On January 1st, 2011, North Korea announced a joint New Year’s editorial under the title of “Let’s achieve a decisive turnaround under the banner of improving people’s livelihoods and building a powerful and prosperous nation by spurring the development of light industry again this year.” The customary New Year’s editorial lays out North Korea’s major domestic and foreign policy guidelines in the coming year. North Korea’s founding father Kim Il-sung directly announced his New Year’s message until his death in 1994. Since 1995, the nation’s official New Year’s message has been announced every year in the form of a joint editorial by three major newspapers, representing the Workers’ Party, the army and the youth military. What is the main focus of this year’s joint editorial? Here’s Jeong Seong-jang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute to explain.

Most conspicuously, North Korea is putting great emphasis on light industry in this year’s New Year’s editorial. The phrase “light industry” appeared just once in the 2009 New Year’s message, but this year, the North mentions the phrase as many as 21 times. For the first time, it appears much more frequently than “seongun” or military-first policy, which was slightly reduced to 14 mentions. This unusual change implies that North Korea puts top priority on the development of light industry and the improvement of public livelihood when it comes to its domestic policy. It is necessary for the North Korean leadership to raise people’s quality of life in order to win support from the general public for a power succession to heir apparent Kim Jong-un. The unprecedented emphasis on light industry and people’s lives can be explained in this context.

Although the editorial did not directly mention Kim Jong-un, it noted that there was a political occasion to celebrate last year and that the nation continued to lay out the groundwork for revolution. No doubt, this indicates that Kim Jong-un was promoted to the rank of four-star general and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party during a party convention last year, setting the stage for an official a third-generation power transfer. The editorial also highlights the term, “CNC,” referring to computer numerical control technology, as one of Kim Jong-un’s representative economic achievements. In addition, it reiterates the “party-first” principle, in which a more solid party leadership should be established in all areas. This suggests that the party will take the lead in completing the third generation power shift. Also notably, the editorial says that confrontation between North and South Korea should be defused as early as possible. Although the North continues its nuclear threats, it is worth noting that Pyongyang still expresses willingness for dialogue with Seoul.

To improve people’s lives inside the nation, North Korea needs to ease tension outside the nation. Only when it improves relations with South Korea and the U.S., will other countries provide aid to the North. In particular, it is essential for North Korea to receive humanitarian aid from the South in order to make visible economic achievements recognized by the people. That is why the North proposes to resume authorities-level dialogue in this year’s New Year’s editorial, despite the fact that the two sides went as far as taking to a military clash last year. Pyongyang’s biggest goal for this year is to produce some positive results in light industry and within people’s livelihoods, so the communist nation is expected to refrain from any provocative act to heighten tension. I guess inter-Korean tension could be eased to some extent, unless there are unexpected variables.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak announced his New Year’s address on January 3rd and pledged to focus on security and the economy. Lee stressed the need for solid national security, saying that South Korea cannot let North Korea covet even an inch of its territory. Lee urged North Korea to give up its nuclear and military brinkmanship, while reiterating that Seoul’s measures for ordinary North Korean citizens will be different from those for its leadership. But he said that the door for dialogue with North Korea still remains open and that the South is willing to cooperate if the North shows sincerity. Based on the president’s remarks, some present a positive outlook for inter-Korean ties this year, citing the possibility that South and North Korea may even return to the dialogue phase.

President Lee’s comments are considered a reply to North Korea’s New Year’s editorial. In regards to the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue, the North sent the ball into Seoul’s court, and South Korea sent it back to North Korea’s court. It won’t be easy to resume dialogue this year, though, unless either the North or the South makes the first move toward dialogue. The China-U.S. summit will take place this month. If the summit makes some progress in the resumption of the six-party nuclear talks, and if the multilateral negotiations actually reconvene to produce results in North Korea’s denuclearization, the positive mood could serve as a driving force for facilitating inter-Korean dialogue.

Some experts predict that the six-party talks, which have been deadlocked for more than two years since December 2008, will top the diplomatic agenda in Northeast Asia this year. China has considered itself to be the chief mediator in the six-party talks, but discussions over the resumption of the nuclear negotiations have made little progress because Beijing overlooked North Korea’s responsibility for armed provocations against the South. As North Korea has recently brandished the nuclear card once again, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. have agreed on the need for reactivating the six-party talks. The U.S., in particular, finds it urgent to manage the security conditions on the Korean Peninsula in a more stable manner. For Washington, it’s time to seek an exit strategy to get out of the North Korean nuclear crisis.

The U.S. expresses deep concern over North Korea’s uranium enrichment facility. Given Washington’s interests, among others, the six-party talks could resume. If the six-party talks prove productive, and if North Korea-U.S. relations improve, the two Koreas could restart dialogue. In some circumstances, we can even envision a possibility of an inter-Korean summit. If the outside world isolates North Korea and seeks to resolve problems through sanctions, the reclusive North may resort to even more extreme means, as seen in its nuclear tests and test-launch of a long-range missile in the past. It’s necessary to engage in dialogue with North Korea to persuade the belligerent nation to refrain from military adventurism. Pyongyang, for its part, must realize that its military brinkmanship will only isolate the regime further and have an adverse impact on the stable power transition, which the North desperately wants. North Korea needs to change its old policy in order to build cooperative relations with neighboring countries.

Peace on the Korean Peninsula and better relations between South and North Korea are, no doubt, deeply-rooted hopes among South Korean people. Now that both Koreas have expressed hopes for creating a mood for dialogue in their respective New Year’s messages, the two sides should be more committed to restoring bilateral ties through dialogue and cooperation this year.


[Interview] Defector Finds New Life as Restaurant Owner A Chinese restaurant located in Gwangmyeong City, Gyeonggi Province, is flooded with telephone orders. The restaurant, named “China Castle,” looks like an ordinary Chinese eatery on the surface. But this is where former North Korean defector Geum Jeong-suk started her second life. It is said that monthly sales for this popular restaurant exceed 25 million won, or 21-thousand US dollars. Let’s meet with Ms. Geum.

My first job in South Korea was a clerk behind the counter at a Chinese restaurant. I found myself hoping to run my own restaurant, although I had no experience in that area. So I opened a Chinese restaurant on January 6, 2009. I’ve worked really hard for the last two years and the business turned out well. I saw monthly sales amounting up to 30 million won, but these days, 25 million won on average. I’ve been working so hard so that I can enjoy success today.

Geum escaped North Korea in July of 2002. After hearing that her father, a South Korean prisoner of war who was taken to a North Korean concentration camp in 1969, was still alive in South Korea, she entered China through the border along the Aprok River to confirm the rumor. But she couldn’t locate her father, and she tried to return to North Korea. But because of border security reinforcements, she had no option but to become a defector overnight. She had since wandered around China. Fortunately, with the help of her acquaintance, she was able to meet a half brother who had been born to her father in South Korea before the Korean War. And she decided to defect to South Korea.

After completing the training course at Hanawon, a resettlement center for North Korean newcomers, she happened to see a want ad on the street and went to a Chinese restaurant. That was her first workplace in South Korea. She worked furiously from 6:30 a.m. to 4 a.m. the next morning to earn money. In two years, she finally realized her dream of opening her own Chinese restaurant. Ms. Geum says she finds her life fun and meaningful since she gets paid for the work done, in contrast to North Korea where she made little progress no matter how hard she worked. Geum now expresses her New Year’s wish.

I crossed the border into China, thinking that my father had come back to South KoreaMy challenge will start in 2011. Running a Chinese restaurant is only part of efforts to accommodate myself to a new South Korean life. I hope I can develop a more sophisticated food culture by making the most of food items found both in South and North Korea. Upon tasting South Korean food first, I instinctively realized this was what I could do. In other words, as soon as I set foot on South Korean soil, I hit upon an idea of what I should do. My plan is to jump into the home shopping business. I’ll try hard until South Korean consumers come to love my food. I’m even dreaming of globalizing my cuisine.