When it comes to discussing North Korea, the image of a “land of starvation” may still dominate perceptions of the country, but more and more people are coming to understand, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, that this characterization is incorrect.

Recently, the Bank of Korea, South Korea’s central bank, changed its long-held position on the North Korean economic growth. For years, the Bank of Korea has published improbably low estimates of North Korea’s annual GDP growth, usually claiming it to be between 1% and 1.3% – well below the estimates of virtually all other observers.

This year, though, even the hardcore pessimists in the Bank of Korea have changed their views, and produced a much higher (and much more realistic-looking estimate) of 3.9% growth in 2016. Observers are nearly unanimous now: the North Korean economy is growing fast.

This is not to say the country is becoming affluent, since North Korea remains by far the poorest state in East Asia. But if one compares the current situation to that of the 1990s, or even the early 2000s, living standards have improved dramatically. And contrary to what is often claimed, this wealth is in fact spread across the entire country, and is not merely concentrated in Pyongyang.

LIFE IS GETTING BETTER

Predictably, economic growth has resulted in the palpable improvement of popular sentiment towards the current regime. During the first few years of Kim Jong Un’s rule, many North Koreans felt uneasy, even embarrassed about the new leader’s youth, obvious inexperience and rather strange looks.

North Korea remains by far the poorest state in East Asia

Now, though, such reservations have disappeared almost entirely: like it or not, Kim Jong Un enjoys popular support. His approval seems to be high enough to be compared to those of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea who, for the vast majority of people, remains a god-like figure.

This surge in the leader’s popularity is easy to understand: he is the person most North Koreans would thank for the significant improvement in their quality of life in recent years – and they might be right.

Pyongyang watchers, increasingly aware of North Korea’s new economic situation, tend to assume that North Korea’s continued economic growth, if sustained for a long time, will become a guarantee of regime stability. There is an understanding that Kim Jong Un will remain in power so long as he continues to preside over a growing economy.

This may be indeed the case, but one should keep in mind that it is too simplistic to equate sustainable economic success with long-term political stability. The probability (or threat?) of regime collapse will not necessarily disappear, even when the country’s economy grows fast.

THE SOVIET MODEL

Contrary to what many people believe, revolutions seldom occur in times of destitution. The Soviet system showed little sign of collapse in the early 30s, when untold millions of farmers starved to death.

It was not until the 80s that cracks appeared, and by then the average Soviet citizen lived better than ever before and, actually, better than most Westerners believed at the time. He or she had more than an adequate supply of calories, if not vitamins, lived in reasonable if small living accommodations, perhaps even owned a car, and generally enjoyed a lifestyle comparable to that of the poorer non-communist countries in Europe.

Like it or not, Kim Jong Un enjoys popular support

Neither the American revolution of 1776, the French revolution of 1789, nor the Russian revolution of 1917, came at a time when the lifestyle of each country’s citizenry could be described as destitute.

As a matter of fact, all these revolutions came at a time when each country had lived through decades of substantial economic growth and steady improvement in living standards.

One may also notice that the popularity of a particular state’s leader is far from constant. History provides us with many cases when a leader, having enjoyed years and even decades of popular support, becomes the target of near-universal hatred and loathing almost overnight.

One can, for example, mention Nicolae Ceaușescu, a Romanian dictator whose quasi-legal trial and execution/assassination in 1989 was one of the most dramatic episodes in the wave of anti-Communist revolutions which swept Eastern Europe that year.

By then few remembered that in the late 1960s, Ceaușescu was seen as a truly Romanian leader, an embodiment of patriotism and independent spirit. Far removed from the stale and docile pro-Soviet leadership of other Communist bloc countries, the Ceaușescu regime was tremendously popular in its early years.

One should not interpret Kim Jong Un’s undeniable popularity at present as something immutable.

THINGS COULD BE BETTER

But if economic hardship does not lead to revolution, what does? In most cases, revolutions tend to be provoked by a widespread, almost universal belief that life could and should be arranged in a better way, that there are perceived better alternatives to the current mode of existence. Cracks in the unity of the leadership are also vital indications of regime instability, but for purposes of this piece, we will focus on popular sentiment alone.

There is an understanding that Kim Jong Un will remain in power so long as he continues to preside over a growing economy

Unfortunately for North Korea’s leaders, they face what appears to be a near-permanent destabilizing factor: the existence of the unbelievably successful South Korea whose population speaks the same language and is, officially, part of the same nation.

When the average North Korean learns about life in South Korea and compares his or her life to that of a South Korean counterpart, they are bound to start wondering what has made their country so spectacularly unsuccessful.

It is likely that blame will be placed on the North Korean regime, built by the fathers and grandfathers of the country’s current leaders. To make things worse, the very existence of a larger, richer South Korea is bound to create an illusion that all of North Korea’s current problems could be solved overnight by reunification with the astonishingly rich South.

Revolutions tend to be provoked by a widespread, almost universal belief that life could and should be arranged in a better way

No matter how successful North Korea’s economy is, it will be decades before the country gets close to the South, and this means that the regime will long remain highly vulnerable to the alluring bright lights of Seoul.

To counter this ever present threat, the North Korean elite has no choice but severely limit its population’s access to information about foreign lands, and also must remain highly repressive in order to keep people politically docile.

WHAT IF GROWTH SLOWS?

There is another challenge which might lie ahead. History has demonstrated that it is especially bad for an authoritarian government to face a situation when fast economic growth slows down significantly or stalls completely.

This is precisely what happened in the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 80s. Having exhausted all possible avenues of growth, the economy slowed to nearly a halt. It did not shrink (it actually still grew, albeit very slowly), but for the average Soviet citizen, the new situation was perceived as an economic crisis.

Most Soviet people by this time were aware of Western economic prowess and used the lifestyle of developed Western nations as the only benchmark for their own country’s economic performance.

Time and technology are not on Pyongyang’s side

It was widely assumed (with little good reason, frankly) that the Soviet Union should have roughly the same living standards as the United States or Great Britain. The Soviet government’s inability to deliver this expected level of consumption resulted in a great outburst of popular disappointment with and disenfranchisement from the system. This, in turn, fueled desires for change and radical rearrangement of the entire Soviet society.

For better or worse, one can envision a similar situation developing in North Korea eventually. If Kim Jong Un’s regime suddenly finds itself incapable of sustaining the economic growth the country has experienced over the past few years, the people are likely to start asking questions about the legitimacy of the system.

Things will not be ameliorated by the unstoppable barrage of information from the outside world. After all, in spite of tremendous efforts by North Korea’s security experts and software engineers, who work hard to limit the exposure of the common populace to outside information, time and technology are not on Pyongyang’s side. Knowledge of the outside world is increasingly proliferating, and this is not for good for the regime’s stability.

One should not feel too assured, then, by economic growth in North Korea. There are good reasons to be less than enthusiastic about prospect of a North Korean revolution, which is almost certain to become a bloody and messy affair, and might even trigger a large international conflict (see Libya and Syria, and add nuclear weapons into the mix).

However, irrespective of what one believes about the desirability of the regime collapse in North Korea, one should keep in mind that it is a real possibility, in spite of the impressive economic achievements by Kim Jong Un and his government in recent years.

Edited by Oliver Hotham

Featured image: KCNA