North Korea Curbing Growing Tourist Demand

According to reports coming out of Beijing foreigners who have been recently applying for visas to the DPRK are being told, “See you next year.” North Korea has for the time being, blocked foreigners from entering the people’s paradise. The move leaves this commentator thinking how many would be tourists will have to delay their plans to fall at the feet of statues of the great leaders Kim Il Sung or Kim Jung Il and weep their deep respective praises?

The true threat to global politics continues to be the lunacy of North Korea and their tried and tested method of agreeing to international discussions, milking foreign aid and then reneging on the agreements to pursue aggressive weapons programs. In a recent Foreign Affairs article Andrei Lankov argues that quick fixes and international agreements will not bring an end to the oppressive regime in Pyongyang, but rather it will be the strategy that won the original Cold War that will beat back Kimmies strangle hold on the fruit filled garden of North Korea. Not the glorious work of International Negotiators, Foreign Aid, or Military Strength but a good old fashioned Information Campaign.

The disparity of income levels between North and South Korea if known and accepted as truth in North Korea by the bulk of the cut off population would force the cracks to widen in an old and damp foundation and over time would force the building to come crashing down, as it did to a certain wall somewhere in Germany. Communisms chief weakness was that it could not compete with the material well being of capitalist societies. The free trade zone that boarders both Korea’s provides a seemingly mutual benefit, South Korean enterprise benefits from a cheap and disposable work force, while North Korea gets an infusion of cold hard cash. However, the obvious danger for the DPRK is that that work force gets to interact with their neighbors from the South, who in their possessions and actions demonstrate on a very real level how broken their paradise at home actually is.

Lankov also argues that accepting students into the international education network is a clever ploy to also further cut into the legitimacy of Kim Jung Il and his system of governance. Simply giving students or citizens of North Korea internet access and a television remote or a library card will allow them to learn about the world and how different it is from what they are taught.

There are murmurs that the border closing is due to an upcoming Kim Jung Il trip to China. Others insist that the closing is an attempt to block unrest over the economy. The North recently revalued its currency in an attempt to cut into illegal profit making by shady businesses inside North Korea. (Shady businesses in North Korea are simply profit making endeavors.)

Xi Jinping, the Chinese Vice President, and widely rumored to be the front runner to succeed current President Hu Jintao has recently commented on his trip to Japan, that “several agreements on important issues have been reached between the United States and North Korea.” It is widely hoped that six party talks will continue and that they will lead to the de-nuclearization of the DPRK. It seems like the International Community is getting back on the marry-go-round and that North Korea will hop off again at some point in the near future and hold the world hostage for more goodies.