Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We think we understand North Korea. We call it communist. But is it? Hi, everyone. I'm Lynne Thoman, and this is Three Takeaways. On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers, and scientists. Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better.
Today, I'm excited to be with Jonathan Chang. John is the China Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. Before that, he served as the paper's Korea Bureau Chief. He's also the author of the wonderful new book, Korean Messiah. Welcome, John, and thanks so much for joining Three Takeaways today.
It's a real pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
It is my pleasure. John, what do most people misunderstand about North Korea? We call it communist, but is it?
Well, it is communist to a degree. I don't want to suggest that it isn't altogether. It was founded under the auspices of the USSR at the end of World War II in 1945. But I think that when we misunderstand North Korea, we misunderstand it by thinking that it is primarily a communist or socialist or Stalinist state. It certainly is that, and it certainly is a nation state.
But I think perhaps even to think of it as a nation state doesn't quite, in my opinion, get to the essence of what North Korea is. I would argue that what North Korea is at its root is it's a religious society. It's a country, yes, of 25 million people. It is cut off from the outside world. It does have many trappings of statehood. It has a seat at the United Nations. It has a flag.
It has an anthem. It has a military. It has coinage. It has postage stamps. All of those are true. And yet, when you really peel back the layers, what you get is a society that is built around the founding family, the Kim family. We know Kim Jong-un is the third generation leader of North Korea.
But if you go back to his father and ultimately to his grandfather, the founder of the state, Kim Il-sung, that's really what this state is built around. It's built around what I might even go so far as to call worship of Kim Il-sung. That's really what lies at the center of this state.
What are the roots of this worship, this belief system?
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Chapter 2: What do most people misunderstand about North Korea?
And why do you think he adopted this essentially religious system of veneration of himself and his descendants?
Well, I think partly because of the way he was raised, I think he had a really intuitive understanding of this idea that if you want to get people to do what you want, if you want to control people, there is almost no better way than to look at religion, to look at faith. And I don't think this is a particularly novel idea. I think many men throughout history have figured this out.
But I think Kim Il-sung uniquely was positioned partly because of the circumstances of his upbringing, as well as the circumstances of how he came to power in 1945.
When that happened, he did draw upon Stalinism, but I think he did also draw upon his Presbyterian upbringing and just this idea that if you can create the rituals and the doctrine, the cosmology of faith, of religion, that you can really get people to not only be loyal, but to devote themselves to you and to your cause. And that's something that he was expert at.
You call your book Korean Messiah. Why? And how did he get other people to see him that way?
If you go back to the most famous Messiah, Jesus Christ, what's interesting, of course, is that he was regarded at his time as a political Messiah, somebody who could deliver Israel, the Jews, from Roman rule. And Kim Il-sung in many ways positioned himself as a political messiah, freeing Korea, a country that had been colonized by the Japanese.
He could rid Korea of the Japanese presence and later the American presence because the Americans took control of Southern Korea, South Korea today. But of course, Jesus Christ is a major figure in human history, not necessarily because of what he did politically, but for what he represented as a spiritual messiah.
And there too, Kim Il-sung presented himself as a kind of spiritual messiah for the Korean people. He did try to set himself up as a figure who, if you were loyal to him, if you went even further and you put your trust, you put your faith, you gave your life for him, you could attain some measure of transcendence, some measure of immortality.
through him and you see this cosmology, this kind of theology develop over the decades because he did rule North Korea for a very long time and he creates this cosmology where all ritual, all belief, all of life revolves around him And of course, when he died, unlike Mao, unlike Stalin, he didn't have a successor who came along and tried to repudiate some of his own legacy.
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Chapter 3: How does Kim Il-sung's worship shape North Korean society?
And do they have any idea of the difference?
Certainly compared to South Korea, North Korea is lagging very, very, very far behind. Now, there was a time when the two Koreas were roughly at parity, but that would have been back in the 70s and the 80s, because the strength of a Stalinist system did allow North Korea to make some advances in the early years. But by the 80s and the 90s, it was not a close battle anymore.
And today, South Korea is far, far, far ahead of North Korea. That said...
Chapter 4: What are the ideological roots of North Korea's state religion?
In the capital, Pyongyang, where Kim Jong-un is and where the elites live, there are pockets of wealth there. And there are places where the elite can feel comfortable and can say to themselves, maybe our standard of living is not up to what it might be in other countries, but it's pretty good.
And it's good enough that I don't feel a need to run away or to rebel or to try anything foolish like that. I have enough buy-in in the system. Now, if you're on the edges of society in North Korea, I think it's a woeful and miserable experience indeed. And I don't know that I would recommend it to anyone.
But I do think that partly because they simply don't have much of an awareness of where they stand relative to other countries around the world. I think in some senses, there may just be a feeling that, well, life is hard. But life is hard everywhere.
And I'm going to make do with what I have, despite the fact that it is true that there are compatriots on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, even on the margins of society in South Korea, are doing far better. But if they don't know, I suppose that there's some bliss in that ignorance, perhaps.
When world leaders deal with North Korea, what do you think the biggest mistakes that they make are?
I think the biggest mistakes are to treat them as if they are willing to give up their system or to give up key planks in their system, whether it be their nuclear program, whether it be their control over their populace. I don't think the Kim family is interested in that at all. I don't know that there is a more clever way to get North Korea to engage.
And certainly their way of life and their system, the system of rule that they have, why would they give that up? It's worked for so long. So I definitely think that that is one area where the misunderstanding is very deep.
How do you compare the Kim family's leadership to other leaders' leadership?
Well, I think this commitment to not ever liberalizing is quite a bold one. If you look again at China, you look again at the USSR, when pressures built up in their system, even these autocratic authoritarian systems felt like there was a need to let off some steam, to have a safety valve so that people who were dissatisfied could express that. That's never happened in North Korea.
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