Collapse of North Korea wishful thinking?

DANDONG, CHINA — That North Korea is or will soon be on the verge of collapse is a cherished hope in influential White House circles. But here at the biggest trading point between China and North Korea, few believe that will happen.

For Chinese flooring and seafood salesmen, drivers, brokers and local officials who deal with the North, the economy across the river is getting better.

Each morning, trucks line up on either side of a narrow "friendship bridge" across the Yalu River, between Dandong's high-rise world and the stunted skyline of sister city Sinuiju.

The 225 daily trucks cross into Korea from China, making up 70 percent of the North's imports. And the traffic is increasing. North Korea's trade has risen 20 percent a year, to $1.2 billion, and it doubled in the last quarter of 2004.

This traffic visible on a recent trip to the border, as well as conversations in Asian capitals and in Washington, all suggest that the position of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is not weakening, and that the uptick in economic activity represents a new lifeline for the regime.

The cargo trucked between the two worlds is a study in contrast: Korean open-bed trucks bring in scrap iron, crushed rock, sacks of mineral powder. Freight trucks are empty save a few boxes rattling inside.

But Chinese trucks to Korea hold electrical equipment, stainless-steel goods, gleaming appliances. Ocean-ship containers marked "GenStar, San Francisco," and from Europe, ride on flat beds. One mammoth vehicle sports 82 commercial refrigerators. Destination: Pyongyang.

North Korea is enjoying new investment as well.

The Chinese have built a glass factory and revamped two steel factories. Chinese investors hoof it around the North as China imports coal and encourages trade. South Korea's Kaesung industrial park in the North is one of many small new cash sources from Seoul.

Collapse theory

U.S. policy has been dominated by "collapse theory" advocates who argue the North is on the brink of chaos. Last December, Western media buzzed with reports of Kim Jong Il's pictures being removed, and with talk of grumbling among the North Korean masses.

Yet barring a disaster or unforeseen crises, the assumption of a North Korean collapse appears wishful, and is a scenario taken less and less seriously by U.S. partners in the six-party talks — and even by U.S. officials and analysts. Critics say the U.S. doesn't yet have a Plan B.

"I would love to see the North collapse," said a senior U.S. diplomat. "But I don't think hope is a substitute for policy."

Neither China nor South Korea see it in their national interest to allow North Korea to collapse at this point, and both are tacitly committed to keeping the reclusive regime of Kim Jong Il stable.

"In the U.S., collapse theory still has a lot of adherents and may be the dominant policy prescription," says Timothy Savage of the International Crisis Group in Seoul. "The problem is, the theory relies on the cooperation of the two countries least inclined to cooperate: China and South Korea."

The regime of Kim Jong Il is one of the most reclusive states in the world, and has often been compared to a huge cult, since the 23 million inhabitants are required to worship Kim, and to serve him through a complex ideology called Juche.

Still, in the short and mid-term, there are myriad supports that Kim can count on: Trickles of food and fuel aid continue to arrive, as do cash infusions from both legal and illegal trade. Kim has continued to pursue small-scale restructuring and market reforms that have started to create a cash economy.

"The amount of goods coming into the North doubled last year," says a Russian diplomat who lives in Pyongyang and visits Dandong. "The party and the army in Pyongyang have money. They carefully spend where they need to. It doesn't look like collapse to me."

"I don't think we have any way of forcing Kim to give up his weapons," says a veteran Pentagon adviser. "If South Korea and China would really play, we could put on the pressure. But China can't tolerate collapse — and what that would mean."

A collapse could well bring the U.S. military to the border of China, and could start a refugee flow and security crisis.

Veteran Kim watchers say the reclusive leader is in a better position than two years ago. The White House, preoccupied with Iraq, has been unable to focus on North Korea.

Meanwhile, Kim's diplomatic relations with China, South Korea and Russia have steadily improved.

Even North Korea's relations with regional states like nearby Mongolia have taken a beneficial turn. The droughts and floods that brought famine in the late 1990s have not repeated.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the Kim family dynasty, a special date in Korean folklore.

"In Kim's view, he has developed missile technology, nuclear power and has so well engaged South Korea that the government in Seoul will work with him as he desires," says Alexandre Mansourov, Pyongyang specialist at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

"He believes he is on the right track, and he can rally his people to a proud view that, 'We can endure a lot, and we can win. We can beat the world.' "