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| 사진 설원태 선임기자 |
루디거 프랑크 빈 대학 교수가 본 남북관계
콘라드 아데나워 재단 서울사무소의 마크 치멕 대표가 지난 3월 중순 필자에게 전화를 걸어 “남북한을 동시에 체험했으며 한국어도 좀 할 줄 아는 동아시아 경제-사회 전문가인 루디거 프랑크 빈 대학 교수가 서울에 온다”고 말했다. 치멕 대표는 “프랑크 교수가 독일의 진보적 민주주의 사상을 전파하는 콘라드 아데나워 재단이 한국에서 제대로 활동을 하는지 등 여러 주제를 놓고 한국인들을 만나고 싶어한다”면서 “언론인도 그의 인터뷰 대상”이라고 전했다. 필자는 지난달 26일 이른 아침 동국대 근처 소피텔 앰배서더 호텔에서 프랑크 교수를 만나 한 시간 반 이상 그의 질문에 답변했다. 그 자리에서 필자는 “향후 박사와 e메일 인터뷰를 하고 싶으니 잘 응해 달라”고 요청했다. 프랑크 교수는 “인터뷰 중 기자로서의 직업적 질문을 자제하고 성의껏 대답해 주어서 고맙다”면서 “향후 e메일 인터뷰에 성실하게 응하겠다”고 약속했다. 이 인터뷰는 프랑크 교수가 3월 말 한국을 떠난 뒤 보내 온 꽤나 긴 e메일 답변을 줄인 것이다. 남북한 관계가특히 껄끄러워진 요즘 그의 견해는 여러 가지를 생각하게 한다.
-프랑크 교수의 개인적인 북한 체험은 어떠했습니까.
“저는 베를린의 훔볼트 대학과 평양의 김일성 대학의 학생교류 계획에 따라 1991년 어학연수생으로 처음 북한에 갔습니다. 그후 저는 아시아나 유럽에서 일반인, 공장 관리자, 외교관, 차관급 고위관리 등 북한인들을 꾸준히 만났습니다. 저는 동독과 구소련에 살아봤기 때문에 북한 체류는 저의 경험을 풍부하게 했습니다. 북한인들이 스스로의 삶에 대해 생각하는 것과 외부인들이 생각하는 것은 매우 다를 것입니다. 하지만 저는 그들을 존중하려 노력했습니다. 제가 북한에 관해 알고 있는 것은 항상 즐거운 것은 아닙니다. 하지만 저는 성급한 판단을 내리지 않으려 합니다.”
-김일성 대학에서의 경험을 말씀해 주십시오.
“제가 잘못된 기대를 가졌기 때문이었는지 상당한 실망을 했습니다. 북한의 선생님들은 저를 위해 여러 가지로 많은 노력을 했고 저는 이것에 감사합니다. 하지만 평양에서 외국인의 학생 생활은 서울·베를린·모스크바에서의 학생 생활과 너무 달랐습니다. 방과 후 저의 생활 범위는 너무 제한됐고, 그들과 개인적 친분관계를 맺는 것은 매우 어려웠습니다. 저는 다른 사회주의 국가에서도 살아본 경험이 있지만, 평양의 생활은 너무 달랐습니다. 평양 체험은 저에게 문화 충격이었습니다.”
-어떤 연유로 한반도 문제에 관심을 갖게 됐습니까.
“저는 세계화 시대라고 해도 지역적 지식이 중요하다는 맥락에서 1990년부터 한반도에 관심을 가졌습니다. 저는 동아시아는 연구해 볼 만한 가장 흥미있는 지역이라고 믿고 있습니다. 특히 한국은 괄목할 만한 경제적 성공 사례인데도 대부분의 유럽인들은 잘 모르는 지역입니다. 저는 원래 중국을 공부하려 했으나 김일성-호네커(전 동독 공산당 서기장) 통역을 했던 카리스마 강한 저의 지도 교수님이 ‘중국 대신 한반도를 연구하라’고 설득했고 저는 이것을 받아들였습니다. 현재 저는 그 결정을 후회하지 않습니다. 북한에 대한 저의 관심은 그 교수와의 대화, 평양에서의 어학 연수생 경험, 사회주의 개혁에 관한 개인적 의문 등을 근거로 점차 자라났습니다. 저는 사회주의가 좋은 의도에서 출발했고 사람들이 열심히 일하고 있음에도 제대로 기능하지 않는 실태를 목격했고 그 이유를 알고 싶었습니다. 통일을 경험한 독일인으로서 저는 한반도 문제 해결에 도움이 되고 싶습니다.”
-교수는 훔볼트 대학에서 한국학 석사학위를 취득했군요. 무엇을 공부했습니까.
“저는 원래 한반도의 현대 역사와 정치를 공부했고, 나아가 철학·문학·한문도 공부했습니다. 훔볼트 대학은 독일 내에서 현대 한반도를 공부할 수 있는 유일한 곳이었습니다. 그럼에도 한반도의 정치 경제에 관한 강좌는 내용이 풍부하지 않았습니다. 저는 아시아에 초점을 맞춘 경제·국제관계를 공부했고, 여러 국제학술행사에서 학자들을 만나면서 연구할 만한 책과 주제들을 소개받았습니다. 저의 석사 논문은 베를린 주재 북한 대사관의 리셉션에서 아이디어를 얻어 한·독 관계사의 일부를 연구한 것입니다. 저는 이 리셉션에서 한국과는 인종, 결혼, 직업의 관점에서 무관하면서도 한반도에 깊은 관심을 가진 장년층 독일인들을 만났습니다. 후일 저는 그들이 한국전쟁 이후 함흥 재건 공사에 참여했다는 사실을 알았습니다. 저는 또한 동독이 북한에서 이룬 조그만 업적이라도 보존하려 한다는 것을 알게 됐습니다. 그래서 저는 첫 동독 총리의 아들을 만나는 등 많은 인터뷰를 했고, 마침내 동독 공산당의 문서보관소에 접근했습니다. 저는 이곳에서 김일성과 오토 그로테볼(동독의 첫 총리) 사이에 오고 간 서신들을 비롯해 북한에 파견된 독일 대사들이 작성한 ‘솔직한’ 보고서 등 수백건의 문서, 수천 쪽의 서류를 읽었습니다. 그후 저는 1954~62년 함흥 재건에 참여한 독일인들이 개인적 문서와 기록들을 모교인 ‘바우하우스 인 데사우’에 넘겨 주었다고 들었습니다. 그래서 저는 그곳에서 몇 주간 머물면서 서류를 정리해 주는 대가로 다량의 문서들을 열람했습니다. 직원들은 손으로 쓴 한국어 문서를 정리할 수 없었기 때문에 저에게 서류 정리를 시키면서 서류 열람을 허용했습니다. 저는 이들 문서를 종합해 책으로 냈습니다.” (프랑크 박사는 답변에서 Korea, South Korea, North Korea를 구분하는 것 같았다. 필자는 Korea를 한반도로 번역했다.)
-외국인 관찰자로서 이명박 정부의 북한 정책을 어떻게 평가하십니까.
“남북한은 이념적·군사적 충돌을 경험했다는 점에서 동·서독과는 너무나 많이 다릅니다. 오랜 기간 남한의 개발 패러다임은 북한으로부터 스스로를 방어한다는 생각에 기반을 두었습니다. 박정희는 개발 독재를 반공으로 정당화했고, 북한은 이런 부정적 이미지를 바꾸려 노력하지 않았습니다. 1998년 북한에 우호적인 남한의 대통령이 들어섰고 북한에는 새 지도부가 들어와 상황이 갑자기 바뀌었습니다. 김대중 대통령은 햇볕정책을 내걸었으나 다수의 남한 국민은 그 진의를 이해하지 못했습니다. 이것은 ‘순진한 발상’이라는 비판을 받았습니다. 북한은 외부 압력을 견디어 내도록 건설된 체제입니다. 그러나 이 체제는 지속적으로 협력적 접근이 있으면 스스로를 방어할 수 없는 체제입니다. 돌이켜 보면 남북정상회담·금강산 관광·개성공단 등은 엄청난 성공이었습니다. 햇볕정책은 밤나무와 유사합니다. 아직 10년밖에 성장하지 못했기 때문에 여전히 취약합니다. 이 나무가 성장하려면 시간이 더 필요합니다. 이명박 정부는 대북 기존 정책을 그대로 유지하는 것이 좋을 것입니다. 현 정부는 전임 두 정부의 대북정책에서 이익을 취할 수도 있을 겁니다.”
-북한의 현재 경제 상황을 어떻게 평가합니까.
“북한의 경제 사정은 단기적·장기적 관점에서 어렵습니다. 북한 경제는 체제 변화를 해야 합니다. 중앙 통제경제의 효율성이 작동하지 않는 체제입니다. 북한 경제가 나아지려면 개인의 에너지가 발산되도록 체제를 변화시켜야 합니다. 미하일 고르바초프와 같은 강한 지도력을 가진 사람은 사회주의 체제를 변화시켰습니다. 하지만 약한 지도력으로는 이것이 어렵습니다.” (프랑크 박사는 경제를 사람의 몸에 비유하면서 매우 길게 설명했다.)
프랑크 교수는?
현재 오스트리아 빈 대학의 동아시아 경제·사회학과장, 동아시아 연구소 부소장, 거버넌스 학교 학장으로 일하고 있다. 라이프치히에서 출생한 독일인이다. 그는 뒤스부르크 소재 메르카토르 대학에서 남북한 관계 전공으로 박사학위(경제학)를 취득했다. 훔볼트 대학, 콜럼비아 대학(뉴욕), 고려대, 경남대 북한연구소 등에서 교수로 일했다. 그는 ‘함흥 재건: 1954~1962’ ‘갈림길에 선 북한의 정치와 사회’ 등 여러 저서를 갖고 있고 ‘한국: 정치 경제 사회’(연간)와 ‘유러피언 동아시아 연구 저널’의 공동편집장이다.
<설원태 선임기자 solwt@kyunghyang.com>
-Tell me about your contacts with North Koreans. What you feel toward them, etc. If possible, you can tell me without naming them.
My first direct contact with people from North Korea was in 1991, when I arrived as a language student at Kim Il Song University in Pyongyang based on an old exchange agreement with Humboldt University of Berlin that had survived German unification.
I have been meeting North Koreans ever since, both in Asia and in Europe, ordinary people, including high-ranking officials up to the level of Vice Minister, as well as company managers and of course many diplomats. My approach towards them is informed by my own past living in East Germany and the Soviet Union. First and foremost, I try to respect them. I can’t really tell how they feel about their life, but I am very sure their self perception is very different from what most of us think it is. If I compare what is reported in the German media about life in East Germany with my own experience there, I sometimes think we speak about two different countries.
People tend to like simple images, like good and bad, black and white. But reality is often much more diverse. I don’t know everything about the reality in North Korea, and what I know is not always very pleasant. But I am very cautious making hasty judgements, based on my own experience. And I believe that there are bad actions in the world, actually too many of them; but no bad people.
-How did you come to get interested in Korean affairs? Does it pay to study (North) Korean affairs?
I became interested in Korea in 1990 because I believed (and still do) that especially in the age of globalization, local knowledge matters. East Asia seemed to be the most interesting region to study, and Korea ? South Korea - was clearly a white spot for most Europeans despite its spectacular economic achievements. I originally wanted to study China, but a very charismatic professor who also used to be the translator between Kim Il-sung and Erich Honecker convinced me to focus on Korea instead.
I have never regretted that decision. My interest in the North emerged from many conversations with that professor, out of my semester in Pyongyang, and my interest in the question of the reform of socialism. I have seen with my own eyes that socialism did not function despite many good intentions and many hard working people, and I wanted to know why. As a German, I have a special view on the many issues related to unification, a process that is behind me but ahead of Koreans. So I think it makes sense for me to be close to Korean affairs, that I can even make a contribution. In fact, I find this to be a very rewarding subject area.
-Your experiences at the Kim Il Sung University?
My experience in Pyongyang was largely disappointing, which was at least partly a result of wrong expectations on my side. Our teachers tried very hard, and everyone around did his or her best to make life there comfortable. I still appreciate all these individual efforts, maybe even more now than I did then. However, being a foreign student in Pyongyang was very different if compared to living in Seoul or Berlin, even Moscow.
The range of after-school activities in North Korea at that time was very limited. It was hard, if not impossible, to form personal relationships with local people. I had lived in other socialist countries before, but this was unusual. In hindsight, I would describe my experience as a typical case of culture shock.
-What does it mean that you have MA in Korean studies from Humboldt University? What aspect of Korean affairs did you study? Please be specific in what was your thesis, etc.
I wanted to focus on contemporary aspects of Korea, including history and politics, but also had to study philosophy, literature, even Hanmun. Humboldt University was the only place in Germany where one could study contemporary Korea at all. Still, the number of courses offered in Korean economy and politics was very limited, so I had to look for such knowledge outside my department. I came to study economics and international relations, the latter focused on Asia, and met scholars from other universities and countries who pointed me at books and topics that I then explored. I started participating in international conferences very early and have learned a lot from my senior colleagues.
My MA thesis was on a chapter of German-Korean history that I came across while participating in a reception at the North Korean embassy in Berlin. There were many senior German people with no obvious connection to Korea (like ethnicity, marriage, job) but nevertheless with a strong and emotional bond to that country. When I asked, I discovered that they had been involved in the reconstruction of a city called Hamhung in North Korea in the 1950s. I later found out that this was the second largest city of North Korea, and a center of its chemical industry.
I was surprised because East Germany used to be very keen on keeping up the memory of even the smallest achievements ? but I had never heard about such a huge and obviously very honorable project. So I decided to dig deeper, conducted a number of interviews including one with the son of the first East German Prime Minister, and finally ended up in the now opened archive of the East German Communist Party, the Socialist Unity Party. I went through hundreds of documents and thousands of pages, including letters from and to Kim Il-sung and Otto Grotewohl, East Germany’s first Prime Minister, very frank reports by ambassadors, etc.
Then I was informed that one of the leading members of the group of Germans who had rebuilt Hamhung in the period between 1954-1962 had handed over his personal materials and notes from that time to his old Alma Mater, which happened to be the famous Bauhaus in Dessau. So I spent a few weeks there, sitting at the freshly renovated desk of the first Bauhaus director, Walter Gropius, the father of modern architecture. I was allowed to look through the documents in exchange for ordering them into files for the Bauhaus archive, which went beyond the abilities of the staff there because many of the documents were in Korean handwriting.
In the end, I had acquired enough documented knowledge to write a book about this remarkable story, in the hope that this would become the beginning of a research project involving many of our students who would go out and interview as many of the former German architects, city planners, and workers who spent years of their lives helping to rebuilt one destroyed part of Korea. Unfortunately, this did not materialize for a number of reasons, all of them related to the post-unification changes in Berlin and at Humboldt University.
The reason for the silence around the Hamhung project was the Sino-Soviet confrontation in the late 1950, a taboo topic in the socialist camp that always tried to pretend great brotherly unity despite serious conflicts within. I saw how skilfully the North Korean side extracted resources from Moscow and Beijing, although both were very sceptical of Pyongyang.
This helps me a lot in understanding the present situation, and sometimes I think that merely the Soviet Union has been replaced by the USA and South Korea, but the same game is still going on. One major difference is that North Korea now has nuclear weapons, which makes it virtually impossible to just ignore them as China ad the Soviet Union decided to do in the early 1960s. Certainly, we can learn a lot from that past example, and part of my research today is about that issue.
-What did you do with Kyungnam University?
My interest in North Korea had come to an end after I finished the book on Hamhung. I did not believe it was worth wasting my time on such a bizarre subject anymore, and like most other people, I expected that a collapse would come rather sooner than later.
I turned my research focus to telecommunications in South Korea, which resulted in my second book on regulatory reform in that sector. I concentrated on economics and political economy. Then in 2002, I heard about the July reforms and started looking at North Korea again. To my great amazement, I found that there had been substantial changes, both in real life, but even more so in terms of ideology. The later is absolutely crucial for a socialist system and often underestimated in the West. Meanwhile, the quality of work on North Korea done in South Korea increased enormously, and IFES (the Institute of Far Eastern Studies) and the University of North Korean Studies were among the top institutions. So our contact was natural, and have developed a close professional relationship ever since. This intensified in 2005, when I was a visiting Professor at Korea University. I have become an Adjunct Professor at Korea University and at the University of North Korean Studies. In February 2009 we signed a Memorandum of Understanding between IFES and my university.
-As a foreign observer, do you see differences in Korean politicians (under President Lee Myung bak) in approaching North Koreans?
I think we must understand the very specific South Korean perspective on the problem. North Korea has confronted the South ideologically and militarily in a way that, luckily, the two parts of Germany never experienced amongst themselves. This has created many negative emotional memories. Reconciliation is a difficult process.
For a long time, South Korea’s development paradigm was based upon the notion of defending against the North. The developmental dictatorship of Park Chung-hee was justified by anti-Communism. North Korea did not do much to change this negative image, to put it mildly. Then all of a sudden, this had changed with the new leadership in North Korea and the arrival of a new South Korean president in 1998 who had formerly been accused of and almost been killed for being a pro-North Korean. To many South Koreans, this might have come too quickly. President Kim Dae-jung started a policy that I still believe is the most effective way of approaching North Korea in the long run, although I also think that not all people understood the actual effects of the sunshine policy. They misinterpreted it as embarrassing naivety by some idealistic progressives. I think it was not. North Korea as a system is built to withstand external pressure, but it has little means to defend against a consistently cooperative approach. The summit meeting, Mt. Kumgang, Kaesong ? these are enormous successes, and we will only in hindsight know about the actual effects.
The problem with the sunshine policy is that it can be compared to planting an oak tree. When you put the seed into earth, you have the image of a big oak in your mind. After ten years, a little plant has grown, but it is still small and fragile, nothing like a big tree. Pointing at this plant and saying “what a failure” is easy, but what else could we expect? An oak needs a long time to become big and strong.
The problem with long term strategies is that they are hard to follow in a democracy. And North Korea policy is much more complex than planting a tree. There is the nuclear issue, there are human rights, a humanitarian crisis, and a quickly developing world that has its impact on Korea. South Korea might not have the time to wait for 100 years. So I fully understand why many politicians and voters became increasingly sceptical of the sunshine policy. Good marketing is part of every business success; a good product alone is not enough. Domestic marketing of the sunshine policy was not perfect.
The presidential elections in 2007 reflected the concerns by many South Koreans. Now we have a situation when the Lee MB government could actually be lucky enough to harvest what Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun have planted, because a sudden collapse of North Korea has become more likely than it was in the past due to health of Kim Jong-il and the long-term effects of the market reforms.
In a way, I think the North Korean leadership is very grateful that the new South Korean government is offering them, finally, a way out of all the risky cooperation projects that started to get out of control. Am I happy with the current North Korea policy? This is not up to me to decide. But although I think that mistakes have been made, now that things have gotten so far, all the Lee MB government can do is stay the course. Communication between Seoul and Washington will be crucial.
-What roles can Europeans play in North-South Korean affairs, and in the six-party talks? I feel that Europeans are excluded in this process, although some European diplomats in Seoul say that they want to play a role.
I do not think that Europeans are excluded. I would rather say there is, although for different reasons, a very broad agreement that it would be better if the EU did not join the 6PT at this time. Europe could win little, but would enter a diplomatic minefield instead. The EU has also much more pressing issues to resolve, both internally and externally, and would not need another problem. The balance of power at the 6PT is delicate, and the entry of the EU might disturb it. For now, the EU has a very important role to play as a mediator and as a neutral broker.
Both Koreas utilize this mechanism when official relations at the 6PT get stuck; I have personally witnessed a number of such instances. Italy is playing a particularly supportive role in this regard, as well as Sweden. Austria not only hosts the IAEA, but also both Korean embassies, and is regarded as a neutral country by Pyongyang. So both sides can meet there without much effort ad publicity. This is what Europe can contribute, and it is much more substantial than being just the 7th Party to the talks.
Besides, I am very pessimistic about the chances for this format (the 6PT) to achieve any lasting solution, because at its core, it is set for confrontation, not cooperation. Also, sometimes it seems as if the USA and China negotiate their bilateral relationship at these talks, and Korea is only the stage for this play. This is why I have urged South Koreans to become more active and take the initiative, to “claim ownership” of the Korean issue.
I know that North Korea is not always helpful in this respect, but I think they are also worried about the big powers sidelining them. And they are much more successful in setting the topics and the pace. I believe that a multilateral setting is the only way to resolve the North Korea issue, but I don’t think the 6PT are the right form. An East Asian Community, including ASEAN, would be much better suited.
-Your assessment of North Korean economic situation? What is the solution to the North Koreans‘ poverty?
The economic situation of NK is difficult for a number of short-term and long-term reasons. The solution is very obvious: system change. An economic system based on central coordination can be compared to breathing. Imagine that scientists find out that the level of oxygen in our blood can become better if we breathe deliberately, in a controlled way, and turn off the subconscious, automatic mode that we use.
At first, the results will be quite good; but we will have to keep thinking about breathing ? in, out, in, out. After a while we will begin to forget about breathing, so some friendly person will remind us. When we get tired and fall asleep, a less friendly person will be needed to keep us awake, because otherwise, we will stop breathing, and the body will die. At the end, we will die anyway, after a long process of getting weaker and weaker.
In a way, this is how a socialist economy functions. At the beginning, resources are centrally allocated, nothing is wasted on overproduction, and the economy does well. Then, eventually but surely, people will try to work less and focus on other issues, bureaucrats will coordinate less efficiently and rather think about their career, and propaganda will be used even more intensely to keep everyone committed. If that does not work, the state needs other means to keep everyone on target, including repression. The costs of this are enormous and the effects far from perfect.
The key to a successful economic system is, at the basic level, the automatic behavior by humans to maximize their utility, whatever they regard as such. They have to be able to breathe naturally. If this automatic function is turned off by too harsh restrictions, the whole system will become weaker and weaker. South Korea has experienced a period of strong state control, but it kept the ambitions and incentives at the basic level intact.
This is what made it such a success despite strong state influence. North Korea, like most other socialist countries, has depleted itself of this enormous source of energy. All attempts at improving central coordination will fail in the end, if the basic paradigm of the economy remains unchanged. This is not a political statement; it is the result of numerous studies on socialism.
I think the only solution to North Korea’s situation is the liberation of the individual energies of its people. This does not have to be a liberal market economy; South Korea after 1961 and China after 1979 have shown other ways. The tricky question is how to do this surgery without killing the patient, as Michail Gorbatchev had to experience in the Soviet Union. With a strong and healthy leader, this should be doable. A weak leadership, a deteriorating domestic situation, and external pressure will not create a reform friendly environment, but rather lead to stubbornly sticking to old principles, and eventually a collapse.
-Can you compare North Korea and East Germany?
Of course we can, but such a comparison should be informed by a proper understanding of both countries, their histories, and their geopolitical situation. Comparing does not mean that the two countries are the same; yet, we can learn a lot from looking at the issues East Germany had to deal with after unification, and asking ourselves how these would be tackled in Korea. Examples include how to deal with the military. If a law would be passed that guarantees every military officer who has not violated any major law to keep his job after unification, this information would reach North Korea and decrease the fear of insecurity there.
There is also the difficult question of acts that are legal under one constitution, but illegal under the other; how can somebody be punished for having violated the laws of a country he did not live in? Germans found out the hard way, when many people were and still are disappointed that except for the Ministry of State Security and a few soldiers who had the unlucky faith of having served at the border at the wrong time, almost no representative of the old regime could be punished. Another important question are property rights, including those that are claimed by people living in South Korea.
Without clearly defined property rights, a private economy will not function. If ownership of, for example, a high-rise building or a factory in Pyongyang is not clear because it stands on what used to be three different pieces or land before 1945, nobody will invest, and the building will collapse.
We have seen that happen in Germany. My own family reclaimed a house we once owned and finally got it back, but only after years and a tedious process. This can be done much better. South Korea can now use its time and resolve all these issues calmly. How this will be done ? that depends on the specific Korean situation. But the issues will arise, that is clear. Once unification happens, there will be no time left, one has to move quickly. We also know that transformation of socialist systems often starts with a transformational recession due to adjustment, before output finally starts growing. This list could be continued.
-What is wrong with Korean government’s foreigner policy?
I personally have no complaints about the policy of the Korean government vis-a-vis foreigners, especially if I compare it with my experience of living, for example, in the United States. I know there are many complaints, but I personally have always felt welcome in Korea and treated with an amount of respect that sometimes even embarrasses me. My knowledge of the Korean language helps, but this is the same in any other country. The city of Seoul changes to become more liveable, which I consider very important to attract high-level expatriates, and access to the rest of the country is much better as it used to be.
Well, I hope this helps. I could write much, much more on the single points, but then it would get even longer.
- 대한민국 희망언론! 경향신문, 구독신청(http://smile.khan.co.kr) - ⓒ 경향신문 & 경향닷컴(www.khan.co.kr), 무단전재 및 재배포 금지〈경향닷컴은 한국온라인신문협회(www.kona.or.kr)의 디지털뉴스이용규칙에 따른 저작권을 행사합니다.〉My first direct contact with people from North Korea was in 1991, when I arrived as a language student at Kim Il Song University in Pyongyang based on an old exchange agreement with Humboldt University of Berlin that had survived German unification.
I have been meeting North Koreans ever since, both in Asia and in Europe, ordinary people, including high-ranking officials up to the level of Vice Minister, as well as company managers and of course many diplomats. My approach towards them is informed by my own past living in East Germany and the Soviet Union. First and foremost, I try to respect them. I can’t really tell how they feel about their life, but I am very sure their self perception is very different from what most of us think it is. If I compare what is reported in the German media about life in East Germany with my own experience there, I sometimes think we speak about two different countries.
People tend to like simple images, like good and bad, black and white. But reality is often much more diverse. I don’t know everything about the reality in North Korea, and what I know is not always very pleasant. But I am very cautious making hasty judgements, based on my own experience. And I believe that there are bad actions in the world, actually too many of them; but no bad people.
-How did you come to get interested in Korean affairs? Does it pay to study (North) Korean affairs?
I became interested in Korea in 1990 because I believed (and still do) that especially in the age of globalization, local knowledge matters. East Asia seemed to be the most interesting region to study, and Korea ? South Korea - was clearly a white spot for most Europeans despite its spectacular economic achievements. I originally wanted to study China, but a very charismatic professor who also used to be the translator between Kim Il-sung and Erich Honecker convinced me to focus on Korea instead.
I have never regretted that decision. My interest in the North emerged from many conversations with that professor, out of my semester in Pyongyang, and my interest in the question of the reform of socialism. I have seen with my own eyes that socialism did not function despite many good intentions and many hard working people, and I wanted to know why. As a German, I have a special view on the many issues related to unification, a process that is behind me but ahead of Koreans. So I think it makes sense for me to be close to Korean affairs, that I can even make a contribution. In fact, I find this to be a very rewarding subject area.
-Your experiences at the Kim Il Sung University?
My experience in Pyongyang was largely disappointing, which was at least partly a result of wrong expectations on my side. Our teachers tried very hard, and everyone around did his or her best to make life there comfortable. I still appreciate all these individual efforts, maybe even more now than I did then. However, being a foreign student in Pyongyang was very different if compared to living in Seoul or Berlin, even Moscow.
The range of after-school activities in North Korea at that time was very limited. It was hard, if not impossible, to form personal relationships with local people. I had lived in other socialist countries before, but this was unusual. In hindsight, I would describe my experience as a typical case of culture shock.
-What does it mean that you have MA in Korean studies from Humboldt University? What aspect of Korean affairs did you study? Please be specific in what was your thesis, etc.
I wanted to focus on contemporary aspects of Korea, including history and politics, but also had to study philosophy, literature, even Hanmun. Humboldt University was the only place in Germany where one could study contemporary Korea at all. Still, the number of courses offered in Korean economy and politics was very limited, so I had to look for such knowledge outside my department. I came to study economics and international relations, the latter focused on Asia, and met scholars from other universities and countries who pointed me at books and topics that I then explored. I started participating in international conferences very early and have learned a lot from my senior colleagues.
My MA thesis was on a chapter of German-Korean history that I came across while participating in a reception at the North Korean embassy in Berlin. There were many senior German people with no obvious connection to Korea (like ethnicity, marriage, job) but nevertheless with a strong and emotional bond to that country. When I asked, I discovered that they had been involved in the reconstruction of a city called Hamhung in North Korea in the 1950s. I later found out that this was the second largest city of North Korea, and a center of its chemical industry.
I was surprised because East Germany used to be very keen on keeping up the memory of even the smallest achievements ? but I had never heard about such a huge and obviously very honorable project. So I decided to dig deeper, conducted a number of interviews including one with the son of the first East German Prime Minister, and finally ended up in the now opened archive of the East German Communist Party, the Socialist Unity Party. I went through hundreds of documents and thousands of pages, including letters from and to Kim Il-sung and Otto Grotewohl, East Germany’s first Prime Minister, very frank reports by ambassadors, etc.
Then I was informed that one of the leading members of the group of Germans who had rebuilt Hamhung in the period between 1954-1962 had handed over his personal materials and notes from that time to his old Alma Mater, which happened to be the famous Bauhaus in Dessau. So I spent a few weeks there, sitting at the freshly renovated desk of the first Bauhaus director, Walter Gropius, the father of modern architecture. I was allowed to look through the documents in exchange for ordering them into files for the Bauhaus archive, which went beyond the abilities of the staff there because many of the documents were in Korean handwriting.
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In the end, I had acquired enough documented knowledge to write a book about this remarkable story, in the hope that this would become the beginning of a research project involving many of our students who would go out and interview as many of the former German architects, city planners, and workers who spent years of their lives helping to rebuilt one destroyed part of Korea. Unfortunately, this did not materialize for a number of reasons, all of them related to the post-unification changes in Berlin and at Humboldt University.
The reason for the silence around the Hamhung project was the Sino-Soviet confrontation in the late 1950, a taboo topic in the socialist camp that always tried to pretend great brotherly unity despite serious conflicts within. I saw how skilfully the North Korean side extracted resources from Moscow and Beijing, although both were very sceptical of Pyongyang.
This helps me a lot in understanding the present situation, and sometimes I think that merely the Soviet Union has been replaced by the USA and South Korea, but the same game is still going on. One major difference is that North Korea now has nuclear weapons, which makes it virtually impossible to just ignore them as China ad the Soviet Union decided to do in the early 1960s. Certainly, we can learn a lot from that past example, and part of my research today is about that issue.
-What did you do with Kyungnam University?
My interest in North Korea had come to an end after I finished the book on Hamhung. I did not believe it was worth wasting my time on such a bizarre subject anymore, and like most other people, I expected that a collapse would come rather sooner than later.
I turned my research focus to telecommunications in South Korea, which resulted in my second book on regulatory reform in that sector. I concentrated on economics and political economy. Then in 2002, I heard about the July reforms and started looking at North Korea again. To my great amazement, I found that there had been substantial changes, both in real life, but even more so in terms of ideology. The later is absolutely crucial for a socialist system and often underestimated in the West. Meanwhile, the quality of work on North Korea done in South Korea increased enormously, and IFES (the Institute of Far Eastern Studies) and the University of North Korean Studies were among the top institutions. So our contact was natural, and have developed a close professional relationship ever since. This intensified in 2005, when I was a visiting Professor at Korea University. I have become an Adjunct Professor at Korea University and at the University of North Korean Studies. In February 2009 we signed a Memorandum of Understanding between IFES and my university.
-As a foreign observer, do you see differences in Korean politicians (under President Lee Myung bak) in approaching North Koreans?
I think we must understand the very specific South Korean perspective on the problem. North Korea has confronted the South ideologically and militarily in a way that, luckily, the two parts of Germany never experienced amongst themselves. This has created many negative emotional memories. Reconciliation is a difficult process.
For a long time, South Korea’s development paradigm was based upon the notion of defending against the North. The developmental dictatorship of Park Chung-hee was justified by anti-Communism. North Korea did not do much to change this negative image, to put it mildly. Then all of a sudden, this had changed with the new leadership in North Korea and the arrival of a new South Korean president in 1998 who had formerly been accused of and almost been killed for being a pro-North Korean. To many South Koreans, this might have come too quickly. President Kim Dae-jung started a policy that I still believe is the most effective way of approaching North Korea in the long run, although I also think that not all people understood the actual effects of the sunshine policy. They misinterpreted it as embarrassing naivety by some idealistic progressives. I think it was not. North Korea as a system is built to withstand external pressure, but it has little means to defend against a consistently cooperative approach. The summit meeting, Mt. Kumgang, Kaesong ? these are enormous successes, and we will only in hindsight know about the actual effects.
The problem with the sunshine policy is that it can be compared to planting an oak tree. When you put the seed into earth, you have the image of a big oak in your mind. After ten years, a little plant has grown, but it is still small and fragile, nothing like a big tree. Pointing at this plant and saying “what a failure” is easy, but what else could we expect? An oak needs a long time to become big and strong.
The problem with long term strategies is that they are hard to follow in a democracy. And North Korea policy is much more complex than planting a tree. There is the nuclear issue, there are human rights, a humanitarian crisis, and a quickly developing world that has its impact on Korea. South Korea might not have the time to wait for 100 years. So I fully understand why many politicians and voters became increasingly sceptical of the sunshine policy. Good marketing is part of every business success; a good product alone is not enough. Domestic marketing of the sunshine policy was not perfect.
The presidential elections in 2007 reflected the concerns by many South Koreans. Now we have a situation when the Lee MB government could actually be lucky enough to harvest what Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun have planted, because a sudden collapse of North Korea has become more likely than it was in the past due to health of Kim Jong-il and the long-term effects of the market reforms.
In a way, I think the North Korean leadership is very grateful that the new South Korean government is offering them, finally, a way out of all the risky cooperation projects that started to get out of control. Am I happy with the current North Korea policy? This is not up to me to decide. But although I think that mistakes have been made, now that things have gotten so far, all the Lee MB government can do is stay the course. Communication between Seoul and Washington will be crucial.
-What roles can Europeans play in North-South Korean affairs, and in the six-party talks? I feel that Europeans are excluded in this process, although some European diplomats in Seoul say that they want to play a role.
I do not think that Europeans are excluded. I would rather say there is, although for different reasons, a very broad agreement that it would be better if the EU did not join the 6PT at this time. Europe could win little, but would enter a diplomatic minefield instead. The EU has also much more pressing issues to resolve, both internally and externally, and would not need another problem. The balance of power at the 6PT is delicate, and the entry of the EU might disturb it. For now, the EU has a very important role to play as a mediator and as a neutral broker.
Both Koreas utilize this mechanism when official relations at the 6PT get stuck; I have personally witnessed a number of such instances. Italy is playing a particularly supportive role in this regard, as well as Sweden. Austria not only hosts the IAEA, but also both Korean embassies, and is regarded as a neutral country by Pyongyang. So both sides can meet there without much effort ad publicity. This is what Europe can contribute, and it is much more substantial than being just the 7th Party to the talks.
Besides, I am very pessimistic about the chances for this format (the 6PT) to achieve any lasting solution, because at its core, it is set for confrontation, not cooperation. Also, sometimes it seems as if the USA and China negotiate their bilateral relationship at these talks, and Korea is only the stage for this play. This is why I have urged South Koreans to become more active and take the initiative, to “claim ownership” of the Korean issue.
I know that North Korea is not always helpful in this respect, but I think they are also worried about the big powers sidelining them. And they are much more successful in setting the topics and the pace. I believe that a multilateral setting is the only way to resolve the North Korea issue, but I don’t think the 6PT are the right form. An East Asian Community, including ASEAN, would be much better suited.
-Your assessment of North Korean economic situation? What is the solution to the North Koreans‘ poverty?
The economic situation of NK is difficult for a number of short-term and long-term reasons. The solution is very obvious: system change. An economic system based on central coordination can be compared to breathing. Imagine that scientists find out that the level of oxygen in our blood can become better if we breathe deliberately, in a controlled way, and turn off the subconscious, automatic mode that we use.
At first, the results will be quite good; but we will have to keep thinking about breathing ? in, out, in, out. After a while we will begin to forget about breathing, so some friendly person will remind us. When we get tired and fall asleep, a less friendly person will be needed to keep us awake, because otherwise, we will stop breathing, and the body will die. At the end, we will die anyway, after a long process of getting weaker and weaker.
In a way, this is how a socialist economy functions. At the beginning, resources are centrally allocated, nothing is wasted on overproduction, and the economy does well. Then, eventually but surely, people will try to work less and focus on other issues, bureaucrats will coordinate less efficiently and rather think about their career, and propaganda will be used even more intensely to keep everyone committed. If that does not work, the state needs other means to keep everyone on target, including repression. The costs of this are enormous and the effects far from perfect.
The key to a successful economic system is, at the basic level, the automatic behavior by humans to maximize their utility, whatever they regard as such. They have to be able to breathe naturally. If this automatic function is turned off by too harsh restrictions, the whole system will become weaker and weaker. South Korea has experienced a period of strong state control, but it kept the ambitions and incentives at the basic level intact.
This is what made it such a success despite strong state influence. North Korea, like most other socialist countries, has depleted itself of this enormous source of energy. All attempts at improving central coordination will fail in the end, if the basic paradigm of the economy remains unchanged. This is not a political statement; it is the result of numerous studies on socialism.
I think the only solution to North Korea’s situation is the liberation of the individual energies of its people. This does not have to be a liberal market economy; South Korea after 1961 and China after 1979 have shown other ways. The tricky question is how to do this surgery without killing the patient, as Michail Gorbatchev had to experience in the Soviet Union. With a strong and healthy leader, this should be doable. A weak leadership, a deteriorating domestic situation, and external pressure will not create a reform friendly environment, but rather lead to stubbornly sticking to old principles, and eventually a collapse.
-Can you compare North Korea and East Germany?
Of course we can, but such a comparison should be informed by a proper understanding of both countries, their histories, and their geopolitical situation. Comparing does not mean that the two countries are the same; yet, we can learn a lot from looking at the issues East Germany had to deal with after unification, and asking ourselves how these would be tackled in Korea. Examples include how to deal with the military. If a law would be passed that guarantees every military officer who has not violated any major law to keep his job after unification, this information would reach North Korea and decrease the fear of insecurity there.
There is also the difficult question of acts that are legal under one constitution, but illegal under the other; how can somebody be punished for having violated the laws of a country he did not live in? Germans found out the hard way, when many people were and still are disappointed that except for the Ministry of State Security and a few soldiers who had the unlucky faith of having served at the border at the wrong time, almost no representative of the old regime could be punished. Another important question are property rights, including those that are claimed by people living in South Korea.
Without clearly defined property rights, a private economy will not function. If ownership of, for example, a high-rise building or a factory in Pyongyang is not clear because it stands on what used to be three different pieces or land before 1945, nobody will invest, and the building will collapse.
We have seen that happen in Germany. My own family reclaimed a house we once owned and finally got it back, but only after years and a tedious process. This can be done much better. South Korea can now use its time and resolve all these issues calmly. How this will be done ? that depends on the specific Korean situation. But the issues will arise, that is clear. Once unification happens, there will be no time left, one has to move quickly. We also know that transformation of socialist systems often starts with a transformational recession due to adjustment, before output finally starts growing. This list could be continued.
-What is wrong with Korean government’s foreigner policy?
I personally have no complaints about the policy of the Korean government vis-a-vis foreigners, especially if I compare it with my experience of living, for example, in the United States. I know there are many complaints, but I personally have always felt welcome in Korea and treated with an amount of respect that sometimes even embarrasses me. My knowledge of the Korean language helps, but this is the same in any other country. The city of Seoul changes to become more liveable, which I consider very important to attract high-level expatriates, and access to the rest of the country is much better as it used to be.
Well, I hope this helps. I could write much, much more on the single points, but then it would get even longer.
[출처 : 경향신문]
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