China’s Evolving Policy towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under Xi Jinping

Despite international pressure to condemn North Korea (DPRK), China’s successive leaderships have dealt carefully with Pyongyang, especially vis-à-vis its nuclear weapons program. This moderate stance reflects the two countries’ decades-long relationship, summarised in the Chinese idiom that Pyongyang and Beijing are “as close as lips and teeth”. Nevertheless, the DPRK’s third nuclear test in February 2013 raised enormous challenges for the new Xi Jinping leadership to maintain the previous DPRK policy focused on the status quo and stability on the Korean Peninsula. China’s attitudes and policies towards the DPRK after the provocative third test signified a possible reorientation of Beijing’s DPRK policy. This generated repercussions in the countries concerned and prompted debates among experts. This article asks how these events should be understood and what their implications are for the Xi leadership’s policy on the DPRK, the stability of the Korean Peninsula, and Northeast Asia. Given China’s competitive relations with other major powers, we conclude that the Xi leadership will not abandon the DPRK; indeed it will reinforce the policy of strengthening China’s influence over it. Nonetheless one aspect of doing so will involve China opening up to other – cooperative, multilateral – approaches to reinforcing stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.     

Cultural policies for national music in South and North Korea (1960s–70s): a comparative study

ABSTRACT

This article is a comparative study of the cultural policies of North Korea (DPRK) and South Korea (ROK) in the 1960s and 1970s, specifically concerning the disciple of music. In this period, both South and North Korean regimes demonstrated similar conceptualisations of ‘national music’, harmonising Korean traditional music with western musical styles, but the end result differed in the two regimes. The DPRK developed national music through a homogenised musical style by assimilating Korean folk music with a western musical style while excluding traditional court music, with drastic modifications to traditional instruments and musical forms. In contrast, the ROK’s policy on establishing national music resulted in a combination of traditional court music for the ruling class and western classical music, indicating elitism. Particularly, this article argues that these distinct features of their national music were the result of differences in the strength and interest of government officials between the regimes.     

North Korea’s participation in the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights

North Korea’s participation in the UNHRC’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)—a peer review in which states make recommendations to one another for improving human rights implementation—is a notable exception to its rejection of other human rights mechanisms. What explains North Korea’s willing participation in the UPR? This essay analyses North Korea’s participation in the first (2008–11) and second (2012–15) UPR cycles through its written submissions, responses to recommendations, and recommendations to other states. It finds that North Korea has consistently accepted weak recommendations, rejected more specific policy changes, and implemented accepted recommendations on a limited basis, allowing it to claim compliance with human rights at minimal cost. The UPR’s reliance on states’ self-reports and its inability to adjudicate competing factual claims allow North Korea to reject claims of egregious abuses, openly advocate for a radically state-centric vision of human rights, and challenge the legitimacy of human rights mechanisms like the Commission of Inquiry and Special Rapporteur while building support from other states with similar views. Notably, the Commission of Inquiry appears to have motivated North Korea to increase its cooperation with the UPR, demonstrating that the UPR complements but cannot replace other UN human rights mechanisms.     

1954—1961年朝鲜实习生来沪培训述论

朝鲜战争后,根据中朝双方签订的经济及文化合作协定,大批朝鲜实习生于1954—1961年来到中国接受培训。中国有关部门、上海各实习工厂自上而下地构建起相应的组织管理体系,为朝鲜实习生顺利完成培训任务创造了良好的条件,并在日常生活方面对他们给予了周到细致的照顾,探索建立了一套行之有效的培训体系,使朝鲜实习生回国时大多具备了一定的专业技术能力,有的还在某些领域取得了突出的成绩,为朝鲜国民经济的恢复和发展培养了不可或缺的技术人才。     

A chronic protection problem: the DPRK and the Responsibility to Protect

The Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) is arguably the world's most chronic abuser of human rights. In an unprecedented move, a Commission of Inquiry established by the UN's Human Rights Council accused the DPRK government of systematic violations of human rights amounting to crimes against humanity. In so doing, the Commission succeeded in putting human rights in the DPRK on the global agenda. Within months the UN's General Assembly and Security Council had joined the human rights body in examining the issue. This article explains the emergence of this new engagement with human rights in the DPRK, showing its relation to the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ principle. It charts the growing sense of frustration felt at the lack of progress on human rights in DPRK and shows how this was manifested in the General Assembly's decision to pursue the Commission's recommendations and call on the Security Council to take concrete steps. Despite this, however, the article shows that there are powerful obstacles in the way of a more robust international approach to human rights in the DPRK and counsels a less confrontational approach focused on engaging China and building trust within the Security Council.     

‘Red on White’: Kim Il Sung,Park Chung Hee,and the Failure of Korea’s Reunification, 1971–1973

The articles argues that in 1971–1973 North Korea’s leader Kim Il Sung used the Sino-American rapprochement and the Soviet-American détente to pursue Korean reunification on his terms; his aim was to ‘democratize’ and then ‘revolutionize’ South Korea and so achieve through dialogue what he failed to achieve through militancy. Kim’s game was based on a misreading of the political dynamics in South Korea and on misplaced confidence in North Korea’s attractiveness. He also misjudged his ability to obtain China’s and the USSR’s backing for his schemes.     

The political economy of economic reform in North Korea

For over 10 years, North Korea has undergone a severe economic crisis, including food shortages, which has inflicted great suffering upon the North Korean people. Given such dire realities, it is beyond all doubt that the North Korean government should actively carry out comprehensive economic reforms as quickly as possible which aim to transform North Korea's present inefficient socialist planned economic system into a market economic system. Many argue that such reforms would give rise to successful economic growth in North Korea, which could enhance the legitimacy of the North Korean regime. Yet, the North Korean regime has consistently avoided implementing economic reforms, even though it has had a number of opportunities to do so. The July 1st reforms, which were introduced in 2002, have been half-hearted and inconsistently applied. This then raises an important question: Why has the North Korean government avoided adopting comprehensive economic reforms? In other words, what is the crucial barrier that has hindered North Korea's implementation of economic reforms? This article pinpoints North Korea's unique political system—i.e. its monolithic system of political control and policy making which exhibits the highest level of power concentration in one individual among all political systems—as the biggest barrier to economic reforms. No doubt North Korea desperately needs comprehensive economic reforms, in light of its economic crisis and food shortages. Nonetheless, the current North Korean regime has avoided adopting such reforms since they will undermine North Korea's monolithic system. In conclusion, North Korea's monolithic system has been the biggest obstacle to North Korea's economic reforms.     

South Korea’s North Korean Image Problem: Human Rights under the Spotlight

ABSTRACT

The 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (UN COI) had a decisive impact on South Korea’s approach to North Korea’s human rights abuses in the several years following its release. This article interprets moves within South Korea to support the UN COI’s recommendations as taken in the interests of ontological security, or a stable sense of identity, which has also driven the state’s broader initiatives on image management and nation branding. It extends the boundaries of nation-branding research by considering why and how a state may adopt policies that enhance its moral visibility and reputation in world affairs. It considers how a positive reputation is enhanced by demonstrating good international citizenship, promoting the visibility of state identity parameters beyond its culture and core industries. This article interprets the South Korean government’s efforts to act on North Korean human rights following the UN COI, as well as the significance of being seen to be doing so at home and abroad as security-giving behaviour asserting its moral authority in relation to North Korea. It explores how a longstanding policy of relative silence on North Korea’s human rights record acceded to identity-driven pressures arising from the UN COI and influencing South Korea’s international image-management strategy between 2014 and 2017.     

Neo‐Colonialism in South–South Relations? The Case of China and North Korea

The past decade has seen the rapid expansion of economic ties between China and North Korea, leading to questions of whether this emerging relationship resembles neo‐colonialism or a more positive form of South–South cooperation. This article argues that China's engagement is driven in the first instance by strategic considerations, namely the maintenance of the geopolitical status quo on the Korean peninsula. However, North Korea has also become increasingly important in terms of Beijing's aims of revitalizing its north‐eastern region, and as such, economic relations are becoming increasingly market‐led. Although this mode of engagement bears similarities with China's engagement elsewhere in the developing world, North Korea's catastrophic economic decline in the 1990s largely preceded the more recent revival of relations with China. We argue therefore that bilateral relations between the two countries cannot usefully be regarded as ‘neo‐colonial’ since North Korea is receiving much needed trade and investment from China within the context of broader international isolation. As such, we suggest that more attention needs to be paid to how geopolitical specificities influence the manner in which South–South cooperation shapes the possibilities of development, and that the dichotomous terrain of the existing debate between optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints is unhelpful.     

朝鲜民族共产主义者在中国东北抗日斗争中的地位和贡献

自1910年朝鲜被日本强制"合并"以来,朝鲜爱国志士纷纷来到中国东北地区,继续坚持抗日民族革命斗争。1930年以来,朝鲜民族共产主义者根据共产国际"一国一党"的组织原则,大多加入中国共产党,在我党的统一领导下,肩负着"双重革命使命",与各族人民紧密团结在一起,进行了英勇顽强的抗日武装斗争。朝鲜民族共产主义者以其特殊的身份和地位,在中国东北抗日武装斗争中作出了突出的贡献,并逐步形成了以金日成为首的朝鲜共产主义运动的领导核心力量。这段历史是中国东北抗日革命史的一部分,是朝鲜抗日民族解放斗争史的主要内容,而且是现代中朝友谊史的光辉篇章。     

Is gender inequality a barrier to realizing fertility intentions? Fertility aspirations and realizations in South Korea

Research highlights the emergence of national low fertility regimes and the importance of understanding how institutional gender inequity supports low fertility. In South Korea, where gender inequality is high and a national low fertility regime exists, many women express a desire for two children but bear one child. Does gender equity, particularly within the household, influence the realization of fertility desires within the context of institutional inequality? Using the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women &; Families, in this paper, I test the effect of gender equity within the family on second births. Evaluating a subsample of married women with one child who desire a second child, I find that women’s gender role attitudes, husbands’ housework and women’s responsibility for children’s education influence the likelihood of realizing a second birth. Results highlight the importance of men’s household contributions and women’s educational responsibilities on the realization of fertility intentions within low fertility regimes.     

Explaining North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions: Power and Position on the Korean Peninsula

The USA has long called for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of North Korea. But is this a realistic policy option? In order to address this question, a broader question needs to be answered: What are the primary drivers of North Korea’s interest in nuclear weapons? Most answers to this question take one of two basic positions. ‘Doves’, on the one hand, see North Korea developing nuclear weapons because of the threatening foreign policies of the USA and South Korea. ‘Hawks’, on the other hand, see North Korean nuclear development as driven by factors internal to the North Korean regime, inherent in its personality. The author examines these two arguments against the evidence and finds them both wanting. In contrast, he puts forth an alternative argument focused on the power of the global hegemon, the USA, and its position on the Korean Peninsula. This power and positional alternative is shown to be better reflected in the evidence presented.     

Outside the Economy: Women’s Work and Feminist Economics in the Construction and Critique of National Income Accounting

Concerns about women’s work were present at the advent of the modern method of national income accounting, and they have featured prominently in the most radical critiques of this method. During and after the Second World War, Phyllis Deane, a young researcher working under the supervision of Richard Stone, Austin Robinson and Arthur Lewis, grappled with the conceptual difficulties involved in measuring the ‘national’ incomes of mostly rural subsistence colonies in British central Africa. In constructing her estimates, Deane relied heavily on a multidisciplinary survey of nutrition conducted in interwar Nyasaland. Deane’s work was essentially an exercise in reductionism and bounding; she sought to extract from these data a single monetary estimate of production. Yet Deane also proved unwilling to exclude too much. She broke with her advisors’ favoured convention that activities not involved in market exchange should be excluded from the national income. Successive national income accountants around the world would reach disparate conclusions on method, particularly on the question of the ‘production boundary’—that is, the dividing line between those productive activities that would be included in the national income and those that would not. This issue became most contentious in the sphere of ‘non-monetary’ or ‘subsistence’ production performed mostly by female producers. While some statisticians included firewood collection, beer brewing and cooking, many others thought such activities beyond the bounds of ‘the economy’. Early decisions about the status of non-monetary production influenced the international standards enshrined in the United Nations System of National Accounts, first published in 1953. Beginning in the 1970s, second-wave feminists criticised the invisibility of women’s work in national income estimates. These critiques helped spur the inclusion of non-monetary activities in the accounts of many nations. Yet by the 1990s, many feminist critics—most notably New Zealand-born political economist Marilyn Waring—sought to move beyond GDP as a measure of welfare. These feminists called instead for greater reliance on measures such as the Human Development Index and time-use surveys. These measures may have appeared new, but they required the same multidisciplinary and intensive methods as Nyasaland’s interwar nutrition survey, which had served as the substrate for the earliest calculation of a ‘colonial national’ income. Drawing upon archives in the United Kingdom, Malawi and the United States, this paper argues that feminist economists and women’s work were central to both the post-war construction and the late-twentieth century critique of national income.     

十月革命前俄国对朝鲜移民的政策探析

1864年俄国远东地区出现了第一批朝鲜移民,此后,朝鲜人由于经济、政治等原因纷纷从海路、陆路向俄国移民。俄国对朝鲜移民的政策不仅受国家发展战略的影响,更受近代国际关系的制约。俄国对早期朝鲜移民的安置虽然遭到了朝鲜政府的谴责,俄国也担心边区被"朝鲜化",但为了开发广袤的远东,仍然对朝鲜移民采取了鼓励和支持的政策。此后,在东北亚各国力量此消彼长,以及世界大战爆发等国际关系因素的影响下,俄国对朝鲜移民的政策几经调整。其政策的变化体现了俄国以国家利益为中轴,相机而动的现实主义特性。     

Changing trends in international marriages between Korean men and Southeast Asian women, 1993–2013

Korea witnessed a large increase in the fraction of men marrying spouses from Southeast Asia. In the 1990s, about one per cent of Korean men’s new marriages were to Southeast Asian women but by 2005, this increased to over nine per cent with even higher rates in rural areas. With the use of a logit model and Marriage Register data from 1993–2013, the determinants of international marriages are explored using a more rigorous approach and over a longer period of observation compared to previous studies. Older Korean men with lower socioeconomic status were more likely to marry a woman from Southeast Asia (compared to a fellow Korean). The predictors of international marriage differed depending on the wife’s birth country: if the wife had some college education there was a higher probability of marriage to a Filipino woman, but less likely to a woman from China or Vietnam, compared to marriage to a Korean woman. Finally, over the past two decades the education level, age at marriage, and country of origin of the foreign wives have changed substantially. The data shows fewer women migrating from China (of which about 70% are ethnically Korean), and a rising number from Vietnam. This ‘marriage migration’ has implications for the demographics, ethnicity, and occupational composition of those living in Korea.     

Transposition in Japanese state identities: overseas troop dispatches and the emergence of a humanitarian power?

This article aims to illustrate the trajectory of Japan's security identity transposition. As one of the catalysts in identity transposition, it focuses on the constitutive roles of norms regulating Japan's overseas dispatches of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF). Whilst keeping the identities of ‘a peace state’ and ‘a civilian power’, the authors argue that Japan has crafted a new security identity after the end of the cold war and the 9/11 terrorist attacks—namely, ‘an international humanitarian power’. As evidence of this transposition, the authors illustrate a dramatic increase in the number of overseas SDF dispatches on humanitarian missions, and the shift of domestic and foreign responses to it. The authors note that Japan has been on the road to remilitarisation and internationalisation during the past four decades through the enactments of laws for overseas SDF dispatches, the general public's shift of attitude on the SDF's roles, the evolution of the alliance in a more operational direction, and the creation of threats from North Korea and China. Lastly, the authors argue that there is still a long way to go before Japan emerges as a normal state because of the presence of many domestic and structural barriers, especially multiple identities defining the Japanese state.     

The China factor in the US–South Korea alliance: the perceived usefulness of China in the Korean Peninsula

Over the past 10 years, South Korea has chosen inconsistent strategies with respect to the US–South Korea alliance. On the one hand, Seoul disagreed with Washington about the extended role of United States Forces Korea and the deployment of US missile defence systems in East Asia. On the other hand, these problems ironically coincided with South Korea's strong support for the USA in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. What explains the inconsistency of South Korea's alliance policies? Major schools of thought in international relations have offered explanations, but their analyses are deficient and indeterminate. This article looks at the South Korea–China–North Korea triangle as a new approach to explaining the puzzling behaviour of South Korea. The model shows that South Korea's alliance policies are driven by two causal variables. First, North Korea is an impelling force for South Korea to remain as a strong US alliance partner. This encourages Seoul to maintain cooperation with Washington in wide-ranging alliance tasks. Second, South Korea's policies are likely to reflect the way the nation perceives how useful China is in taming North Korea. The perceived usefulness of China causes Seoul to accommodate China and decrease cooperation with the USA. This might strain the relationship with the USA should South Korea evade alliance missions that might run contrary to China's security interests.     

North Korea and Zimbabwe, 1978–1982: from the strategic alliance to the symbolic comradeship between Kim Il Sung and Robert Mugabe

This article provides an explanation for North Korea-Zimbabwe bilateral relations from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, in the context of Cold War in the Third World. Supporting the military resistance of African nations, North Korea sought to gain its dominance over South Korea in the diplomatic war between the two Koreas. North Korea contributed to the liberation of Zimbabwe and helped Robert Mugabe establish his political foundations in the country. However, North Korea’s political gain from Zimbabwe was less than it expected and hence did not make any significant changes in its competition with South Korea.     

North Korea’s Response to US Army Propaganda Leaflets during the Korean War

This study examines a particular aspect of the history of North and South Korea’s bbira (propaganda leaflets), focusing on North Korea’s propaganda strategies in response to US propaganda during the Korean War, including perceptions of propaganda leaflets targeting North Koreans and counterstrategies used against them. The research herein analyses Munhakyesul, the leaflets during the Korean War, and the leaflets held by the DMZ Museum. The findings of this study reveal characteristics of and differences between the psychological tactics used by North Korea and the US during the Korean War, as exhibited through the use of these propaganda leaflets.     

Artistic identities and professional strategies: Francophone musicians in France and Britain

This article will focus on the ways in which musicians of North African origin—either born in North Africa or in France and living in France and Britain—define their musical and artistic identities in relation to their national origins, place of birth, migration trajectories and location in which they perform their music. In particular, the article will focus on how perceptions of musicians’ national and post-migrant identities vary according to their location on either side of the Channel but also according to how the musicians themselves choose to present their music, depending on whether they are based in France or Britain. In addition to the individual strategies adopted by musicians, the article also considers how the shifting socio-political contexts in post-9/11 France and Britain have affected the choices and opportunities available to artists of North African origin in both national contexts.