Experts Discuss N. Korea Scenarios

Where is North Korea, a troublemaker in Northeast Asia, heading? The global community as well as Northeast Asian countries will struggle to find the answer for this question next year.

The White House’s ‘thinking session’ on October 25, covered by The Oriental Economist (TOE) December edition, might be one example of that struggle. According to TOE, U.S. President George W. Bush invited experts on East Asia to the White House and talked about the possibility of China instigating the North Korean military to launch a coup.

TOE is an informative paper about East Asian issues. The article was written by Peter Ennis, a reporter of Toyo Keizai, who observed the meeting. Participants included President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Political advisor Karl Rove, CSIS Senior Adviser Michael Green, and AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt.

The article said President Bush asked experts about Beijing’s view on North Korea after the nuclear test and possible pressure it could put on North Korea. Experts discussed that Beijing might stimulate North Korea’s military to stage a coup to remove Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Il in the second half of next year.

However, Ennis added that the meeting was a thinking session to review a possible hypothesis for China’s direction, not a planning session to establish a new U.S. policy toward Korea.

In Japan, the Public Security Investigation Agency projected that instabilities in North Korea’s regime increased and Kim Jong Il’s authority will decline.

According to Asahi Shimbun on December 25, the agency’s report on reviews and prospects for 2007 issues concerning Japan analyzed the situation in North Korea where tensions are high due to missile launch and nuclear test.

The report said the North Korean regime was being maintained by four pillars: Kim’s authority, economic equality among people, the strong reign of the military and security authorities, and information regulation.

However, recent economic reform has threatened the stability of regime as the economic gap between the haves and have-nots increases, regulations are eased, and more information flows in.

In particular, corruption has nullified the government’s efforts to block information flowing into the country. From the beginning of this year, North Korean government stringently monitored people with a special monitoring office, as exchanges with China and South Korea have been active. According to the report, however, the military and security authorities usually received bribes, annulling the monitoring.

The report also predicted that economic hardship and inflowing information are weakening Kim Jong Il’s power, and this trend will continue. North Korea’s leadership will strive to keep itself in place through iron-fisted dictatorship, but increasing military influence on major policy might change the future status of Kim’s government. The report said, therefore, special attention is needed.

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