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Experts fear North Korea may be using its strong antivirus measures to gain tighter centralized control over its people by prioritizing the regime’s stability over public health.
“What I’m seeing is that there seems to be a premium to population control, stability of regime strengthening, and not public population health,” said W. Courtland Robinson, a professor who focuses on public health at North Korea at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
North Korea has been taking tough measures to defend itself against the virus, even when it says the country has no cases of COVID-19. The highly contagious virus has spread rapidly from Wuhan, China, where the first cases emerged, to infect more than 2.3 million and kill nearly 160,000 people worldwide as of Saturday night, according to the Resource Center for Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus.
Pyongyang suspended all flights to and from China and closed the porous border they share in January before slightly opening in March to support the provision of antivirus.
North Korea also placed thousands of people in quarantine before releasing some in late March. In February, the regime ordered a complete and quarantine inspection of all goods arriving at its ports and borders.
Pyongyang apparently issued its strict anti-virus measures with notice of rape penalties rather than advisory guidelines issued for people to voluntarily follow to reduce health risks.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in February that “serious consequences” will follow if the virus spreads to the country and called on everyone to obey quarantine orders “unconditionally.”
To block any incursion by the virus, North Korea emphasized in March the need to “tighten control over people to allow them to unconditionally obey instructions” on anti-epidemic measures.
North Korea renewed its call to obey orders on Tuesday, declaring complacency “can never be tolerated in carrying out preventive efforts.”
Robinson believes the regime prioritizes its ability to further control people and “does not prioritize public health intervention.”
No evidence of widespread evidence
Despite its strict anti-COVID-19 measures, North Korea has not indicated that it has begun testing across the country, raising questions about the validity of its virus-free claim.
Ken Gause, director of the CNA Adversary Analysis Program, a research and analysis group in Virginia, said: “[What] they don’t say they haven’t tested anyone. “
“By not testing anyone, it allows them to tell the truth that they probably, strictly speaking, have no evidence of the virus in North Korea,” he said.
Gause said North Korea may have tightened some social control measures that existed before the 1990s, such as travel restriction that requires permits and a neighborhood watch system.
“It would be very easy to block the country if they wanted to. All they have to do is tighten the regulations, get rid of some of the exceptions in terms of movement, and they could keep people in their place, “Gause said.
He added: “If people did not follow the rules, they would pay a consequence. My guess is that anyone who found out they have the virus will be subjected to some form of quarantine or strict observation, even to the point of keeping her confined to her home, and if they run out of food, [the regime would say] too.”
Travel documents
Before travel restrictions were relaxed during the famine of the 1990s, North Korea restricted freedom of movement by requiring documents to travel within the country. It also had a neighborhood surveillance system in which people reported unauthorized visitors and their hosts to the police who worked for the Ministry of Popular Security and the Ministry of State Security.
Robinson said that strict anti-virus orders accompanied by possible punishments and the lack of options for adequate tests or treatments “can lead people to hide their illnesses.”
He said many North Koreans would not report the flu-like symptoms of COVID-19 for fear of being “detained and isolated and possibly detained in prison in ways that are not conducive to their health.”
Experts said North Korea could use COVID-19 as an excuse to try to control “jangmadang,” unofficial markets that store a wide range of goods, such as food, clothing and other household items. Such a move would prevent commercial activities outside of state-controlled channels.
“One of the things they may also be trying to do is reestablish centralized control over the population that markets have really taken away from the regime,” Gause said.
North Koreans became increasingly dependent on the markets that emerged in the 1990s amid a famine that left approximately 2 million dead. People became more dependent on markets in 2019 after the regime reduced rations distributed by the state.
Gause said that any restrictions in the markets would help the regime to prevent people from collecting and sharing information in the markets.
At the same time, the epidemic provides the regime with a justification for imposing tighter control on markets as it resorts to self-sufficiency after failing to obtain relief from U.S. sanctions, he said.
In January, Kim announced that the country would focus on self-sufficiency.
‘Best narrative’
“This virus could be used as an explanation of why they were isolated from the world,” said Gause. “It’s a better narrative [for the regime] say: “We are protecting you from this deadly virus” that “We are turning our back economically on the world because our supreme leader [Kim] could not reach an agreement with the United States. “
However, Gause said that controlling the markets would be temporary since Kim’s vision of the economy going forward does not imply centralized regulation.
William Brown, a former CIA analyst and expert on North Korea’s economy, said North Korea’s current desire to control the markets may reflect the economic impact it feels on closing the border with China, its main trading partner.
“The North Korean government may try to stop the markets because [it] you might be afraid of high prices, price inflation, “Brown said.” The North Korean government tends to stop this kind of price jump by putting a price cap on it. But the maximum price destroys the market. “
After closing the Chinese border, a move that blocked what is normally 90% of North Korea’s trade, China’s imports fell to $ 198 million. North Korea’s exports to China fell 75% to $ 10 million, Brown wrote in an article about 38 North, a website devoted to analyzing North Korea.
The figures “do not include deliveries of crude oil to Chinese pipelines, which are estimated to be around 50,000 tons per month, valued at $ 10 million to $ 20 million at current prices,” according to the article.
Fall of consumer goods.
“What happened in January and February is a fall in [North Korea’s] imports of consumer goods, “Brown said.” That has a more direct impact on the population. “
Less imports of Chinese soybeans, for example, means that North Korea could experience supply shortages and price increases.
Restricting or closing markets could lead to “pockets of hunger,” Brown said.
“If they destroy markets, then we go back to the scene as in the 1990s, where if there is a food shortage, there is no mechanism to move food,” Brown said. “And then you could have pockets of hunger, not large-scale hunger but pockets of hunger.”
