Their son was born nine months later. By then, George W. Bush had been elected president of the USA, and the positive developments in the dying days of the Clinton administration were being systematically reversed. The terror attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 only made matters worse. The “axis of evil” State of the Union speech in 2002 was the most galling. But more frightening was the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Pak fully expected would be followed by invasions of the other two countries identified as members of this imaginary axis: Iran and his own homeland.
Prior to the announcement by his government of a series of economic adjustment measures on 1 July 2002, Pak got his wish to attend a UNDP course in market economics in Shanghai. This was an eye-opening experience, but not only in a positive sense. He did not enjoy the overcrowded streets, the excessive traffic, the air pollution, the beggars who accosted him on every street corner. Although his hosts were welcoming and polite, he felt the Chinese looked down on him as a relic of their own past. He began to resist the unspoken but implied pressures to conform to some “Chinese model” of development.
“Korea is not China,” he would repeat to himself. “We will manage our own development in our own way, by our own hands.” This was the way of “Juche”, the self-reliant idea introduced by his venerated leader and eternal president Kim Il Sung.
Pak’s studies in Shanghai opened his eyes to both the potentials and dangers of economic openings. He became aware of the DPRK’s economic vulnerabilities, and began to appreciate the motivation of his country’s leader Kim Jong Il when he stressed “military first” policies, even though Pak began to wonder if the military understood the limitations of their own role.
Some of his close friends took the plunge and started their own businesses by trading with China and selling their wares in the open markets that were springing up in various parts of Pyongyang and other cities. Some of them did very well. Waving wads of dollar bills in front of his face, they enticed him to join their example.
But Pak was more cautious. Something bothered him about the increasing monetization of his society. Accumulating personal wealth seemed to become a higher goal among some of his contemporaries than the overarching goal of helping his country to survive. He believed in going slow, in order to avoid the inevitable mistakes the budding entrepreneurs would make, not to mention the reversals of policy that were part and parcel of the economic trial and error he was witnessing. His father once told him that it is good to learn from your mistakes, but it is better to learn from other people’s mistakes.
Pak wanted to know more, in order to be prepared to act more intelligently. He read voraciously. He devoured UNDP literature available at the office. He took home foreign newspapers, magazines, journals, CDs and DVDs. He studied the transitions in Vietnam and Cambodia. He followed events in the former Soviet republics. He came to realize that there is not only one road to development. It gave him some hope that there could well be a Korean way, not yet tried, and perhaps better than the others, since Koreans could learn from the mistakes of all the others.
He watched helplessly as his country lurched from hope to despair and back to hope in a seemingly endless cycle, like a person with a bipolar disorder. In September, Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan signs the Pyongyang Declaration, with promises of establishing diplomatic relations. In October, US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly accuses the DPRK of running a secret uranium enrichment programme. In November, South Korea concludes an agreement to establish the Kaesong Industrial Park across the DMZ in North Korea. In December, the USA announces it will cease its contractually obligated delivery of heavy fuel oil to the DPRK. In 2003, matters just seemed to go from bad to worse.
Pak supported his country’s decision to arm itself with nuclear weapons, because he was convinced that the USA would not hesitate to do to the DPRK what it had done to Iraq. On the other hand, Pak also realized that military power alone would not solve his country’s problems. His readings had convinced him that as necessary as military preparation was as a deterrent to defend his country, there had to be parallel efforts in other fields. What is needed above all -- and this he knew from personal experience -- is a much higher level of education for his people, more suited to modern times.
Pak spent a year posted at the DPRK Mission to the United Nations in Geneva and experienced first-hand the humiliation of condemnation by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He felt like the whole world was conspiring to prevent the very changes the international community claimed it wanted in the DPRK. How could they not see that they were pushing his country into a defensive posture that could only serve to strengthen the frightened Old Guard among his compatriots -- exactly those people who were intent on turning back the hands of time?
To his own surprise, he was given the chance to accompany a DPRK delegation to one of the sessions of the Six-Party Talks in the summer of 2005. His task was to help minor officials communicate in one-on-one side meetings at the talks. He experienced some pride in the fact that the DPRK was being courted by five of the world’s most powerful nations.
But the talks themselves filled him with more anger. Although reading Western newspapers had given him some hope that genuine negotiations could break the security impasse and set his country back on the road to development, what was in fact on offer was his country’s capitulation. He became convinced that the Six-Party Talks were merely a forum for bribery and threats, or what the foreigners like to call “carrots and sticks.”
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