Tag Archives: North Korea

April 12, 2017

Dr. Andre Schmid – Reflections By Juliana Pena

On Tuesday March 28th, Penn was visited by Professor Andre Schmid of the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Toronto. His talk was hosted by the Kim Program in Korean Studies as part of the Korean Studies Colloquium. Professor Schmid talk, entitled “Is There a North Korean History Without Kim Il Sung?” centered around his own doubts as a historian of North Korea of the possibility of studying North Korean history without the Kim family and propaganda. Through his research, Professor Schmid has focused in on the socio-economic and household issues within North Korean society- a contrast to the “Kim Regime” centric focus that is the focus of many historical texts of North Korea.

Professor Schmid pointed out that our understanding of North Korea is very much a reproduction of North Korean propaganda and contains an obsession for the Kim family. Although historians and critics alike admonish the North Korean leadership, we tend to have an odd satisfaction with North Korea’s bizarre behavior; even to the point that fake, absurd news regarding North Korea is seen as believable and accepted as just another odd thing done by the North Koreans.

For me, research such as Professor Schmid’s is essential to our understanding of North Korea, and to act as a catalyst for the changing dialogue about North Korea.  As Professor Schmid pointed out, research from North Korean scholars, in addition to journals, magazines, and other primary sources, are available and plentiful; and are just waiting to be used in research, to deepen our understanding of North Korean society. As a student of business, I found Professor Schmid’s analysis of North Korean consumption patterns fascinating, as I saw how, from analyzing magazines and catalogues, households changed from consuming for a purpose to “consumption for consumption’s sake”. The ability to track consumption patterns through primary sources, and derive connections to the changing power dynamics of the North Korean regime and local industrialists broadened my understanding of North Korea’s socio-economic development beyond what I have ever been able to find on my own.

Prior, I had a very narrow understanding of North Korean economics, relying on propaganda material and articles focusing on agriculture and food production; all heavily focused on the North Korean regime. Now, I have a better understanding of consumption and socio-economic conditions from the bottom of society – up.

March 31, 2017

Dr. Andre Schmid – Reflections by John G. Grisafi

Professor Andre Schmid, University of Toronto, spoke at Penn on Tuesday, March 28, hosted by the Kim Program in Korean Studies. Prof. Schmid’s talk was titled “Is There A North Korean History Without Kim Il Sung?” Schmid said the title is an essential question which captures a very real doubt that he has harbored for many years as a historian of North Korea.

Telling the history of North Korea is certainly no easy task. Schmid said he once though it too difficult to do a history of North Korea. There was likely too much propaganda, too much Kim Il Sung, and not enough sources. But now Schmid is writing a book on the history of North Korea, focusing on socio-economics and issues of domesticity. Schmid said that with this project, he is trying to prove wrong his own previous assumptions.

There is an analytical conundrum in the study of North Korea, said Schmid. Our histories have a paradoxical tendency to reproduce in North Korea’s own framework. Observers of North Korea are often stuck in a mode of analysis which owes much to North Korean propaganda and the categorical modes of Cold War thinking. People are often obsessed with Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un. We critique North Korea and its leadership cult, yet at the same time there is a pleasure taken in reveling at the bizarreness of North Korea. Schmid said it is bot much of an exaggeration to say that our histories of North Korea have pretty much become biographies of the three Kims. Even our periodization of North Korean history is based on their reigns. The nature and center of power in North Korea has become an a priori assumption.

Schmid discussed two examples of how to interpret North Korean history differently. His first example was the notion that North Korean subjects in the early years of North Korean history were unable to move freely or to “vote with their vote.” Officially, North Korean subjects could not choose where they lived in the 1950s and 1960s. This was presented by the state in terms of superior rationality of economic planning. But this was easier said than done. Planners found that the population was actually quite elusive. In reality, people made their own determinations about where they wanted to live, factory managers chose who they wanted to hire, despite the regulations that were on the books, revealing the limits of state power. 30 percent of workers in the industrial and transport sectors of the economy in 1959 had moved outside the restrictions of official plans. Schmid cautioned of the basic historian’s fallacy of taking intentions to be actual outcomes. Just because Kim Il Sung proclaimed something does not mean it was actually carried out.

The second example Schmid gave was consumption and material culture. Early discussion in North Korean literature of material culture is focused away from consumption and rationalized through linkage to practical purposes and goals, such as the various functions curtains fulfill in the home. The focus was away from any suggestion of consumption for consumption’s sake. But a few publications go through a change and begin to discuss ways of decorating homes and discuss objects and household items for their own sake. Photos were published which featured homes and objects without showing people in the rooms or even Kim Il Sung photos on the walls. Photos, even those with people, showed more objects and more aspects of consumption and concern for material culture than was previously the case. Some publications even featured articles and photos about fashion.

Too often we think of North Korean ideology as being completely homogenous and uniform and only coming from the top down. Publications, though, reveal that there were other sources that informed North Korean ideology aside from the top-level sources. North Korea has a socio-cultural world beyond that proliferated by the top-level sources. Even before the end of the Cold War and the opening of Soviet archives, historians in the West began to poke holes in previous interpretations of the Stalinist period through the totalitarian model. The way we understood Stalin and the Stalinist period in the 1950s is completely different than the way we understand them today. Schmid argues that we can ask questions and begin to poke holes in the way we have understood North Korea. We can move away from being locked in Cold War categories and rethink the way we historicize North Korea.

December 5, 2016

Divided Families Panel — by Elaine Lee

On Monday, November 21, Penn for Liberty in North Korea, Penn Korean Student Association, the Asian Law and Politics Society, and a non-governmental organization called Divided Families USA partnered to host an informational workshop on North Korean refugees: “Faces of the Divided Korea.” Numerous guest speakers formed a panel to engage in a discussion: Michael Lammbrau, founder of the Arirang Institute, Benjamin Silberstein, PhD candidate at Penn, and Daniel Lee, Korean Affairs Fellow of New York Representative Charles Rangel. The event began with a screening of a documentary on reunification of Korean families divided by the Korean War.

The documentary screening set the stage for discussion with the panelists, depicting heartbreaking separation of families and the difficulty of coordinating such reunifications due to absence of diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea. Recordings of live interviews with reunited family members humanized the tragedy of family separation, showing the many difficulties not just in coordinating such reunifications and obtaining the funding for travel, but also in identifying actual family members and confirming that the right people were being set up to meet. The documentary also stressed the pressures of time in reunifying as many family members as possible, because many of those who were separated from their loved ones have significantly aged since the Korean War, which ended in 1953. Most importantly, the documentary revealed that there has been significant activism within the United States among Korean Americans, who care deeply about reunification of Korean families, have been working hard to secure funding for travel, and lobby their governments to pass a bill that would stress the humanitarian significance of working toward reuniting divided families.

The remainder of the event focused on raising awareness about H.Con.Res.40, a bill pushed forth by Divided Families USA. Daniel Lee moderated the discussion, as he is currently working in Washington, D.C. to supervise passage of the bill. Lee stressed the bipartisan and humanitarian aspects of the bill in the hopes that lack of contentiousness should ease the passing of the resolution and expedite reunification efforts, especially since the number of Korean Americans who have yet to reunite with their families in North Korea are declining rapidly. While questions from the audience raised concerns about actual enactment and engagement with North Korea, Lee emphasized the immediate need to first pass the bill through the House before any further steps.

Placing this issue of Korean family reunification in an international context, the speakers noted that humanitarian reunions of this sort can have implications for other refugee issues that the United States will need to address in future foreign policy. Not just a Korea issue, reunion of families remains a basic universal right, recognized by the United Nations. The most effective ways to address this moving forward are increased advocacy and awareness of both humanitarian issues in North Korea and the lack of support for reuniting Korean families, and mobilizing Korean-American interest to lobby Congress. Additionally, Lee stated that another next step would be to secure moderators for future reunions.

November 1, 2016

North Korea Roundtable – Reflections by John Grisafi

The James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies hosted a roundtable titled “Missiles, Nukes, Markets, Madman?: North Korea in 2016” on Wednesday, October 12, 2016.

The North Korea Roundtable panel, “Missiles, Nukes, Markets, Madman?,” discussed recent developments regarding North Korea in 2016 and the major issues in the larger topic of dealing with North Korea as a persistent and growing power which is considered a threat by some. The three panelists were Hyun-binn Cho (PhD candidate in Political Science and lecturer of “Introduction to International Relations” at Penn), Benjamin Katzeff-Silberstein (PhD candidate in History and co-editor of North Korean Economy Watch) and myself, John Grisafi (double-major in East Asian Languages & Civilizations and History at Penn and intelligence director at NK News; also this author). The panelists each covered a subject pertaining to North Korea in the big picture and in 2016 specifically.

Hyun-binn Cho began with “The North Korean Nuclear Conundrum,” explaining the international relations of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. According to Cho, the North Korean desire for nuclear weapons is – as with all potential proliferation cases – symptomatic of underlying security concerns, but differs in that there is an underlying political tension. North Korea, with or without nuclear weapons, will not accept existence as an inferior regime. According to Cho, the North Korean conundrum is fundamentally about a nation’s political division and ongoing war and getting rid of nuclear weapons will not eliminate North Korea’s significant conventional military forces, which have served as a deterrent to the South for decades.

I (John Grisafi) discussed “A More Credible Deterrent,” detailing the advancements North Korea has made in the past year on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. I explained how North Korea, over the past year (and more) has made meaningful advancements in the area of nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development. The country has tested previously untested missiles, potentially furthering its military reach and extending the coverage of its deterrent. Additionally, North Korea has developed more diverse weapon systems, making it more difficult for adversaries to counter or preempt the North’s nuclear forces, even making progress on developing a second-strike capability, which could someday allow North Korean nuclear forces to survive even a seemingly comprehensive preemptive strike against the country. Taken together with the North’s claims of  testing a “standardized warhead” this year, North Korea is making clear progress toward a more capable and credible deterrent force.

Finally, Ben Katzeff-Silberstein presented on “Why North Korea Is Not as Poor as You (might) Think,” explaining the current economic situation in North Korea and the minimal effectiveness of sanctions. According to Katzeff-Silberstein, the North Korean economy has been far less impacted by international sanctions than anticipated. The amount of trade with China through the Dandong-Sinuiji border crossing (where the greatest volume of Chinese-North Korean trade passes) remains almost unchanged since before sanctions were applied following the January 2016 nuclear test.

The general consensus of the panel can be understood to be that North Korea is more resilient and resourceful than expected. North Korea has not collapsed as many have been predicting for years. Conversely, North Korea is making progress on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles faster than anticipated. Defying expectations is the norm for North Korea.