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The Internet dilemma and control policy: political and economic implications of the Internet in North Korea

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10163270903087204

1941-4641

Kyungmin Ko, Heejin Lee, Seungkwon Jang,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

Abstract The Internet poses a “dilemma” to authoritarian countries. While it can bring economic dynamism to a country, it can also cause political destabilization by enabling economic and political information to flow freely beyond governmental control. Internet policies vary from country to country depending upon their own strategies, their level of economic development and international politics. This paper discusses and examines political and economic implications of the Internet in North Korea in relation to theories and notions of the Internet dilemma and control policy in authoritarian regimes. North Korea cannot move drastically from its restrictive and reactive Internet policy to a proactive policy unless there are radical changes of the regime with regard to international relations and economic development. It is expected that North Korea will gradually experiment building and using an intranet internally, and increase the level of Internet opening while arranging technological and institutional measures to mitigate the risks which the Internet may cause. Until recently, the United States and North Korea have had rows over North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, and will continue to do so for some time. These disputes affect North Korea's policy regarding the Internet. However, the political environment surrounding the Korean peninsula is changing very fast. Despite North Korea's rocket launch in April and nuclear test in May 2009, dialogue will begin between North Korea and the United States under the Obama administration. Given the recent changes, it is expected that North Korea will follow Cuba's control policy to minimize the risk of the Internet in the first instance, and then China's open policy to maximize the value of the Internet. When North Korea considers the regime is secured, it will open the Internet with some control measures in place, while free access to the Internet is currently allowed only in special economic zones. Notes 1. David C. Gompert, “Right Makes Might: Freedom and Power in the Information Age,” in Strategic Appraisal: The Changing Role of Information in Warfare, ed. Zalmay Khalilzad, John P. White, and Andrew W. Marshall (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999); Christopher R. Kedzie, Communication and Democracy: Coincident Revolutions and the Emergent Dictator's Dilemma (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1997); George P. Shultz, “New Realities and New Ways of Thinking,” Foreign Affairs 63, no. 4 (Spring 1985): 705–21. 2. Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003); Francoise Mengin, “The Changing Role of the State in Greater China in the Age of Information,” in Cyber China: Reshaping National Identities in the Age of Information, ed. Francoise Mengin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, Who Controls the Internet: Illusions of a Borderless World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Tamara Renee Shie, “The Tangled Web: Does the Internet Offer Promise or Peril for the Chinese Communist Party?” Journal of Contemporary China 13, no. 40 (August 2004): 523–40. 3. Kyungmin Ko, IT Strategy in North Korea (Seoul: Communication Books, 2004). 4. According to a source at the Ministry of Unification, there were 120,000 to 130,000 computers in North Korea in 2001, which is estimated at 185 persons per computer. Ministry of Unification, 2001 Overall Evaluation of North Korea Economy, (Seoul: Ministry of Unification, 2001). 5. Heejin Lee and Jaeho Hwang, “ICT Development in North Korea: Changes and Challenges,” IT and International Development 2, no. 1 (2004): 75–87. 6. Heejin Lee and Jaeho Hwang, “ICT Development in North Korea: Changes and Challenges,” IT and International Development 2, no. 1 (2004): 75–87. 7. Kalathil and Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regimes; Taylor C. Boas, “The Dictator's Dilemma? The Internet and U.S. Policy toward Cuba,” The Washington Quarterly 23, no. 3 (Summer 2000): 57–67. 8. Nina Hachigian, “The Internet and Power in One-Party East Asian States,” The Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 41. 9. Kalathil and Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regimes; Lee and Hwang, “ICT Development in North Korea”; for a recent example, see Myroslaw J. Kyj, “Internet Use in Ukraine's Orange Revolution,” Business Horizons 49, no. 1 (2006): 71–80. 10. Nina Hachigian, “Political Implications of the Information Revolution in Asia,” in The Information Revolution in Asia, ed., Nina Hachigian and Lily Wu (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003), 71–2; Hao Xiaoming and Chow Seet Kay, “Factors Affecting Internet Development: An Asian Survey,” First Monday 9, no. 2 (2004), http://firstmonday/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1118/1038. 11. Kalathil and Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regimes; Randy Kluver and Kack Linchuan Qiu, “China, the Internet and Democracy,” in Rhetoric and Reality: The Internet Challenge for Democracy in Asia, ed., Indrajit Banerjee (Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2003); Mengin, “The Changing Role of the State in Greater China in the Age of Information.” 12. Nina Hachigian, “China's Cyber-Strategy,” Foreign Affairs 80, no. 2 (March/April 2001): 118; Michael S. Chase and James C. Mulvenon, You've Got Dissent! Chinese Dissident Use of the Internet and Beijing's Counter-Strategies (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002), xiii. 13. Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, “The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution,” Carnegie Endowment Working Papers, no. 21 (July 2001), 3. 14. Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, “The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution,” Carnegie Endowment Working Papers, no. 21 (July 2001), 3–4. 15. Hachigian, “The Internet and Power in One-Party East Asian States,” 42–3. 16. Kalathil and Boas, “The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes,” 17. 17. Kalathil and Boas, “The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes,” 16. 18. BBC News, “Google Move ‘Black Day’ for China,” BBC News, January 25, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4647398.stm (accessed August 16, 2006). 19. Boas, “The Dictator's Dilemma.” 20. Kalathil and Boas, “The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes,” 17. 21. Boas, “The Dictator's Dilemma.” 22. Hachigian, “The Internet and Power in One-Party East Asian States,” 41–58; Hachigian, “Political Implications of the Information Revolution in Asia.” 23. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), “Clarification Regarding .KP Country Code Top-Level Domain,” August 17, 2007, http://www.iana.org/root-whois/kp.htm. 24. Reporters Without Borders reported North Korea's registration of ccTLD: “North Korea has only two websites registered under the domain name ‘.kp,’ acquired at the end of 2007: the official computer center (http://www.kcce.kp), which also acts as a surveillance body on the North Korean network, and the government portal (http://www.naenara.kp). The Web is used as a propaganda tool in the service of the Kim Jong Il regime.” However, these websites were not traceable at time of writing this article (April 2009). Reporters without Borders USA, “North Korea,” Reporters without Borders USA, March 12, 2009, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26139&Valider=OK. 25. Kyungmin Ko, Seungkwon Jang, and Heejin Lee, “.kp North Korea,” in Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2007/2008, ed., Felix Librero and Patricia B. Arinto (India: Sage, 2008), 39–40. 26. JoongAng Daily, “North Growing Computer Network,” JoongAng Daily, December 5, 2002, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=1912016. 27. Ko, Jang and Lee, “.kp North Korea,” 39–40. 28. Most of the sites in the Appendix no longer exist. Only a few (e.g. Chosun Tongsin, Chosun Sinbo, People's Korea and Uriminzokkiri) are still active. 29. The distinction between “official” and “unofficial” websites is meaningless in the North Korean case. Hiroyasu Akutsu, “Is the Internet on the Side of ‘Rogue States’? A Lesson from the North Korean Case,” ifrm.glocom.ac.jp/gii/akutsu19990621en.html (accessed August 3, 2002). It is partly because it is more or less impossible to see differences between official and unofficial sites in that all serve the propaganda purposes of the North Korean regime, and partly because unofficial sites outnumber official sites. 30. Kyungmin Ko, Heejin Lee, and Seungkwon Jang, “North Korea's IT Dilemma and Dualist Strategy,” Informatization Policy 14, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 87; Kyungmin Ko, “A Study of Method and Strategy to Build e-Government in North Korea,” North Korean Studies Review 7, no. 2 (2003): 299–329. 31. Boas, “The Dictator's Dilemma,” 62. 32. Younghwan Lee, “North Korea's Internet, Where Is It?” Weekly Chosun, no. 1621, September 28, 2000. 33. Jaejung Kwon, “Science and Technological Information Service System, Kwang Myung.” Paper presented at the 42nd Conference of Science and Technology Association of Korean Residents in Japan and Symposiums on Science and Technology for Unification, Japan, October 5–6, 2002. 34. Chanmo Park, “The Present Situation and Task of South and North Korea's IT Industry Cooperation.” Paper presented at the 17th Future Strategies Forum, Korea Institute for Future Strategies, Seoul, August 24, 2002. 35. Government-published periodicals such as Kwahakŭi Segye (The World of Science) and the official journal of the cabinet Minju Chos[obreve]n (Democratic Chos[obreve]n) have advocated the benefits of using the Internet for the public. Kwahakŭi Segye, “What are Main Functions of the Internet?” Kwahakŭi Segye, March 1996; Kwahakŭi Segye, “Scientific research and international information communication network: Internet,” Kwahakŭi Segye, February 1996; Minju Chos[obreve]n, “What is the Internet?” Minju Chos[obreve]n, January 21, 2000. 36. The president of Chos[obreve]n Cheshin Co. (Chos[obreve]n Posts and Telecommunications Corporation), Mr Chol-Poong Hwang said in an interview with a North Korean newspaper, Chosun Sinbo (February 1, 2003) that North Korea will not open the Internet due to its possibly threatening national security. Chosun Iilbo, “North Korea, Impossible to Open the Internet Due to Regime Maintenance,” Chosun Iilbo, October 3, 2003, http://nk.chosun.com/news/news.html?ACT=detail&cat_id=4&res_id=39323&page=2. 37. Chosun Ilbo, “N. Korea Likely to Provide Internet Service from 2009,” Chosun Ilbo, August 7, 2008, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200808/200808070011.html. 38. Christopher Hale, “Real Reform in North Korea? The Aftermath of the July 2002 Economic Measures,” Asian Survey 45, no. 6 (2005): 823–42. 39. Richard Tait, “Playing by the Rules in Korea: Lessons Learned in the North–South Economic Engagement,” Asian Survey 43, no. 2 (2003): 305–28; Meredith Jung-en Woo, “North Korea in 2005: Maximizing Profit to Save Socialism,” Asian Survey 46, no. 1 (2006): 49–55. 40. “Perhaps five years hence, when one in ten Chinese citizens will have Internet access and virtually everyone will know someone with an account, the shift in information control and communication will have the potential to undermine CCP [China Communist Party] rule.” Hachigian, “China's Cyber-Strategy,” 131–2. 41. We can find a similar case in Saudi Arabia where all connections to domestic and overseas sites go through a proxy server in the KACST (King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology), which is the control center in Jeddah. From KACST, Saudi authorities can block access to the websites deemed unfit for the country's Internet users. Saudi Arabia implemented this type of central control when it opened the Internet in February 1999. See Khalid M. Al-Tawil, “The Internet in Saudi Arabia,” Telecommunications Policy 25, no. 8–9 (September 2001): 625–32; ONI (OpenNet Initiative), Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia in 2004, http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/saudi/ONI_Saudi_Arabia_Country_Study.pdf, (accessed October 5, 2006); Al-Saggaf, Yeslam, “Exploring Political Online Forums in Saudi Arabia Through Thematic Content Analysis,” in Computing and Philosophy in Asia, ed., Soraj Hongladarom (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007). 42. Ko, Lee, and Jang, “North Korea's IT Dilemma and Dualist Strategy.” 43. Ko, “A Study of Method and Strategy to Build e-Government in North Korea,” 316–20. 44. Woo, “North Korea in 2005”; Heejin Lee, Sungkwon Jang and Kyungmin Ko, ‘‘Korea, Democratic People's Republic of,’’ in Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2009/2010, ed. S. Akhtar and P. Arinto (New Delhi: Sage, 2009), 229–33. 45. Hachigian, “The Internet and Power in One-Party East Asian States,” 44. 46. This concern is nowhere better expressed than in a recent article, Economist, “North Korea and the Internet: Weird But Wired,” Economist, February 3, 2007, http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8640881 (accessed June 13, 2007): “No one in Pyongyang has forgotten that glasnost and perestroika—openness and transparency—killed the Soviet Union.” 47. Lee and Hwang, “ICT Development in North Korea.” 48. Sebastian Harnisch, “U.S.–North Korean Relations under the Bush Administration: From ‘Slow Go’ to ‘No Go’,” Asian Survey 42, no. 6 (2002): 856–82. 49. Boas, “The Dictator's Dilemma,” 60.