Washington for years has conducted an ineffective policy of introducing outside information into North Korea via such means as radio broadcasts of Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA), activities that have neither brought down the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea or DPRK) nor resulted in any advantage for the United States. If such political subversion has failed, why not try a policy of cultural exchange?

Let us consider a new policy of sending outside information into North Korea, one of working with the authorities in Pyongyang to widen access for Koreans in the DPRK to such information, particularly that from the United States. One reason is that recent policy decisions in Seoul and Washington have reduced the flow of unauthorized information from the Republic of Korea (South Korea or ROK) and the United States into the DPRK.[1] Another reason is that North Korea’s leaders at the top and the professionals under them already access foreign information. Even the members of the general public have available to them on a limited basis foreign news, information, and entertainment.

While foreign radio broadcasts into North Korea did deliver outside information, Pyongyang authorities perceived the broadcasts as hostile. Koreans who listened to them did so at the risk of punishment under DPRK law. Let us consider now the enhanced introduction of outside information via legal channels.

Much Outside Information

I recently read a 1987 Pyongyang book whose author berated Washington’s foreign policy in East Asia. Ho Chong Ho’s characterization of US actions, indicated in the book’s title, 미제의 극동정책과 조선 (US Imperialist Foreign Policy in the Far East and Korea), pointed to the decades of poor relations between Washington and Pyongyang.[2] More interesting to me than the author’s conclusions were the many references that Dr. Ho made to sources of information from Japan and the United States, Pyongyang’s main enemies in the colonial and postwar periods.

Apart from an occasional reference to Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) organ Rodong Sinmun or some other Pyongyang publication, Dr. Ho condemned four decades of Washington’s postwar policy in East Asia almost entirely in citing American and Japanese sources. Many of the citations were from the New York Times, as well as from the Washington Post, Newsweek, and US News and World Report. He also referenced major Japanese newspapers: Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri. Sources for his chapters on the Korean War included such US works as I.F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War (1952) and the US Department of the Army’s South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu: June-November 1950 (1961).[3]

For his postwar chapters, Dr. Ho included material from other American publications, including that monthly bible of diplomatic thought, Foreign Affairs. Dr. Ho cited from that journal an article written by an incumbent secretary of state, John Foster Dulles’s “Challenge and Response in United States Policy” (October 1957) and another by a future president, Richard M. Nixon’s “Asia After Vietnam” (October 1967).

Elite Access to Outside Information in the DPRK

Dr. Ho’s book is only one indicator among many Pyongyang publications and foreign sources that there has long been a great deal of outside information within the DPRK.

Those at the top of the pyramid have had ready access to a wide variety of foreign information. Kim Jong Un grew up reading Japanese manga, according to the Japanese chef who used to prepare meals for his family. His father had watched Japanese television news programs at home and amassed a formidable collection of European, Hollywood, and South Korean films.[4]

DPRK cadres keep current with international developments through daily translations and summaries of items from Western news agencies.[5] Scientists and technicians cite many Western, Chinese, and Japanese sources in their own published articles.[6] Novelists, for their part, often write with one eye on foreign literature and the other on international events. The comfortable compound of the prominent April 15 Literary Production Company includes several rooms of shelves filled with works of fiction from around the world and other materials useful for producing literature.[7]

Pyongyang appears to allow professionals to use the nation’s abundant foreign sources of information in the way that government agencies in the West grant access to classified or otherwise sensitive information: on a need-to-know basis. Dr. Ho, for example, drew on historical and political information from the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and even the rival ROK in order to write his book.[8] Whether he would have had access to other information such as Kim Jong Il’s treasure trove of foreign films, as DPRK film directors did then, is altogether unclear as he lacked a “need to know” in that area.

Members of the general public, for their part, have some, probably more limited, opportunities to come in contact with foreign information without breaking any laws. Pyongyang has long broadcast movies from China and Russia via its Mansudae television channel to the public on Sundays. Some audiences have enjoyed from time to time in local movie theaters everything from a British “Mr. Bean” movie to more highbrow fare from France, Germany, and even Japan.[9] Ryongnamsan, the education channel with a focus on science and technology, broadcasts five days a week, with some of its content shown entirely in Chinese, English or Russian.[10]

The reading public has for years read official Korean translations of foreign literature, including such Western classics as William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.[11] The authorities have also published some ROK novels, including 무기의 그늘 (Mugi ui kunul, The Shadow of Arms), 장길산 (Chang Kil-san), and 홍길동 (Hong Kil-tong), three works of Hwang Sok-yong, a perennial ROK candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature.[12] Pyongyang has even published a few American books in Korean translation. An American translator recalls spotting in 2015 on an Air Koryo flight into Pyongyang a North Korean passenger reading a dog-eared DPRK copy of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. According to the translator, wear and tear in a book is a sign of a work’s popularity, evidenced of its passage through the hands of many readers.[13]

Comprehensive data on access inside the DPRK to outside information is lacking. However, the examples above suggest that Pyongyang’s top leaders obtain outside information as they please, professionals below them access foreign materials as required for their work, and members of the general public may be able to enjoy foreign media deemed appropriate for them by the authorities. Therefore, a hostile policy of smuggling or broadcasting information into North Korea likely offers nothing to the leaders and perhaps little to the professionals while subjecting the general public to the risk of punishment if caught breaking the law by tuning into foreign broadcasts, plugging smuggled flash drives into their computers or picking up leaflets or other materials floated by balloon from the ROK into the DPRK.

Widening Access to Outside Information

As US President Trump has made multiple overtures to reviving diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, and as Washington continues its DPRK policy review, now could be a time to consider a new information campaign: one of formal information cooperation and exchange. Such a course of exchange through official channels would of course, require improved relations between Washington and Pyongyang; certain types of information exchange might even help develop better relations. If it all somehow came to pass, it could help cultivate a more positive perception of people on both sides.

ROK writer Hwang Sok-yong once signed a publishing contract in Pyongyang in 1991 for his works ); what prevents American writers from doing so?[14] Surely, there must be some US works published in the 100 years since Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind (1936) that would suit a Pyongyang publishing house and please the public. If legal restrictions prevent this, should they be reexamined? What is the point of preventing the free flow of literary works? A bilateral exchange of American and Korean literature and other cultural works could be more effective in changing hearts and minds than a limited one-sided flow.

Chinese and Russians have taught their languages over the years at the prestigious Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies (PUFS), which turns out diplomats, intelligence officers, and others working in international careers.[15] The Chinese and Russian embassies in Pyongyang have donated books of their nations to PUFS to use as education materials. The Russian ambassador, the Russian instructor at the PUFS Russian Center, and Korean students of the Russian language celebrated in June Russian Language Day at the Russian Embassy. As part of the day’s events, the participating Korean students watched Upon the Magic Roads, a recent film adaptation of the Russian literary classic The Little Humpbacked Horse.[16]

While PUFS also teaches English, why not have  American teachers there? What stops the State Department or some private-sector American organization from donating to PUFS some stacks of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style or some copies of John Cheever’s short stories? Cheever in translation has his fans in Tokyo and Seoul.[17] Why not introduce him through the proper channels to Pyongyang?

Pyongyang’s Sunday television broadcasts on Mansudae Television include popular Chinese and Russian films in addition to the outside scientific and technical information included five days a week in the programs that Ryongnamsan Television gears for university students.[18] The authorities air foreign technical information as it is useful and poses no political problems. They broadcast the movies because Pyongyang enjoys good relations with Beijing and Moscow. Silvester Stallone’s character Rocky Balboa has long been popular in North Korea, the Rocky series circulating for years informally around the country.[19] Why not arrange with the authorities to occasionally run those movies as Sunday television fare, along with the Chinese and Russian movies? Washington could propose such a step as part of a policy of cultural exchange aimed at easing tensions between the United States and North Korea.

Conclusion

Widening access in North Korea to outside information through official channels would yield a number of benefits. Such a course of action, undertaken ideally as part of a bilateral program of international exchange, would give citizens of both the US and the DPRK more information about the world outside their borders. Koreans could watch on Sunday television the movies of Rocky Balboa without the need for illegal flash drives or the fear of a police raid. Americans could enjoy the inter-Korean production Hwang Jin Yi (2007), the film adaptation of DPRK novelist Hong Sok Chung’s ROK-award-winning novel of the same name, or other artistic works from North Korea.[20] Perhaps American fans of the popular Hallyu (Korean Wave) from the south would one day surf the Choryu (Korean Wave) of northern culture.

Perhaps the result one day would be a follow-on work to Dr. Ho’s 1987 denunciation of US policy in the Far East, with his successor seeing Washington’s policy in a positive light where Dr. Ho perceived only imperialism.