North Korea: Foreign Aid or Foreign Blame ?

On the eastern bank of the Taedong River that sweeps through Pyongyang stands the most celebrated landmark in North Korea. Rising a full 170 metres above ground, and always brightly lit despite the capital’s frequent power cuts, the Juche Tower dominates the landscape – a steadfast sentinel of the guiding dogma of the so-called ‘Hermit Kingdom.’ The Juche doctrine, conceived by the North’s first President Kim Il-sung, is effectively a blueprint for autarky, emphasising political, economic and military self-reliance. This is far from being true. Since its inception, North Korea has only been kept afloat because of continuous aid from South Korea, China and, up until its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union. Even the United States, who have regularly inveighed against the state’s belligerent excesses, are seriously considering rescinding its moratorium on food aid dating back to the expulsion of American nuclear monitors in 2009.

So what is the logic behind great powers propping up the last bastion of Stalinist totalitarianism? Why should the United States even consider a resumption of aid, after the 12 months during which North Korea launched the first artillery strike on South Korean soil in almost 60 years, and unveiled a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment facility geared towards bolstering its nuclear capabilities? Naturally, officials in the United States have sought to frame the notion of any possible reversal of the policy in strictly humanitarian terms. Indeed, Kurt Campbell, the Obama administration’s most senior East Asian diplomat, has stressed that “the choice here is whether these people are allowed to starve. It’s a humanitarian issue, not a political one.”

It is undeniable that the problems facing North Korea’s 24 million citizens are dire, and getting more dire. According to the recent findings of an aid report joint-authored by five U.S. based aid groups, a summer of heavy rainfall and widespread flooding reduced total vegetable crops by more than half in some areas joint with a harsh damaging winter. As a result, estimates emanating from North Korean authorities suggest that food stocks will not last beyond mid-June, and many in rural areas have already resorted to foraging for wild grasses and herbs to supplement the woefully insufficient government rations. The almost non-existent state investment in adequate irrigation, coupled with the difficulties posed by a lack of naturally arable farmland, have previously plunged North Korea into crisis. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc deprived the regime of a major aid donor, the country suffered chronic resource shortages and the consequent three-year famine resulted in the deaths of 300,000 – 800,000 people. While a catastrophe on that scale seems unlikely, the World Food Programme have nevertheless called for external assistance to avert another potential tragedy.

Thus, with the rogue nation again pleading for food it cannot provide, the South Koreans are faced with a terrible dilemma. On the one hand, withdrawing aid for the North would without question further destabilise a regime undergoing an already problematic process of political transition; however, the extreme antipathy towards Kim Jong-il’s regime within South Korea does not extend to the North Koreans themselves, with which many South Koreans share deep fraternal bonds. Former US diplomat Christopher R. Hill sums up their predicament eloquently: “South Koreans are increasingly coming to believe that North Korea will not be in the family of nations for long, that sooner or later … its malnourished people will become future citizens of a reunified Republic of Korea.” Therefore, he asserts that “the issues facing South Korean public opinion, as it decides whether to help with food assistance, are not easy; indeed, they could be quite wrenching.” The quandary with which South Korea continues to grapple thus extends beyond questions of security and governance; there exists a third dimension, bound up with a national identity that is unique to the Korean peninsula.

As sure as the Juche Tower will illuminate the Pyongyang skyline, the people of North Korea will be assured by their leaders that a state of perfect prosperity awaits once socialism prevails. In reality, the regime, its food stocks decimated, cannot hide its desperation. Whether the South continues to bankroll its sickly neighbour or not, the mercurial behaviour of the North belies a process of seemingly terminal decline, which its leaders cannot mask for much longer. The Juche doctrine remains the greatest scam perpetrated by the Workers Party of Korea on its people and the tragedy is that many more will inevitably perish before this hollow fallacy is finally exposed.