Global Policy Forum

By Hazel Smith

While the rhetoric over North Korea rages on, winter in Pyongyang finds a country in increasingly desperate straits and still reliant on foreign help.

Though residents in the capital face power cuts every year, this winter they've come more frequently-several times a day and for longer periods-despite temperatures well higher than last year's record lows. At night, apartment blocks appear dark or lit with flickering candles. Once-productive factories are being pulled down for scrap metal, as there is no power, spare parts or raw materials to keep them going. At those still running, workers are pushed to increasing manual effort-yet these workers cannot be paid in anything other than the virtually worthless won, and cannot be fed because the country has neither produced enough food to feed its population nor has enough dollars to import the food it needs.

Despite a 40% increase in cereal production last year-made possible by South Korean aid-the harvest was more than 1 million tonnes short of the 5 million tonnes required to cover bare survival for the population in 2002. Although 6 million of the country's 22 million people have access to the food aid still provided by the United States and China, most of the others go hungry. Children and adults are painfully thin, most receiving just enough for mere subsistence.

Only the minority of the population that has access to dollars from foreigners through business, aid or party connections can afford to live well. But even they must cope with darkened street lights, a dangerously insanitary water and sewage system, and bridges, roads and railway systems which are deteriorating or completely collapsed.

Under such conditions, how will the North Korean government respond to U.S. pressure? Some observers think President George W. Bush's rhetoric will prompt Pyongyang to respond with a show of military bravado. Others say that Pyongyang, in the face of increasing tensions with the U.S. and Japan, sees South Korea as its only possible source of economic support.

Thus, Pyongyang could respond with renewed attempts to use the still very active North-South non-governmental communication channels to re-open stalled dialogue on easing tensions on the peninsula. In desperate times, all options are open for Pyongyang.

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