Kanwa Editorial DepartmentIt is now clear whether North Korea launched a satellite or a missile. The final result is definite that both the USA and Japan underestimated the information about North Korea.
Why did the USA and Japan underestimate the information about North Korea? Was it only because they didn't do well in the intelligence collection? No! In fact, the result reflects the wrong methodology the USA and Japan used to analyze and estimate the issue of North Korea due to the differences in the basic systems, cultures, and races.
The biggest mistake lay in the insufficient understanding of the "autocratic society".
Soon after the Korean Central News Agency made the official announcement that it was a satellite launch, the KWIC indicated to most of its subscribers that it was necessary to acknowledge the stand the announcement had taken because the KWIC didn't think that North Korea would tell a lie about the issue that concerned the dignity of an "autocratic state" and the face of an Oriental country. Is it possible to imagine that the Soviet Union would tell a lie about its sending Yuri Gagarin to the space and that China would do the same about the launch of its first satellite in 1970? No, it is not. This is because the Communists always believes that their countries build by the "proletarian vanguard" are absolutely superior in terms of its system.
The second biggest mistake was an underestimation of the technical capability level of the autocratic society. The former Soviet Union was and China is far more able than the Western countries to centralize all the national technical and material resources and to fully bring out all the potentialities. North Korea is, of course, not exceptional. A Chinese ballistic missile expert once told the reporter of the KWIC: "Even during the late period of the Great Cultural Revolution, which was the most difficult time in China, there were always sufficient funds for the development of missiles. A large amount of foreign exchange was used to import different kinds of testing equipment to which priority was given. We didn't have any financial difficulty. The Western countries overestimated the effect of their "embargo". However, the advanced equipment was purchased from the Western companies through three to four parties. China was never stingy with money."
It is said that sixty per cent of North Korea's missile spare parts came from Japan and that North Korea always received the enlightening instructions from the Soviet experts. This is another good example that proved the above statement. Even today, the possibility can not be ruled out that as rumor goes, hundreds (some exaggeration?) of Russian and Ukrainian experts are helping North Korea with its missile development. According to the report of the Izvieschia on May 20, 1993, the Russian Federal Anti-espionage Bureau arrested, at the last minute at the Shieniemiechevo Airport in 1992, eight Russian missile scientists who were ready to leave for Pyongyang without the permission from.
The third biggest mistake was due to the racial discrimination. Some scholars in the white-dominated society have a tendency to think that the world's advanced technology is always in their hands. "How can the Chinese produce this type of materials?" "How can the Indians do this?" This seems their way of thinking. However, the reality is different. The Europeans and Americans are well aware how much Japan is ahead of the USA in the advanced science and technology in commercial field. On the contrary, the Japanese have a blind faith in foreign things and they have a sense of inferiority. This was why the Japanese government readily believed the US intelligence source as to whether North Korea launched a missile or a satellite.
Due to the lack of the analytical methodology as indicated in the Marxist "materialistic dialectics", some Western scholars often take a subjective and one-sided approach to analyze information. For example, when mentioning the Taep-dong2 recently developed by North Korea, some American experts indicated to the KWIC that it could be inferred that assistance had been rendered from the Chinese experts in developing the Taep-dong2 because the diameter of this rocket was very close to that of the Chinese DF3 medium-range ballistic missile. KWIC would think that considering such factors as the status of the China-North Korean relationship, geopolitics, and regional security, it was not possible for China to help North Korea develop the ballistic missiles which may later be used to target at Beijing and Shanghai.
Did China have any detailed information before North Korea launched the satellite? The KWIC believes that there was an 80-per cent probability that China didn't. According to a Chinese military commentator with a military background, efforts should be made to prevent the situation of the Korean Peninsula from developing in the direction disadvantageous to us and to avoid the proliferation of some powerful antipersonnel weapons in the surrounding areas. This attitude shows that China watches out closely for North Korea's development of the ground-to-ground ballistic missiles.
The fourth biggest mistake was due to the underestimation of Kim Jun Il's personal ability to manage state affairs. Despite the differences in ideology between China and North Korea, Kim Jun Il always believes that China practices pragmatism and revisionism. On the public occasion, however, North Korea still regards China as a "socialist country". The relationship between the two parties has never been suspended.
Obviously, on the issues that involve his national interest, Kim Jun Il is the most typical pragmatist. It merits more attention that no major fluctuation has ever appeared in the last five years in North Korea's China policy and in the relationship between the two political parties. The consistency in Kim Jun Il's China policy also manifests from another aspect that his personal status and the leadership structure of the Labor Party are both stable.
Most of those whom Kim Jun Il met with all admit that he is a smart person. In her memoirs, the North Korean movie star Chui Yinji wrote about the day she was received by Kim Jun Il. Soon after arriving at the building of the Party Central Committee and getting out of the elevator, she saw Kim Jun Il was already there expecting her. Then he showed her into his office. Actually, this was the way in which his father Kim Il Song got along with people. It made people feel warm. It is clear that Kim Jun Il has learned from his father how to be an "emperor".
It is Kim Jun Il's habitual practices to "knock down a person with one hand and later help him up with another" and to "put in the important positions those comrades who made mistakes". As Kim's another habitual practice, the early "secret banquet" was, in appearance, an occasion where "the happy groups" behaved frivolously and enjoyed themselves. In fact, however, it was similar to the banquets held by Stalin in his later years, which were used to draw people over to his side and to find out the dissidents.
The former vice director of the International Department of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee and the now-researcher of the Russian Science Institute, Tukachenko, proved that since 1990, Kim Jun Il has been more concerned about the international affairs. In his spacious office, there are ten to fifteen television sets (it was said that there were only 4 in the 1980s.) on which he can watch the TV programs transmitted through the satellite from Japan, the USA, Russia, China, and South Korea.
The "satellite game" Kim Jun Il plays is very costly for the USA. In a negotiation with the USA on August 21, North Korea indicated that it would give up the so-called "hooliganism" of exporting its "ballistic missile technology" only if the USA agreed to provide it with an economic aid of 1.7 billion US dollars. By "launching its satellite", North Korea also intended to show the USA that North Korea's missile technology had developed to such a high level that North Korea could almost own an ICMB. In other word, Kim Jun Il has made a political decision that may eventually be worth 1.7 billion US dollars.( Reported by Yihong Zhang)
