Selig S. Harrison. former Northeast Asia bureau chief of The Washington Post, is a fellow of the 20th Century Fund. He is the first journalist granted permission to interview North Korean defector Hwang Jang Yap.

"The most frightening prospect is not that North Korea will collapse. What I fear most is that Kim Jong Il [ North Korea’s ruler] will bow down to China to get the help he needs, and North Korea will slip into the Chinese orbit.  He understands the need for reform. But he won’t go beyond partial reform because he fears losing control, and halfway measures won’t solve the problems of food and industrial regeneration that North Korea faces."

These are the words of Hwang Jang Yop, the highest ranking defector from North Korea. Last month, he talked intensely and often passionately with me in Seoul about why he does not expect a collapse of the North Korean regime despite its economic difficulties, and why a military coup to overthrow Kim Jong Il is "out of the question."  Frail but alert at 76, he spoke frequently in our three-hour interview of the "millions who are hungry" in the North and called for "greatly increased" food aid.

It was our fourth conversation in 11 years. I had interviewed Hwang, then secretary of the ruling Workers Party three times in Pyongyang. the North Korean capital, before he defected. I found his candor in these meetings, the last in 1994, unusual among North Korean officials and was surprised to find him more interested in discussing the latest intellectual trends in the West than in answering questions about North Korean policy. When I was refused permission to meet with him in 1995, I suspected that he was losing out to the military men and younger party leaders around Kim Jong 11 who were taking over after the 1994 death of Hwang’s long-time mentor, Kim Il Sung.

Following Hwang’s defection in February 1997, then-South Korean President Kim Young Sam kept him tightly under wraps. The only foreigners allowed to meet him were CIA and Japanese intelligence analysts. However, when I attended President Kim Dae Jung’s inauguration In February his advisers readily agreed to a meeting with Hwang.

To have a credible discussion, I argued. I must be permitted to employ a nongovernment interpreter of my own choosing and to meet Hwang without anyone present from the South Korean intelligence organization, the Agency for National Security Planning. These requests were granted, but the ANSP insisted that it would choose the place of the meeting (which meant that it could listen in) and that the location not be revealed.

I also had to promise that I would not use anything designated as "off the record by Hwang. Thus, although he responded at length to my detailed questions concerning key personalities in the Workers Party, the bureaucracy and the armed forces, naming names and identifying those he regards as sympathetic to reform, he put all of those names off the record.

Hwang’s message is a confused one. He wants the United States to promote the downfall of the regime by maintaining economic sanctions but says that a collapse Is unlikely and favors increased food aid—even if it helps to sustain Kim Jong Il. Nevertheless, he is a treasure trove of knowledge about the inner workings of the Pyongyang power structure.

Hwang stressed that Kim Jong Il, 56, is not the flaky, dissolute dimwit often depicted in the Western media. "He is intelligent. but he is also arrogant. obsessively conspiratorial and inflexible. He is very wily and manipulative. His only concern is to perpetuate his power. Everything is approached in terms of personal profit and loss."

By contrast; his father Kim 1l Sung ‘was also a dictator, of course, but he asked for the opinions of others and showed flexibility. On the whole, I respected him. The trouble is that he completely spoiled his son by giving him absolute power to run the day-to-day affairs of the country as a relatively young man," Hwang said. Now, Kim Jong Il won’t listen to anyone else, and to make matters worse, he is often indecisive, changing his mind according to his mood."

Hwang said Kim Jong Il doesn’t meet foreigners because "he is a very private person and considers ceremonial functions as time-consuming and tedious. Unlike his father, he is not really what you can call a political animal His philosophy is not to let other people know too much about him. He likes to make himself mysterious."

Hwang speculated that Kim Jong Il might create a new governmental structure in which he can retain his position as general secretary of the Workers Party and exercise the powers of head of state while delegating ceremonial duties to a figurehead president.

Although Kim Jong Il ‘understands the need for reform," Hwang said, "he fears that it will open up a Pandora’s box. If he could have reform and be sure of keeping his power he would do it. Don’t forget that what has happened in North Korea, all the killings, is much worse than in China or Vietnam. He’s afraid It will all come out if he opens up too much."

"If you"—meaning the United States-—"want to test him, you should push harder for a liaison office In Pyongyang," Hwang told me. I responded that North Korea had repeatedly offered to permit a liaison office as soon as the United States lifts economic sanctions against North Korea in accordance with the 1994 agreement suspending its nuclear program. But Hwang made it clear he doesn’t want the United States to lift sanctions ‘or do anything else that could prolong the life of the regime."

When I asked him whether there are closet reformers in Pyongyang. he replied that "all of the working-level officials in charge of different aspects of the economy favor reforms, especially those who have contact with the outside world. Some of the higher-ups, too, but most of those people are sycophants and yes men. No one there is in favor of real reform, that is, an end to the Kim family dictatorship, a real market economy and democracy. In any case, it’s not possible for like-minded people to have meetings of any kind, so there are no hard-line or moderate factions, just individuals who recognize the need for change"

As for the armed forces, "all of those at the top levels of command are total puppets." Conceivably, "if the food problem goes on and on and there is a decline of morale, some of the division commanders could begin to get restless." But before it gets that bad, Hwang said, Kim Jong Il "will bow down to China to get the help he needs, and North Korea will slip into the Chinese orbit. The Chinese have been trying to pull him in-to their sphere. He doesn’t tell them a damn thing and has even been openly critical of them. But if things get worse, he'll knuckle under."

Hwang was categorical in his assessment that a collapse is unlikely.

"I do not think there is any danger of North Korea collapsing," he declared, "because the military is all-powerful and Kim Jong Il is in complete control of the military." While Pyongyang "is undergoing some economic difficulties, it is solidly united politically," Yet he clearly hopes for a collapse, urging the United States to deny "any economic assistance" with the notable exception of increased food aid, "to alleviate suffering and reduce the chance that the "Great General’ will resort to war out of desperation."

All food aid, he urged, should be routed through South Korea for distribution to the North. If Pyongyang accepted the food, this would increase Seoul’s leverage over the North, and if it refused. "the people of the North would find out, and this would have a tremendous impact, separating the masses from Kim Jong Il."

Hwang specifically criticized the United States for agreeing to provide 500,000 tons of oil annually as part of the 1994 nuclear freeze agreement. "‘The policy of avoiding war over the nuclear crisis was the correct policy, but you were naive in letting them bluff you about the potential of the nuclear program." North Korea "did not have the technical or financial means to complete the 50- and 200-megawatt reactors then under construction that you were so concerned about."

Hwang repeated statements made at the time of his defection that ‘all of us at party headquarters were under the impression that we already had the capability for some nuclear weapons" before the 1994 freeze.

During our previous meetings in North Korea, Hwang had the relaxed demeanor of an insider, but as our discussion in Seoul proceeded I frequently detected a lost, anxious look. As a defector, he is now the ultimate outsider. He has burned his bridges to his family and his lifelong colleagues in Pyongyang, and yet says frankly that since coming here, I have had the feeling that my views are not trusted. I would like to see my views reflected in South Korean and American policies, but I find that Is difficult I have learned that South Korean politics are very complicated."

The Kim Young Sam government limited his contacts to hard-line intellectuals who want to see a collapse In Pyongyang. Now the new president, former opposition leader Kim Dae Jung favors a "soft landing" policy and is seeking to reassure the North that the South does not seek Its collapse and absorption. Kim Dae Jung has installed his own men at the ANSP, and Hwang’s visitors are not ideologically screened. In a recent discussion with Hwang, reproduced in a Korean-language daily, a prominent liberal intellectual, Lee Young Hi, sharply challenged him on the desirability of a collapse.

My own view is that Hwang is correct in his assessment that the North is not likely to collapse. It is also possible that the North will be forced to lean increasingly on Beijing leading to a polarization in Korea between a U.S.-aligned South and a Chinese-oriented North. But the danger of such a polarization will be increased if the United States follows Hwang’s advice to promote a collapse by maintaining economic sanctions.

A collapse would entail pave risks, including mass refugee flaws and civil strife in the North that could lead to North-South military clashes embroiling the 37,000 U.S. troops in the South. Moreover, based on my six visits to the North. including one in early

May, I am not as pessimistic as he is about the prospects for change. Private farm markets are mushrooming along the roadsides of North Korea without official interference. The government has permitted more than 100 foreign food and humanitarian aid representatives to live in the country and to monitor food distribution in 171 out of 210 counties.

In an important new move to achieve food self-sufficiency North Korea and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) unveiled a joint plan in Geneva on May 29 that would rehabilitate fertilizer factories. repair irrigation pumps damaged by repeated floods since 1995 and launch "double cropping"—planting two crops in the same field each year using fast-maturing seeds. In contrast to reclusive past policies, North Korean agricultural officials were ordered to open their records to UNDP experts. ‘The extensive statistical data and information contained herein," said the UNDP working paper for the Geneva meeting, "should assuage prevailing concerns that virtually all economic and social data are somehow regarded by North Korea as "state secrets.’"

The United States should follow the advice of Kim Dae Jung, not Hwang Jang Yop, by lifting all of the sanctions imposed during the Korean War on trade and investment with the North except those that relate directly to its military capabilities. Pyongyang clearly signaled its readiness this week to restrict its missile exports to Pakistan. Syria. Iraq and Iran in exchange for a compensation package, including the removal of sanctions. By the same token, North Korean Foreign Minister Kim Yong Nam made clear during my May visit that a U.S. failure to honor Article Two of the nuclear freeze agreement by easing sanctions in the weeks ahead could lead Pyongyang to retaliate by resuming the operation of some or all of the nuclear facilities covered by the accord.

It is clearly in the American interest to en-courage the closet reformers in Pyongyang described by Hwang. Yet US sanctions directly undermine the Rajin-Songbong free trade zone that North Korea has established in the far north of the country and similar zones planned for Nampo and Wonsan. South Korean. Japanese, Taiwanese and Southeast Asian Chinese investors have shown interest in using cheap, skilled North Korean labor to make garments and other products but are wary of investing there until the removal of sanctions permits them to export to the American market.

It is economic change that can lead over time to a thaw in relations between Seoul and Pyongyang and to democratic political evolution in North Korea. Recent developments in Ireland have shown the power of economic factors in softening seemingly intractable political barriers. and it can happen in Korea. too.

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June 27, 1998