Regime change in Pyongyang cannot be ruled out
North Korea’s unusual political stability will be tested by economic hardship, social change and external factors
Now in its 76th year, North Korea has the longest-lived of all communist regimes, past and present. Yet events beyond its borders mean that if the regime does not change its direction strains can only increase. Modern media, impossible to exclude entirely, mean Pyongyang no longer has a monopoly of socialisation to mould true believers. Knowledge that others elsewhere live better is widespread.
What next
Crackdowns on illicit South Korean media will not prevent South Korean culture seeping in, while North Korean living standards fall further behind. Tightening state control of the economy will worsen absolute poverty for the general population and relative deprivation for the elite -- the latter is especially dangerous -- while ever closer ties with China highlight a feasible alternative model that delivers prosperity. A coup backed or initiated by the military is a plausible scenario.
Subsidiary Impacts
- Kim’s death will be a moment of truth; his unhealthy lifestyle is a national security risk.
- Domestic factors are paramount, but outside actors -- especially Beijing -- will inevitably become involved in any unfolding scenario.
- North Korea will become ever more reliant on China, which might at some point involve itself in local politics.
Analysis
The North Korean regime has proved unusually durable, but it cannot be assumed that it will remain so. 'Collapse', a popular term since the fall of the Soviet Union and communist rule in eastern Europe, is unhelpfully vague. 'Regime change' or 'discontinuity' are more precise.
Two broad variants are conceivable:
- Supreme leader Kim Jong-un is removed or dies, leading to a new regime in a still extant and separate North Korea.
- Upheaval goes further and unification follows. Despite the German precedent, and some dreams in Seoul, this is highly unlikely in Korea.
Drivers of instability
Totalitarian control has wholly suppressed civil society. Even China does not approach North Korean levels of social control, except in Tibet and Xinjiang. North Korea has no known dissidents, no organised movement and no basis for forming one. Nonetheless, erosion of faith in the government among both elites and the general population means that contingencies could trigger political discontinuity. The regime is losing its grip on hearts and minds.
Youth disaffection is a game-changer
Material woes are the main potential driver of discontent, but it could also have political causes (eg, power struggles) or cultural-ideological ones -- for instance, craving South Korean media and resenting severe punishment for accessing them.
Much as ordinary North Koreans suffer, they are ill-placed to act -- literally, since most live outside Pyongyang. North Korea is mountainous, with bad roads and decrepit railways. This precludes any swift large-scale physical mobilisation, civilian or military.
Elites, though they have more to lose, are better placed. They have access to a mobile phone network with 6 million subscribers. Though strictly monitored and cut off from global networks, this is transformative in a top-down and heavily siloed society.
Uncertain precedents
Several past events offer pointers to future scenarios, though details are murky.
Assassination attempt?
In 2004, an explosion killed 54 people at Ryongchon station, near the Chinese border, hours after Kim Jong-il's train had passed through. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Pyongyang viewed this as an assassination attempt.
Military mutiny
The military's access to weapons makes it the likeliest initiator of any bid to change the status quo.
In 1995 or 1996 the Korean People's Army Sixth Corps, based in Chongjin in the north-east, planned a coup d'etat. It was discovered and quashed. This is the best attested of several alleged plots or mutinies, but even here the year is disputed.
Even if the military did not initiate a coup, its support would be crucial for any coup to succeed.
Popular unrest
A currency revaluation (in effect confiscation) in 2009 prompted widespread local-level protests. One-off incidents, such as graffiti and vandalising monuments, are also sporadically reported by unofficial media. In almost all cases details are lacking.
Given the risks involved, such actions suggest a level of anger that the plotters of a coup might hope to tap in a bid for popular support.
Health rumours
Kim's prolonged absence a year ago fed rumours that he was ill or even dead. He may have been hospitalised for a heart procedure (see NORTH KOREA: Kim health rumours reveal underrated risk - April 23, 2020).
Triggers
Three triggers in particular are plausible, and potentially overlap.
Kim dies
Although Kim's disappearance last year was a false alarm, his health is a concern. Were he to die or fall critically ill it is unclear who would hold the fort or succeed him. The regime's retreat from communism to quasi-monarchy complicates this, making the 'Paekdu bloodline' key to legitimacy. Kim's children are too young, and patriarchy may bar his sister Kim Yo-jong. A messy power struggle could ensue, pitting military hawks against reformers.
Militarists versus technocrats
Though overt factions are invisible, North Korea faces policy choices like any other country. Having initially signalled cautious reforms (a word still taboo in Pyongyang), Kim has more recently retreated. He now seeks to reassert state control over the economy -- a recipe for stagnation and poverty (see NORTH KOREA: Rare admission reveals economic strain - August 25, 2020).
His pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles is also very costly, both directly (because more guns mean less butter) and indirectly because it elicits crippling foreign sanctions.
Policy disagreements are invisible, but could well be intense
With much to lose, Pyongyang's nomenklatura are cautious, but if conditions worsen, some might grow desperate enough to attempt a coup. This could go either way, based on radically opposed concepts of what constitutes saving the nation:
- Reformers may want to disarm and re-join the world, or at least adopt the Chinese model.
- Diehards may see nuclear weapons and quasi-Stalinism as their sole guarantee of survival.
Chinese intervention
China -- North Korea's only ally, near-sole trade partner and bankroller -- might not initiate any plot, but would not stand by while events unfolded, especially if control were to become contested in Pyongyang.
Beijing wants a friendly, reliable buffer state on its borders. Kim's nuclear weapons activities are destabilising and his economic recidivism is exasperating, but these are far preferable to sharing a border with a unified Korea governed from Seoul, a US ally that hosts US troops.
Were Kim to die, China would seek to install a pliant client as his successor -- one without nuclear ambitions and seriously committed to economic development. Kim's fateful decision to rely solely on China, rebuffing South Korea, enables Beijing to impose its will once he is gone -- and potentially even before, should he prove a liability.
