Rise of Elite’s Defection in North Korea

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- Measuring and Testing

To analyze and investigate what the defection and collapse are in the hypothesis above, it’s necessary to understand what types of people in North Korea defected recently. Hwang Jang-yop, Thae young-ho, Ko young-hwan, Jang seung-gil, Hong soon-kyeong, etc. all have something in common, which is all of them were North Korean diplomats or key executive members in North Korea. Among them Hwang Jang-yop used to be in charge of crafting Juche which is now North Korea’s state ideology.[8] Thae Yong-ho who was No.2 Diplomat in London defected to South Korea on this August. The clear indication of collapse of North Korea is that Kim Jong-un killed Jang song-thaek who was one of his family members, and 8 people who were related to Jang song-taek as well.[9] Therefore, diplomats and other elite members of North Korea began to feel scared and tired of Kim Jong-un regime. In addition, recently the fact that North Korean workers who are sent abroad to other countries could be another important sign of collapse of the North Korea as North Korean workers overseas are treated as good “Songbun”, which means their background is high enough to be able to go outside of North Korea.

Moreover, the collapse of economy is something that this paper will take a closely look at in order to specify how North Korean economy started to collapse and to ascertain that the moment that the number of North Korean defectors started to increase was when the economy of North Korea began to collapse.

This paper also will use the specific case of Thae Yong-ho and the death of Jang song-taek to further discuss and understand the current problem in North Korea. Considering the current situation of North Korea where the number of North Korean elite defectors has been increased ever since Kim Jong-un took the throne, this case study will be useful to examine why this problem happens.

- Case Study

The fear of collapse of North Korea has been caused largely by the collapse of the economy, and stricter policing by Kim Jong-un. The economy of North Korea has been struggling recently due to the economic sanctions by the U.S, South Korea, and the UN against North Korea. The U.S has imposed economic and political sanctions as a policy tool to coerce North Korea’s behavior, such as by discontinuing its nuclear weapons program.[10] This sanction was approved by the United Nations Security Council in 2009 in the wake of North Korea’s several nuclear tests. The U.S economic sanctions include resources that are essential for health, such as food, drugs, vaccines, energy, and water. One of the critical reasons the economy has plummeted recently is because the economic sanction has restricted the import of items needed to build modern economy such as technology that might be used for military and civilian. [11]

On top of the U.S sanction against North Korea, the sanction of South Korea also has led to the collapse of the economy of North Korea. Despite the continuing nuclear tests of North Korea in 1990s, there wasn’t a complete shutdown of aid project for North Korea. For example, during the term of president Kim Dae Jung, there was the Sunshine policy which was expected to maintain peace on Korean peninsula and improve the relationship between North and South Korea.[12] However, the Sunshine policy did not go well. After president Kim’s term ended, North Korea restarted developing its nuclear tests and threaten South Korea by attacking Cheonan, a South Korea warship, and on Yeon pyong island in 2010. The Yeonpyeong Island artillery attack and Cheonan sinking were the trigger of complete shutdown of aid project for North Korea because the North Korea’s sinking of the Cheonan warship resulted in 46 casualties, thereby escalating tensions between the two countries.[13] Such provocations by the North started to make ROK government suspect the level of trust in the relationship, and start the complete economic sanction against North Korea. As a result, South Korea decided to shut down Kaesong Industrial complex which was based in North Korea that provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the North Korea government in response to the 4th nuclear tests in 2016 January.

In addition to South Korea sanction against North Korea, the United Nations security council adopted provisions of UNSCR 2270 of March 2, 2016 and NKSPEA to tighten the import and export restrictions against North Korea, and to strengthen the complete regulation of the Worker’s Party of Korea and the Government of North Korea.[14] This was unprecedented because UN had been reluctant to sanctions against North Korea on the ground that those sanctions could violate principles established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [15]

Other factors that had on effect on the falls in exports were that the price of mineral resources started declining in 2013 and china’s new policy on importing mineral sources. North Korea is the country where full of mineral resources such as anthracite coal and iron ore reserves are buried. As the state-owned mining and trading companies monopolize interests in mineral exports, the reduction of mineral exports could translate into the reduction of foreign currency revenue. Because mineral exports are considered one of the most profitable industries in North Korea, the situation that’s been occurring caused severe damage to the economy. However, because of the recent price fall in those minerals and China’s slowing growth and new energy-saving policy demands for minerals dropped, which ultimately caused severe damage to the economy.[16]

Natural disaster has been the big problem in North Korea. For example, Spring drought and heavy summer rainfalls have been damaging the country since the mid-1990s. The director of the Agricultural Department of the North Korean Ministry of Agriculture said as follow:

droughts, heat, and typhoons” caused serious damage in the agricultural sector, and the amount of the lost grain was estimated at over 1.4 million tons. As a result, the food shortage is most likely to continue[17]

Even the German Red Cross officials informed that he had never seen like the famine conditions in North Korea since the world war II. Dead bodies were everywhere on the streets, and people even practiced cannibalism due to starvation. While the country suffered from starvation and drought, Typhoon Winnie also hit North Korea’s west coast in 1997, which put the economy of North Korea deeper into the hole. [18]

The economy of North Korea has declined along with the several sanctions against North Korea, natural disaster, and the fall in the price of minerals since the early 1990s, and this was when the