KOREA

BEN ANDERSON, BBC reporter, January 17, 2003
CZIKOWSKY: What are the living conditions of the people in North Korea? Is there anything that can be done to improve these conditions without complicating matters within the political realm?
ANDERSON: There are many parallels with Cuba. People are industrious and find incredible ways to survive. So you see lives of real inconvenience—such as having no fuel. So that’s why it hasn’t collapsed yet, because they find ways to survive. People are working incredibly to overcome the inconveniences.
The one thing that really struck me is that we were taken to a coop farm and many died during the famine. I think they need aid from the outside world. There isn’t much they can sell, save for booster missiles. If there is a drought or flood, they’ve got no safety net. It’s difficult to make sure it’s dispersed properly, too. And to give it to Kim Jung II without him losing face and looking a charity case.
The food has a big U.S. symbol on the side and cover that with plaster immediately. But he can’t admit the slightest failure, it is very hard. You have to look to him for some kind of compromise.
He allowed some reforms—part of the World Cup to be shown, for example.

MARTIN SMITH, Producer, “Frontline”, April 11, 2003
CZIKOWSKY: It seems North Korea has been willing to negotiate terms that keep it from developing nuclear weapons—yet, they realize they can get bought off for doing so. Do you feel negotiations can continue to keep North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, and, if so, at what point should we agree to stop paying them for making threats?
SMITH: I think that negotiations should go forward, and we should look for any agreement where there can be verification. I believe that’s the consensus approach of people who’ve dealt with North Korea over the years.
As far as payoffs, diplomacy is and always has been a matter of give and take. Demanding that North Korea do something when there are no benefits for this is probably doomed to failure.

ANTHONY FAIOLA, Washington Post Foreign Service, November 25, 2003
CZIKOWSKY: Did you get the impression that the people being interviewed were briefed, prior to the interviews (of people in North Korea), on what they should say and what they could not say?
FAIOLA: Absolutely, many answers were identical despite the fact that the people being interviewed were in different areas and had different positions. But sometimes, I was surprised by the candor and curiosity of the North Koreans—especially their desire to know about U.S. politics.
CZIKOWSKY: Presumably, most people in North Korea have never been in South Korea. Do you believe they have a good understanding of what life is like in South Korea, or are facts hidden from them?
FAIOLA: No, I don’t think they have a good idea of what life is like in the South, although interviews I have done with defectors who have gotten out of the North through China indicate that news is filtering through, albeit slowly.

GEORGE PERKOVICH, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 22, 2005
CZIKOWSKY: What was the administration thinking when they deliberately lied about North Korea selling its nuclear technology? Did they think it was worth a few debate points versus ultimately being exposed for providing incorrect information? Hasn’t this undermined our ability to convince the rest of the world of the trustworthiness of our word?
PERKOVICH: I don’t know what they were thinking, and they are very smart people. It is damaging to credibility, as many people around the world think the U.S. is giving Pakistan a pass, while coming down very hard on other countries whose “sins” are perhaps not as great as Pakistan’s. The Administration’s effort to obscure the Pakistan connection in the briefing it gave about North Korea’s export of uranium haxaflouride is the latest example. Not a good move.

SELIG HARRISON, Center for International Policy Asia Program Director, June 10, 2005
CZIKOWSKY: There seems to be a campaign to portray the North Korean government as irrational. Do you perceive the North Korean government as acting rationally? If so, are the North Korean officials aware of their image within our country, and, if so, do they care?
HARRISON: I believe that North Korea’s perceptions of a security threat by the U.S. are rational based on the fact that the U.S. has staged a pre-emptive war in Iraq in order to achieve regime change. Regarding North Korea’s perception of its image in other countries, the regime is very insular, with only a handful of officials who have had overseas exposure in-depth. However, the regime is beginning to understand the importance of public opinion in the West as demonstrated by its decision to admit an ABC news team this week.

DANA PRIEST, Washington Post Staff Writer, July 6, 2006
CZIKOWSKY: I know the North Korean long range missile was not shot down. Yet, is it possible that someone could have tested with it in some fashion that could have assisted in its failure?
PRIEST: Well, it might be possible, but I don’t think that’s what happened. It fell into the sea after 40 seconds so there would not have been any time to try to shoot it down. What missile experts and the White House mainly learned about this is that the North’s missile capability is, as former UN inspector David Kay put it: Not ready for prime time. That should buy a little time and relieve a little angst about all this because even if they do have bad intentions, they aren’t able to act on them with the Taepodong-2.

JUNG SUNG SAN, director, October 3, 2006
CZIKOWSKY: Before your story (“Yoduk Story”), I have not seen much written about North Korean prisons since John McCain’s description of what he went through in a military prison. Do you recommend some good resources that will tell more about the conditions of North Korean prisons?
SAN: Yes, there is Kang Cheol Hwan’s “Aquariums in Pyongyang”. This book has been translated into English. In Korean, there is a book written by An Myung Chul called “They Are Crying”. Another defector, An Hyuk, wrote a book called “Yoduk List”. Defector Lee Young Gook and his book, “I Was Kim Jung Il’s Bodyguard”.
If you read these books, they give detailed descriptions of North Korean prison camps.

DAVID KANG, Dartmouth College Government Professor, June 27, 2008
CZIKOWSKY: The American media has portrayed Korea as a country with a lunatic leader, but doesn’t their government operate more rationally than the public is led to believe? I ask because I believe there is hope that we can focus negotiations on rational choices and discussions, as we see a first step recently was reached.
KANG: The view of North Koreans (and leader Kim Jong-Il in particular) as being crazy or irrational is a common one, but few policy analysts or academics believe this to be true. We have a fair amount of evidence that Kim is quite rational, after all, he he has held power for 14 years in an environment that requires great skill to manage all the palace politics and external pressures.
I would make the point that North Korean negotiating behavior is fairly predictable: they meet pressure with pressure of their own; and increasing pressure rarely makes the North Koreans back down, but instead they ratchet up their own pressure. We have made real progress in the past year or two by realizing that both sides distrust each other intensely, and that only small steps by both sides can move us in the right direction.
CZIKOWSKY: What are China’s feelings towards having an all—yet still in independent nation—in North Korea as it builds nuclear weapons: How well does the Chinese government trust the North Korean government, and especially the future succession of North Korean governments?
KANG: China has very mixed feelings about North Korea. While they remain North Korea’s closet “ally”, relations between the two countries have never been that close. North Koreans tend to feel that China pushes them around and views North Korea as a vassal; China feels North Korea is a troublesome neighbor that is potentially a real problem. However, their relations are fairly close, and Kim Jong-Il has travelled numerous times to China, most recently in 2006. China is nudging North Korea to follow the Chinese path or economic reform and opening, which they believe is the best path for North Korea to follow. There is also the problem of refugees and economic relations—the Chinese are vigorously supporting economic relations across their border, which has led to some South Korean suspicion that Chin has designs on North Korea or its territory.
China, and South Korea, are quite concerned about the negative effect that an economic or political collapse in North Korean could have on their own countries. China has no desire for hundreds of thousands of North Koreans refugees flooding over the border in China, so they view North Korean reform as in their own interests.