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Closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex looks almost unavoidable now, and that is by no means good news. Of course, inter-Korean cooperation projects like the complex are not the best means of persuading the North Korean leadership to reform and open up. But the complex, and package tours to Kaesong, provide opportunities for South and North Koreans to meet and work together. These spontaneous human exchanges show North Koreans the fabrications of their government better than anything else and naturally help them become critical of the system. In Kaesong, North Korean laborers learn modern technologies and production techniques, and that plays a preparatory role in the North's eventual economic recovery.
Objectively, therefore, the Kaesong Industrial Complex is far more dangerous to the North Korean dictatorship than dropping propaganda leaflets. If people who want democratization and economic rejuvenation in the North had to choose between sending leaflets and keeping the industrial park open, they would have chosen the latter. The problem is that we have not made that choice.
Given recent social trends in the North, the industrial complex is exceptional. The North Korean authorities have endeavored to prevent the economy from slipping into a free market since the mid-1990s and regain their grip, which weakened during the famine. The goal is the revival of the Stalinist society that existed in the Kim Il-sung era. There is a lot of evidence for that trend: the ration system restarting in 2005, and a ban on commercial activities by men in 2006 and by women under 50 years in 2007 are some of them. Reinforced border security and censorship send the same message. The exception is the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Now the North's threats suggest that the short history of the industrial park is likely to come to an end soon.
When the North Korean authorities threatened to close the industrial complex, they had two goals: to regain their grip domestically amid rumors that Kim Jong-il is gravely ill and to fight the threat posed to their ideology by the complex. Had South Korea continued to make concessions and give unconditional support to the North, as the Roh Moo-hyun administration did, the North might have continued to tolerate the complex for a while. But from the Lee Myung-bak administration Pyongyang can no longer expect such support. Now it has hopes that the Obama administration will be kindly disposed toward it, so the South no longer matters so much.
The North now shifts the blame to the South, citing the propaganda leaflets that activists here send across the border. But in truth the responsibility lies with those in power in the North, who regard greater cooperation and exchanges with the South as a threat to their privileges.
The North Korean strategists could have another aim. If the South stops the leaflets at some cost to the basic principle of democracy, the North will see the Kaesong Industrial Complex as a weak spot for the South and keep pressing on it, making increasingly more outrageous demands. And every concession from the South will invite only more pressures and threats.
The closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex would be very bad news. It would strengthen the North's murderous dictatorship and make the lives of the North Koreans more difficult. But seen from the perspective of North Korea, it's a very rational step.
The column was contributed by Andrei Lankov, a professor of history at Kookmin University.
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