In the final stages of the division of Europe, when wide parts of the continent were still ruled by communist regimes, the "German Democratic Republic" triumphantly celebrated the 40th anniversary of its foundation.
Among the prominent guests from abroad was Michail Gorbachev. The East German comrades did not at all take pleasure in what the inventor of "glasnost" and "perestroika" told them on the occasion of their birthday party: "He who comes too late, will be punished by life," said the Soviet leader, expressing for the first time in clear terms that he did not give the East German regime much of a survival chance.
Gorbachev and his supporters (the East German communists definitely did not belong to that group) believed, that by introducing reforms they could modernize and thus revitalize their sclerotic systems.
Today we know, this was an illusion.
Historians deem these efforts came too late, they were too timid. The positive steps were soon to be brushed aside by the political upheaval of the masses.
The collapse of communism in Europe came as a shock for the leaders in North Korea. Making the best out of a very difficult situation Pyongyang's ideologues proclaimed what had happened on the other side of the world was the result of aberrations from the true path of communist virtues. The regime managed to survive communicating to the world that it in fact was one of the last bastions of the true teachings.
This political rigidity has had a very high economic price: For nearly one decade North Korea's economy has shrunk. After nine years of painful contraction the country's economy expanded for the first time in 1999.
Today the situation in most parts of North Korea continues to be nightmarish: "Everything seems to have come to a standstill -- or at best -- to a crawl," said one foreign journalist after visiting the country a while ago.
The recent visit of Chairman Kim Jong-il to the People's Republic of China must be evaluated against the background of this miserable state of the economy. The main focus of the trip was to get a first-hand look of capitalism Chinese style. According to the hosts' statements, the guest from Pyongyang was highly impressed by what he saw, expressing his appreciation for Beijing's "correct" development strategy.
Speculation abounds
Kim Jong-il's visit to Shanghai has fanned speculations North Korea may follow the Chinese path of economic reform. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung was swift in explaining that North Korea was seeking to become a second China. In the past the president has never concealed his support for this eventuality, inviting the North to study the Chinese methodology of pursuing economic reform without ceding political control.
The question at the centre of many a discussion regarding the future of the Koreas is whether -- and to what extent -- North Korea is changing. Those observers who deny changes are taking place, have become a minority.
There is simply too much evidence that changes have taken place.
The regime has understood that it must -- to use a classic wording -- adapt or die. There is also general agreement, that this desire to adapt is lead by the one and only goal: to preserve the political control of those in power.
The strategic insight that changes are imperative is not a new phenomenon: far-reaching changes have taken place in the past few years, changes that may well be termed reforms, even though the regime seems to despise this term to a degree the devil dislikes holy water. Following a revision of the constitution in 1998, Pyongyang set out to restructure the moribund industrial sector. A further focus has been the restructuring of the commercial sector in light of the failure of the centrally planned rationing system: According to a report published recently in a South Korean journal "about 80 percent of daily necessities and 60 percent of food needs in North Korea are now obtained through open markets. In some areas, dependence on private markets is as high as 90 percent," writes that observer.
Stimulating markets, as has obviously occurred, has major social and also political implications. Markets erode the monopoly not only of state distribution, but also of state information. Market places are a bourse for the exchange of goods, and information of all kind.
One South Korean scholar even went so far to characterize the markets in the North as a first indication of the emergence of an embryonic civil society!
It has always been dangerous to make assumptions regarding the political developments in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. We simply lack the information needed for well-founded analysis. Nevertheless, North Korea watchers these days are telling us, that intensive ideological debates are taking place in the upper echelons of the Pyongyang regime. A leading South Korean newspaper reported that Kim Jong-il was stressing the need for a perestroika of sorts, to cope with the many challenges lying ahead.
Strategy necessary
Still, the crucial question remains, to what extent the North Korean regime is actually capable of reforming. Put differently: Is there a survival strategy, that at the same time allows the economic and diplomatic opening of the country without compromising the political supremacy of the ruling class, yes the very existence of the DPRK? Looking at China, the question may be answered affirmatively. But then, the last word on China has not been spoken. Some observers predict that eventually the economic liberalization there will lead also to some sort of political democratization, and thus imply the end of the power monopoly of the communists.
"Without South Korea, North Korea would probably have started to implement reform policies earlier than China," said a South Korean expert some while ago. This is an astute observation, as it indirectly underlines, what I would call, the structural limitations of the North Korean reform drive.
This constraint is mainly due to the geographic proximity of South Korea -- the other half of the divided Korean nation: Rob North Korea of its ideology, take away the communist system of running the economy including all the other paraphernalia and insignia, and eventually you deprive this entity of its very justification to exist.
A capitalist North Korea door to door to a capitalist South Korea does not make sense. In this regard the Koreas are different from China, and much more similar to the Germanies in the eighties. In a effort to draw a clear line of ideological distinction vis-a-vis the "class-enemy" in the West, the East German communists rejected all forms of serious reform. They were thus -- as Michail Gorbachev predicted -- punished by life. Eventually, history may be repeated in this part of the world.
Ronald Meinardus is the resident representative in Seoul of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
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