COMMENTARY
North Korea should take cue from China's reforms
By Tom Plate
Reports have been streaming out of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, that the government actually was considering the introduction of market reforms to revive its moribund Stalinist economy.
And last week the communist leaders of neighboring China were conferring at their annual summer seaside retreat about how to keep their own robust reforms moving forward.
One country — destitute and desperate — is thinking about instituting economic reforms. The other actually is doing it. China, which sends North Korea considerable food and aid, is one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
Can it possibly be that the ruling son of the late founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is finally coming to terms with the insanity and the inanity of his Stalinist-model system and truly wants to introduce market reforms — as Beijing has urged?
Many of the 22 million Koreans in the North are either starving or suffering from severe malnutrition. This is a moral and political outrage, and it must stop — even as northern leader Kim Jong Il wants to implement any reforms without losing control the way Mikhail Gorbachev did.
That, of course, is precisely what the Communist Party in China has achieved. Even though the party still is in charge, the economy continues to grow. Whether the party will be able to ride herd indefinitely over one of the world's most rapidly developing and changing countries remains to be seen.
Indeed, party big shots themselves are wondering about that at their policy retreat. Still, there's no gainsaying the extraordinary extent of the reforms on the economic side of the Chinese equation. The political freedom side is, of course, another issue.
Wei Ke, deputy editor of Business Weekly, published by Beijing's leading English-language newspaper, the China Daily, recently told me: "Continued economic progress is pivotal to our future. In many ways, China is still a developing nation, and there is still very much work to be done." Then he added: "Without more reform — and then more and more reform — even the unity of the nation could be endangered."
He's right — and the Chinese tend not to be smug about what they have accomplished economically, even as the North Korean government has been so immorally complacent about not bothering with reform at all.
A glance at Wei's own Business Weekly more than confirms the sense of China's urgency. A lead "exclusive" story reveals the government's plans to end its monopoly on grain distribution in favor of a market-oriented system. That may not be big news in the United States, where the retail food business is cutthroat; but in China, that kind of reform is, as it were, revolutionary.
China's evident response to the United States' mounting telecom, energy and accounting scandals is revealing. Yes, they have unfortunately induced some Chinese to question whether what the United States has been preaching — accountability and transparency — is still worth practicing.
But so far, the overall verdict appears to be yes. "We can point to the shortcoming of the U.S. accounting system and draw lessons from it," declaims a lead editorial in the paper, "but that should not lead to a relaxation in our struggle for honesty and efficiency." Editorials generally reflect official party thought.
Even so, is this paper the Business Weekly of China or the Business Week of the United States? A full-page article explores further government deregulation of what it quite accurately terms "China's rickety stock market." Interesting. Another hails plans for a new index futures system, a complex operation in China or anywhere. Another praises the people at Ramada, the major brand of Marriott International, for teaming up with Air China to pump up tourism.
Other articles — with nifty headlines such as "Competition Heats Up in Microwave Oven Industry," not to mention "Soy Farmers to Be Full of Beans" — may not rival the New Yorker magazine for wit. But they do suggest a measure of independence of spirit and thought not commonly associated with a dour communist regime.
In fact, China is so far down the reform road compared to North Korea that to catch up, Kim and his team of economic advisers will need to make a gigantic, galactic leap. And they will require the help of South Korea, to which the North has at last expressed official regrets for the June 29 Yellow Sea naval battle which killed four South Korean sailors, left one missing and cost an unknown number of North Korean lives.
Why should it be so inconceivable for the leaders of a nation of only 22 million to try to feed, clothe and house their people properly, even saddled as they are with the impediment of communist government?
Just look at what its next-door neighbor of 1.3 billion — also communist-run — has accomplished so far. And they can read all about it.
Tom Plate, a columnist with The Honolulu Advertiser and the South China Morning Post, is a professor at UCLA. Reach him at tplate@ucla.edu. He also has a spot on the Web.
