'Revival plan' a must to get North Korea to denuclearize: Expert
ROC Central News Agency
07/01/2023 05:29 PM
[Editor's Note: This is part three of a three-part series that shares the views of defectors from North Korea as the country becomes increasingly isolated. The series includes interviews with two defectors and an expert on North Korea.]
Seoul, July 1 (CNA) North Korea is essentially running a slave state to support its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs, but the only way the outside world can change that and get it to denuclearize is through a "revival plan," a South Korean expert on North Korea said.
In an interview with CNA in Seoul, Sookmyung Women's University professor Lee Min-yong said the North Korean regime was unlikely to abandon its nuclear arsenal because of its complete lack of resources to defend itself in other ways.
But that lack of resources and the regime's exploitation of its people to keep itself in power and earn foreign currency could provide an opening, Lee argued.
CNA spoke to Lee as part of its series on North Korean defectors to get more insight into the enigmatic state.
Lee has long railed against the human rights abuses there, calling it an "oppressive tyranny" in an article in the Diplomat in 2017.
Yet for all the bluster from the international community echoing Lee's view, North Korea remains a pariah state that taunts its neighbors and the world with ballistic missile tests and threats of nuclear weapons while starving its own people, and Lee felt a new strategy could help.
'Modern slaves'
Up to now, Lee said, efforts to compel North Korea to give up its nuclear program through measures such as sanctions have been stymied by the country's allies, including China and Russia.
The two powers, for example, vetoed new resolutions by the United Nations Security Council in 2022 that would have imposed new sanctions on North Korea after a spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
But making progress on denuclearization may also require focusing on North Korea's exploitation of labor, which plays a key role in keeping its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Lee said.
The country sends workers overseas every year, forcing them to make money for their country even if UN Security Council Resolution 2397, passed in late 2017, requires that all countries expatriate North Korean workers immediately, Lee said.
Some workers, however, remain in Russia and Uzbekistan and continue to contribute to North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
"They're like 'modern slaves' who have to work over 17 hours every day and must turn in 80 percent of their income to their country," Lee said.
China has also indirectly helped protect the North Korean regime and exploited its people, Lee said.
At least 300,000 North Korea defectors have fled to China, but many are stuck there, and Beijing has refused to give them refugee status due not only to its partnership with North Korea but also to exploit these "illegal workers," Lee said.
To halt these overseas labor issues and convince the North Korean government to denuke, not only the "stick" but the "carrot" is needed, which is to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that by abandoning nuclear weapons, his country's GDP per capita can rise from under US$2,000 to USD$3,000, Lee said.
The concept has already been tried.
From 2008 to 2013, when Lee Myung-bak was South Korea's president, his administration proposed a "Denuclearization, Openness, 3000 Vision" for North Korea, similar to the "audacious plan" initiated by incumbent President Yoon Suk-yeol in 2022, Lee said.
"But for North Korea, these proposals are ridiculous. They don't believe the policies could help increase GDP per capita to USD$3,000," he said.
A concrete "North Korea revival plan," however, might work in getting North Korea to agree to denuclearization, said Lee, who contended that the U.S., Japan and South Korea should lead other allies in providing North Korea with needed resources and standing by it.
If such a plan were broached, Lee said, China and Russia would have no excuse not to join.
Meanwhile, South Korea will be a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for two years starting in 2024, which could provide another opportunity, he said.
Though resolutions might be vetoed by China and Russia, South Korea has allies among the 15 non-permanent members, which could be beneficial to the agenda-setting session, and could pressure North Korea through proposals related to food, human rights and nuclear issues, Lee said.
Waiting for collapse
There may be another approach, Lee said -- to let the North Korean regime crumble on its own.
On the outside looking in, the regime seems well entrenched, helped by what Lee argues are policies to deliberately starve the people to keep them in line.
Lee said 41 percent of North Koreans are malnourished, and while younger generations around the world are generally expected to be healthier and stronger than their parents, "it's completely the opposite in North Korea -- young people are getting weaker."
But people have been starving in North Korea since the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), and it's been part of their daily life for decades, which "erases their thoughts of fighting for food," Lee said.
The scholar believed the policy was deliberate because the food problem would not be hard to solve.
South Korean officials have estimated that North Korea has around 4.5 million tons of grain production per year, about 1.5 million tons short of the 6 million tons needed to feed its nationals.
That means the country would have to spend US$500 million to US$600 million a year to purchase food from abroad to fill the gap.
"You don't think the North Korean government has money for that?" Lee asked. "They're just afraid people would start to pursue nutrition and even have political aspirations after being given enough food."
"The North Korean government deliberately causes food crises among its nationals for political reasons," Lee said.
This is why Kim Jong Un's regime is still standing, even though the number of defectors is on the rise, he added.
However, an increase in the number of defectors also indicates North Korea may be "heading toward its demise," Lee said.
That, combined with the regime being on the decline since the reign of Kim Jung Il, the second supreme leader, and the country losing its basic capacity to function may suggest a completely hands-off policy, Lee said.
"The international community is holding back and wanting to 'wait and see' where this regime will go," Lee said. "The most conservative approach for governments worldwide is to wait for North Korea to break down by itself."
(By Ariel Liao and Evelyn Yang)
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