and still sees a divided Korea as of that date.

“The North Korean regime has survived all challenges thus far. Like it or not, it will probably survive many more challenges to come,” he writes.

Lankov explains that the ingredients that are necessary for a successful revolution are simply not present. First, the people need to be living above subsistence level. The Egyptians and Tunisians were poor, but not starving. Second and third, they need an alternative vision for their country and an organized resistance that promises to lead them to it. Pyongyang’s ruthless secret police and military have done a frighteningly superb job of negating both: No dissenter lives long enough to organize a revolt, and scarcely any information about the outside world reaches enough North Korean people to awaken them en masse to what their Dear Leaders have been depriving them of for all these decades.

Lankov does see a possibility of a collapse at some point later this century. Some outside news does trickle in through the border, and occasional public protests do happen. But he holds no expectations as to just when all of this will culminate in an all-out overthrow of the state.

“One should be prepared for a collapse, but one should not bet on this collapse happening any time soon,” he writes.

His words are especially pertinent. A few weeks ago, the South Korean government proposed setting up a $50 billion unification fund to pay for the costs of the future reunification of the two Koreas. Much of the proceeds would come from voluntary citizen contributions.

Maybe the administration of South Korean president Lee Myunk-Bak honestly believes that a collapse is imminent. Or maybe Lee is just looking to score political points.

There are two reasons to suspect the latter. First, South Korea’s presidential elections are just over a year away. Second, Lee’s popularity among voters is currently at a low of 30%, and while he won’t be running—this is his last term—he wouldn’t want to make things difficult for his successor. So why wouldn’t Lee want to tug on voters’ patriotic heart strings a bit? He is a politician, after all.

On a related note, the South Korean government recently suspended the deployment via balloons of anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea. It had been routinely sending said materials across the DMZ, but decided finally that the risk of a North Korean retaliatory attack outweighed the hoped-for benefit of North Koreans rising up. It goes to show how much faith South Korean officials had really put in that propaganda in the first place.

In all, Lankov’s case seems pretty solid, albeit disappointing. North Korea will be with us for a long time to come. In which case, the United States and all its partners in the region will have their hands full dealing with Pyongyang for a long time to come. Let’s all hope that they are up to that very unenviable task.