`NK hardliners control tone of inter-Korean dialogue`

North Korea`s hardliners are known to have changed the atmosphere of inter-Korean dialogue, with Pyongyang`s delegates at bilateral military talks last week walking out despite the North`s push for dialogue.

An informed source in the South Korean government Wednesday provided an interesting view on the North. He said the three main power organizations in the North – the United Front Department under the ruling Workers’ Party, the Foreign Ministry and the military – are in conflict over Pyongyang’s foreign policy.

○ Incessant internal conflict

“According to the (South Korean) participants in the talks, the North Korean delegates gave the impression that they would accept the South’s demands,” the source said. “Then the atmosphere suddenly changed in the afternoon. The colonel-level talks were under remote control by high-level officials (in Pyongyang). North Korean hardliners pressed the ‘attack switch’ in the afternoon.”

Another source said, “There’s nothing new about it. Since August 2008, when (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Il collapsed due to a cerebrovascular disease, the North Korean military has disrupted the situation by committing provocations every time the United Front Department and the Foreign Ministry attempted to hold talks with the South and the U.S., respectively.”

The North’s dialogue offensives this year have been led by the United Front Department. In line with these moves, the North Korean Foreign Ministry is urging the U.S. to resume humanitarian food aid to the North, something which Washington stopped in March 2009.

The North’s military showed signs of participating in the initiative but the talks collapsed. The North’s sinking of a South Korean naval ship and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last year scuttled the efforts of the department and the Foreign Ministry to improve inter-Korean relations.

○ Military monopolizes all resources, avoids dialogue

The North’s military accepted two rounds of defense minister-level talks under the previous two administrations in the South. Pyongyang’s about-face, however, is attributable to the hereditary power succession caused by Kim’s health problems.

The North Korean leadership needs an enormous amount of money to celebrate its country’s goal of becoming a powerful and prosperous country by next year and the third-generation hereditary power succession. The three power organs have every reason to compete for loyalty to their leader by raising part of the money to maintain their vested interests.

The North Korean military is finding it easy in the competition. While the United Front Department and the Foreign Ministry need economic assistance from Seoul and Washington through dialogue, the military can raise money on its own by using domestic economic resources.

Park Hyeong-jung, a senior researcher at Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said the North’s brass can earn dollars by running mines and fish farms. The military also made big money despite the North’s economic crisis in the 1990s by supplying electricity and oil to the market.

Therefore, it is in the military’s interest to block income sources for its competitors and proceed with the power succession while the North remains isolated.

○ Kim Jong Il and successor flip-flop among competing power organs

Another informed source on North Korea said an old and sick Kim Jong Il and his young and inexperienced successor probably side with one of the three power organs depending on the situation, creating confusion in Pyongyang’s foreign policy.

Han Ki-beom, former deputy director of the South Korean National Intelligence Service, presented in a thesis a model of the North Korean bureaucracy similar to the current situation. He said American political scientist Graham Allison suggested in his bureaucratic political model of decision-making that North Korean power organs pursue their own interests and the supreme leader maintains his power by siding with different organs in different situations.

“While the North Korean military is undoubtedly reluctant to hold dialogue, we should be careful in seeing if Kim Jong Il’s judgment has fundamentally been changed,” Han said. “Since he needs international economic assistance to ensure the third-generation power succession, it is possible that he is maintaining a tone for dialogue despite the military’s opposition.”

kyle@donga.com zeitung@donga.com