North Korea - Warring with the World
By Paul Moorcraft
Pen-and-Sword publishers, Great Britain. 2020. 181pp.
Reviewed by David Willers
As North Korea (NK) lowers the barrier on diplomatic efforts to bring it in from the cold, as a widely perceived dangerous and unpredictable member of the nuclear club, the prospects for world peace look more uncertain than ever. How little we know of the motives and intentions of this secretive nation.
Fortunately, with impeccable timing, the best primer explaining the mystery of Korea this reviewer has read for years, has just appeared from the pen of UK scholar, and military specialist, Prof Paul Moorcraft .
Moorcraft has written on subjects as diverse as the Middle East, Asia and the southern African imbroglio. He has never been afraid to tackle thorny issues, and in this book he goes straight to the nub with a suggestion that, far from being mad and irrational enough to use their nuclear arsenal on a whim, the North Koreans are in fact perfectly sane, and have played a poor hand well, surviving against the odds as a small country with many enemies and few allies, albeit the main one is China. Whatever they do is in reality predicated on cold logic and a grim determination to reclaim all Korea as a single country again.
The war between North and South Korea (SK) in 1950's, which resulted in the heavily policed border, and an armistice (meaning the war has technically not ended) has haunted the West ever since, not least because the ruling family in NK has been seemingly impervious to diplomatic overtures. The recent optimism, stemming from talks between President Trump and Mr Kim, has abruptly hit a cliff with the redeployment of NK border forces and military exercises that can only be described as provocative.
Moorcraft describes what lies behind this erraticism, taking the reader through the history of NK as a country created by revolutionaries driven by nationalism, anti-imperialism and the search for the right path to modernity. The ruling party derives from the small group of partisans trained and equipped by the communist Russians, and later the Chinese communists, to fight the Japanese army that occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945. As Moorcraft notes, the communist influence of these allies runs deep, and in many ways NK often appears as a Stalinist holdover of the past. However, in practice, NK might better be described as a Neo-Confucian feudal kingdom run by a dynasty now in its third generation. It is supported by the hardline NK military who, as Moorcraft rather chillingly describes, will do whatever it takes to unify the two Koreas, even deploying the atomic bomb if required. This is not an idle threat as demonstrated by the recent deployment of American anti-ballistic missile defences in SK.
Moorcraft shines a clear light on the social structure that makes up NK, notably the traditional system that denotes status called chulsin-songbun (or just songbun for short), a type of caste system based on an individual’s ancestors and behaviour over generations. It is a bit like the Indian caste system mixed with South African apartheid. Songbun has around fifty classifications and the system measures loyalty to the regime and allocates privileges accordingly. The highest caste members are those associated with the war against the Japanese, and in the 'fifties the population was delineated into friendly, neutral and hostile classes, all judged by their loyalty to the regime. A lot depended on the sins of the fathers. If there was a bad family background owing to dubious behaviour by one's grandparent, perhaps black marketing or collaboration with the Japanese, or listening to foreign radio today, then your bad Songbun can last for several generations. Good Songbun is rewarded with food coupons and, as Moorcraft demonstrates, the difference between good and bad Songbun can literally mean survival and starvation in NK. The system of Songbun is policed by a vast number of informers on the system employed in other communist countries like China and Cuba.
There are exceptions - for example the mother of the current Great Leader Kim - Jong-un (Ko Kong-hui) was born in Japan of Korean heritage and some observers speculate this could mean that Mr Kim may see himself as a reformer, willing to move away from the old feudal caste system in favour of modernising the economy with a system of talents recruited, regardless of Songbun. Whether the military will allow him to do so is another question however. The NK armed forces are very powerful in the scheme of things.
This brings us to the question of China's influence, restraining or otherwise on NK, which Moorcraft regards as key to any analysis of the future. China is NK's big brother, and has long shared a unique mutual aid and cooperation treaty that promised military support if the other was attacked by an outside power. The Treaty is valid until 2021. The question is - will it be renewed?
China has had a somewhat ambivalent approach to NK of late - preferring that Washington should have a direct negotiation with Mr Kim's 'rogue state'. Moorcraft describes the ups and downs of the relationship between China and NK, not helped by NK in the 60's describing Mao as an "old fool who has gone out of his mind." The Chinese Communist Party accused NK of 'revisionism' and has shown little sign of reversing its assessment on this score ever since.
China's strategic interests in the Korean Peninsula are complex. It does massive trade with SK and very little with NK - in fact has been a food donor to the North. But it does not want to lose its influence with the North either and a recalibration is taking place. Moorcraft goes into some detail on the two schools of thought regarding the 'peaceful' China and the 'difficult' China that is willing to trade with rogue states and undermine western human-rights conditionality strategies for trade with those states. China has been stealing Western intellectual property worth tens of billions of dollars, especially by cyber raids, which in turn has led to a geo-political response by Washington that China fears could be the start of a Pacific “Nato" on its doorstep.
Peaceful China or difficult China? That is the question, as Hamlet might say, and Chinese policy, as Moorcraft points out, has been sufficiently nuanced as to allow a variety of interpretations on these two schools of thought. As he sees it, the South China Sea is today what the Caribbean was to the Americans at the beginning of the last century. They moved to control the Caribbean, pushing the Spanish out of Cuba, and meddling in the affairs of all the Latin American countries to ensure compliant regimes. Likewise, and he quotes Henry Kissinger's On China: "The world order as currently constituted was built largely without Chinese participation. Hence China feels less bound by rules in the creation of which it did not participate."
As a result when China feels threatened by events on its borders, it goes to war - Korea in 1950, India in 1962, the border war with Russia in 1969 are good examples.
For the West, China is emerging as a threat in a new guise. For years the shibboleth was that economic growth in China would produce more representative government. The opposite has happened. China is more Orwellian than ever, the communist party even more firmly in control, supporting a form of authoritarian capitalism which is hugely integrated into the American economy. This is making it more difficult than ever for Washington to challenge a Chinese economy essentially founded on intellectual property theft, illegal technology transfers, currency manipulation and rabid discrimination against foreign investors.
Clearly, Washington wants better and fairer trade relations with China and a reduction of the on-off Chinese support to NK. However it is equally clear, says Moorcraft, that only a Reaganesque approach to dialogue with China based on peace through strength will work.
He is optimistic that despite the risk of incidents and tensions surrounding Taiwan for example, that the overriding need for economic cooperation between China and America will eventually lead to unification in Korea. The costs of re-developing NK will be enormous - far bigger than integrating the two Germanies for example - but will provide enormous opportunities for regional entities, including Japan.
Prof Moorcraft sees inevitable change ahead for NK, not least that the family dynasty of Mr Kim is probably doomed within the next ten years. The question then is what will replace it.
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Top reviews from other countries
- The Media MattersReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2020
A valuable and very timely study
- Rome ReviewerReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2020
A timely read for anyone trying to figure out the threat North Korea poses
