The DMZ as Digital Divide: ICT and Communication in Korean Unification

In an earlier post this morning I mused about the implications of cloud computing for international and national security, and suggested that "the growth of cyberspace is emerging as perhaps the single most important factor in, among other things, Korean unification." Shortly after publishing the post, I became aware of some new resources relating to the topic.

First, The Walter Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University earlier this year published a report entitled U.S.-DPRK Educational Exchanges: Assessment and Future Strategy.  Fortunately, the Stanford volume can be downloaded in PDF format, so I encourage you to use the preceding hyperlink to do so and read it.  Unfortunately, the Stanford volume devotes far to little attention to the exceedingly important role of information and communications technology (ICT) in Korean unification.  For evidence of this, readers may wish to read prior posts on this blog about this important topic at this link, or search for "unification" or "DMZ."

A second resource is the web site of The National Committee on North Korea. As noted in its mission statement, it "...advances, promotes and facilitates engagement between citizens of the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It works to reduce tensions and promote peace on the Korean Peninsula and improve the well being of the citizens of the DPRK. Through cooperation on concrete activities addressing specific problems, NCNK seeks to enhance broad-based understanding and mutual trust. NCNK supports transitions enabling the DPRK to become a full participant in the community of nations.
The National Committee's principles of engagement focus on addressing urgent humanitarian needs, implementing long-term development, building sustained partnerships, fostering mutual understanding, and helping to avoid conflict on the Korean Peninsula."


Although pleased to see the above new resources, I am disappointed at the lack of a more comprehensive discussion of the role of ICT and communication in Korean unification.  It is such an obvious factor, especially in 2011 with the unfolding "Arab Spring" and international commentary on the role of digital, mobile and social media in it.  Even back in 1995, when my book on The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea was published, it demanded a full chapter (Chapter 9: "Toward One World: Beyond all Barriers": Communications and National Reunification).  Since that time, I have followed the topic mainly through posts on this blog.  Among them, my 2008 post about Johann Galtung's perspective on unification, and in 2009, Andrei Lankov's thoughts on the matter, deserve reading.

In conclusion, I would simply underscore the obvious for further research, theorizing, publication and discussion of the role of ICT and communication in Korean unification.

North and South Korea Skirmish in Cyberspace

As reported by Yonhap News, in a story that is likely to get wide international exposure, hackers (reportedly South Korean) have breached North Korea's official Twitter and YouTube accounts.  Moreover, as The Washington Post noted, they did so on the birthday of heir apparent, Kim Jong Eun.  North Korea's use of Twitter and YouTube was noted in earlier posts and today's news is just the latest evidence that the two nations are taking their conflict into the realm of cyberspace.

Put on the North's YouTube account as early as Friday, a two-minute-long animation depicted Kim Jong-un as a ruthless killer driving a sports car and teasing his father to buy him fancy birthday gifts. On Twitter, the North's account -- which normally carried tweets praising Kim Jong-il and denouncing South Korea and the United States -- sent out feeds that called on North Koreans to rise against the Kim dynasty and put an end to poverty.

The high-tech war of nerves involving South Korean hackers, if confirmed, could indicate a new phase in the long running rivalry between North and South Korea.  Yonhap reported that one South Korean user wrote on Nate, another internet portal, that "we have done what our defense ministry was unable to do."  Others hailed the hacking as retaliation for North Korea's recent artillery attack on a South Korean island in the West Sea.

Digitally-Divided Korea

Another matter that this blog will continue to follow in 2011 is that of Korea's digital divides.   The most obvious and poignant of these, of course, is national division itself.  Because Korea was divided before the revolution in digital communications started to gather steam, the present digital divide between North and South Korea is unequalled in magnitude, scope or implications anywhere else in the world.

Western scholars and journalists have, unfortunately, been slow to recognize the extent and impact of the digital divide between North and South Korea.   I've recently been reading the important book by Pippa Norris entitled Digital Divide:  Civic Engagement, Information Poverty and the Internet Worldwide.  (see portions here on Google books)  While her book makes note of Korea here and there, it utterly fails to even describe what South Korea had already accomplished by the year it was published, 2001.  Figure 3.2 in the paperback edition of the book is a bar graph depicting the "percentage of population online by nation" in 2000.  The very top bar, unfortunately, is not labeled, and the second bar represents Sweden, followed by Norway, Iceland and so forth.   I believe the top bar represents South Korea, because in 2000 its internet penetration was number one in the world, by some margin over the Scandinavian countries that caught it a few years later.

The pattern of attention to Korea needs to change, and a December 29 article in The Economist provides some evidence that this change may be starting.  Entitled "Parallel Economies," it compares the challenge of Korean reunification with that of German reunification.  As shown in the accompanying graphic (click to see a full-size version), the economic divide between the two nations has grown to alarming proportions.  If the Korea's reunified, the South Korean government would face a stark choice.  It could try to fill the gap in living standards between North and South through handouts, public investments and subsidies, or it could brace itself for heavy migration, as poor northerners moved to the South in search of higher wages.

Although The Economist focuses on the economics of the matter, what this blog finds interesting is the crucial role played by digital media in these matters.  After all, it is through the new media that residents in the northern half of Korea find out about the South and vice-versa.  

There is some evidence emerging that the government of North Korea has recognized the central role of information technology and digital media.  As reported by the North Korea Tech blog, the KCNA, North Korea's official news agency, has just launched video news.

The Digital Divide Concept as Applied to Korea

These days I've been looking more closely at the origins and different uses of the concept of digital divide.    As readers of this blog will know from prior posts, I believe the concept has particular relevance to present circumstances on the Korean peninsula and to prospective unification of the country.

Popular and scholarly use of the term "digital divide" roughly coincided with the large-scale adoption of the internet in the 1990s.  It is a multidimensional concept that has been used to refer to almost any aspect of access to and use of information using the internet and digital information processing devices.  The concept has been used to describe divergence in digital development between and among nations, differential access to information within nations, and also differences in how well different groups of people use information to participate in public affairs (the so-called democratic divide).  Those three approaches were outlined by Pippa Norris of Harvard in her 2001 book.

The digital divide has also been conceptualized in relation to the classic S-curve in the diffusion of innovations.  The accompanying graphic (click to see full size version), used in an ITU presentation by Choi and Lee,  illustrates the framework suggested by Molnar.

Korea's national division and its demilitarized zone originally took the form of an armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War.  Both occurred decades before the digital revolution and arrival of the internet.  However, as I have argued on occasion, the latter developments have increased the significance of the DMZ as a digital divide, while decreasing its importance as a purely military demarcation line.

While searching for scholarly material on the digital divide, I ran across a fascinating book entitled Bytes and Bullets:  Information Technology Revolution on the Korean Peninsula.  It was published in 2005 based on an earlier conference hosted by the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense Center in Honolulu.  The good news is that all nineteen chapters of the book are available in PDF format on the internet at this link.   Although much of the book deals with the digitization of defense in South Korea and some "guesses" about the role of IT in North Korea's defense modernization and in its economic development generally, the book and the conference represent the single most thorough treatment of this topic that I've yet located.   The introductory chapter, by Alexander Mansourov, outlines the scope of concerns treated in the book, and Chapter 18 by Scott Snyder, offers some interesting speculation on the digital divide on the Korean peninsula and the possible role of the IT sector in North-South reconciliation.

Comments are welcome, especially if you're aware of any more recent studies dealing with this topic.

President Lee: South Korean Reunification Drawing Near

President Lee Myung Bak, on a tour of Southeast Asian nations, has stated that although "North Korea now remains one of the most belligerent nations in the World... it is a fact that the two Koreas will have to coexist peacefully and in the end realize reunification."  As reported by the Washington Post, and widely in the international press, Lee made the comments on two different occasions.   In a speech on Thursday night, Lee said that North Koreans have become increasingly aware that the South is better off. He did not elaborate on how their knowledge had expanded, but he said it was "an important change that no one can stop."

Although President Lee did not elaborate on how and why North Korean's knowledge of the South is increasing, readers of this blog will know from earlier posts that the information revolution and the availability of ever-smaller and more powerful digital devices (cameras, DVD players, smart phones.....) is at the heart of the matter.

In August, President Lee said South Korea should prepare for reunification by studying the possibility of adopting a reunification tax aimed at raising money for the costs of integration.
Lee proposed a three-stage reunification process in which the two Koreas would first form a "peace community" involving denuclearization of the peninsula, then an "economic community" for cross-border economic integration, and eventually a "community of the Korean nation" with no institutional barriers between them.  In a recent interview, the President noted that "ultimately, the foundation for reunification will be laid when North Korea becomes economically independent."

Korea's DMZ as a Digital Divide: Examining the Implications

In one of the earliest posts on this blog, back in late 2007, I noted the significance of Korea's DMZ as a digital divide.  Although much of the news about Korea these days is about the recent North Korean shelling of Yongpyeong Island or its nuclear program, there are some valuable bits of news here and there about the digital divide between the two Koreas, which deserves much more attention.

Stuart Fox has an interesting article about "The Technological Hassles of a Potential Korean Reunification," which draws heavily on interviews with faculty from Syracuse University, which continues an ongoing IT-related exchange program with Kimchaek University in Pyongyang.  The article contains some informed speculation on what might happen when the world's most digitally networked nation, South Korea, moves toward unification with one of the least digitally networked countries in the world, North Korea.    I would add that the implications of the current, growing ICT infrastructure disparity between North and South Korea is a topic that deserves not only more attention in the news, but also more serious and in-depth research.  For example, there is speculation in the article that unification might enable North Korea to leapfrog by quickly building new mobile networks.  To what extent is this really the case?  What of the need for terrestrial fiber optic networks that have taken South Korea decades to build?  An argument might be made that such a decades-long investment in fiber infrastructure will be necessary for full parity in communications infrastructure and for true and complete unification.

I also ran across the North Korea Tech blog, which contains regular posts on the development of the ICT sector in North Korea.  It is authored by Martyn Williams, Tokyo Bureau Chief for IDG News Service.

Back in the early 1990s when I was researching and writing The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea, it was already apparent that there were two broad aspects to Korean national division, from a communication perspective.  The first of these was the growing infrastructure disparity between North and South.   The second was that of the political implications of free flow of information in and out of North Korea.  Both are important, but these days the second area is getting more attention as cameras, phones and other electronic devices are becoming smaller, more mobile and more powerful, just as the internet and cloud computing become the norm for many.  In the current era it is literally impossible for any country to completely control the flow of information to and from its citizens.

Korea's North-South Digital Divide: Cracks in an Orwellian Paradise

The overarching political problem in Korea today, the continuing tragedy of national division, also makes the digital divide between North and South the largest such divide existing in any country or bordering countries in the world.  I've been interested in national division as a digital divide for a long time, at least since my 1995 book, The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea was published, and have posted on it in this blog.

There are at least two major aspects to the North-South digital divide in Korea.  The first is the growing disparity in digital communications infrastructure between the two countries.  The growing infrastructure disparity has many implications, including important ones for the cost of unification.  The second aspect of the digital divide on the Korean peninsula is the vast political or democratic divide that has developed.

Andrei Lankov, an astute observer of North Korean affairs, devotes an article in The Korea Times  to an exploration of how the government in North Korea has attempted to insulate its population from outside information.  He tells an interesting part of the tragic story, and it is worth reading.

The Korea Discount: Information Age Politics in Korea

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean war and the division of the peninsula into North and South Korea. Over the past six decades, the South has developed into a technologically advanced country and is one of the world's leading exporters. On a day-to-day basis, people living in South Korea don't think much about the possible outbreak of war, even after the recent Cheonan incident. However, the world's mainstream media--television, newspapers, magazines and the business press--continue to frame the Korean situation in terms of national division and the threat of war on the peninsula. Nowhere is this more evident than in the continued widespread application and acceptance of the so-called "Korea Discount."
As reported in the Joongang Daily this morning, the global rating agency Standard and Poors reports that uncertainty surrounding North Korea’s power transfer is weighing on South Korea’s sovereign credit rating because of the possibility of war and the potential for huge unification costs.  “Significant uncertainties remain from a possible succession in the near future in North Korea,” Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said. “We continue to view instability as an important constraint on the creditworthiness of South Korea.”

The credit rating agency said the South Korean presidential council estimated earlier this year that sudden unification could cost the country $2.14 trillion by 2040 and raise government debt to 147 percent of gross domestic product (GPD) in that year, compared with the government’s estimate of 36 percent by the end of this year.
It would be interesting to see an estimate of how much the "Korea Discount" has cost South Korea over recent decades in lost foreign direct investment or other costs directly related to its application.

Moreover, the Korea discount is really only information that estimates the probability of future conflict or economic burdens on the Korean peninsula. As such, it illustrates the power of information, created by the mainstream and financial media and disseminated instantly via the internet. From a certain perspective, one might say that the most stable thing on the Korean peninsula for almost sixty years now has been the nation's division.  How does one really estimate the possibility of a peaceful or gradual unification of Korea versus a sudden, disruptive one?  The nature of the "Korea discount" and its real, empirical meaning and value deserve much more attention in era of information age politics.
Perhaps some of you who occasionally read this blog can shed more light on the topic. Comments are welcome.

North Korea using Twitter and YouTube

The New York Times carried an interesting article today on how North Korea is using Twitter and YouTube to bolster its propaganda efforts.  During the last month, a series of video clips have been posted to YouTube, brimming with vitriol and satire against leaders in South Korea or in the U.S.  During the past week, North Korea also began operating a Twitter account under the name uriminzok or "our nation."

A spokesman for the National Unification Ministry in Seoul said “It is clear that these accounts carry the same propaganda as the North’s official news media, but we have not been able to find out who operates them."
The two Koreas agreed to stop their psychological war after their first summit meeting in 2000, but the situation has changed following the sinking of a South Korean warship in the West Sea earlier this year.

The Impact of Information in North Korea: More Middle Class Defectors?

An article in the Chosun Ilbo today reports on speculation that more middle class people are beginning to defect from North Korea, following the utter failure of that nation's currency reform last year.  While the article does not present numbers or hard evidence, it would be surprising if this new trend is not the case.   In addition to the currency reform, the article notes that  the spread of South Korean pop culture through videos and CDs clandestinely circulated in the North has also encouraged some middle and higher-class North Koreans to flee.

The article simply underscores the critical role of communication and information in solving the overarching political problem in Korea:  national division.   This has been the subject of numerous earlier posts.  The following are some main considerations.

• The continued growth of  telecommunications infrastructure disparity between South and North Korea--the world's largest and most poignant "digital divide."


•  The current rapid expansion of mobile broadband (a.k.a. "smart phones" --Apple, Android and others) and other digital technology is making it more difficult for the North Korean government to keep information out.  It comes in via mobile phone, MP3 players, DVD and so forth.


• North Korea ultimately faces the same dilemma as China, with its "Great Firewall," ---either accept the internet and see your economy participate in global growth, or reject it and stagnate economically.


• Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in 1948 stated that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."    This was re-affirmed in the present century by the World Summit on the Information Society.   North Korean citizens are being denied this right.

Mobile Phone Communication with North Korea: Current Status

An article in today's Korea Times provides some very interesting specifics about how North Korean refugees in South Korea communicate with people in North Korea by mobile phone.  Seo, Jae-pyong, the Secretary-General of a group called North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS) said that NKIS has run a news outlet service based on mobile phone conversations with secret correspondents in North Korea since 2008.  The purpose of this effort is to provide more information about the reclusive nation.  The NKIS provided the stringers with cell phones that have an international roaming service. International phone rates between South Korea and China are applied when North Koreans call NKIS people.  Although he declined to give information about how much the stringers are paid, the NKIS representative said that their allowances are high enough to feed their families.  He also said that "When we have conversations with people, especially from the border area between North Korea and China, we hear them as clearly as our phone conversations with our colleagues in South Korea."  Mr. Seo, an engineer, escaped from North Korea in 2001.  Out of approximately 20,000 North Korean refugees that have settled in South Korea from the 1990s, about 600 are college graduates.  About 300 of these educated people have joined NKIS to let people outside North Korea know more about it.

Seo also said that North Koreans can access the latest South Korean television dramas at home without much difficulty, despite the government's strict ban on the circulation of South Korean cultural products.   Two or three weeks after airing in the South, these dramas are copied onto CDs in China, and then these CDs are sold to distributors who deal with the North Koreans.

North Korea Reportedly Cracking Down on Cell Phone Use

The Eurasia Review and other sources are reporting, not surprisingly, that the North Korean government is again attempting to crack down on the use of Chinese cell phone services.  One recent defector from North Korea reported that the North Korean authorities were jamming cell phone signals and that it was practically impossible to make a call.  He said that "you can switch phone cards and the call appears to go through, but nobody in North Korea picks up."  North Korea also appears to have made overseas purchases of expensive cell phone tracking and jamming equipment which it has installed at various locations in Shinuiju, Hyesan, and Hweryong in the border area near China, according to North Koreans living in border areas as well as those in South Korea.

The Economic Impact of National Division

The Korea Times carried an interesting article  today suggesting that fear of the "Three Ds" was weighing on the Korean economy.  The Three Ds are

• asset Deflation


• won Depreciation, and


• Daepodong missile

I'd like to focus on the last of these, because it illustrates a continuing problem.  According to the Korea Times article, Pyongyang's test-launching of ballistic missiles has wreaked havoc on the Korean won, as demonstrated several times, particularly in 1998 and 2006.  During the following four weeks after the Stalinist country fired ballistic missiles, the won depreciated 3.4 percent in 1998 and 2 percent in 2006.

``In hindsight, the North's missile launches have negatively affected the South's financial markets,'' IBK Securities economist Park Ok-hee said.

Beyond the impact of actual or threatened missile launches, the reality is that national division entails a military confrontation with the North that exerts a continual drag on the South Korean economy.  This is largely because the media around the world frame so much of their coverage of Korea in terms of the North Korean nuclear problem, its missiles and the six-party talks.  The fact that South Korea has achieved its current level of economic growth is even more remarkable in light of the continuing effect of press coverage about North Korea.

The Australian on "The Peril Brewing in Pyongyang"

As everyone knows, President Lee Myung Bak has been visiting Southeast Asian countries, including Australia.   Today a very perceptive article appeared in The Australian . Entitled "The Peril Brewing in Pyongyang," it began the sentence "No one knows when North Korea will do the almost inevitable and either implode or explode."  The article is basically built on a fundamental reality in Korea, that it remains the only nation in the world that was divided because of the aftermath of World War II and the long Cold War. Recommended reading.

World Media Take Notice of North Korea's New Mobile Network

Now that the Chairman of Orascom has visited North Korea and that country has formally initiated its new mobile communications service, the media around the world are taking notice. According to BBC News , the system has now been launched in the capital, Pyongyang, by Orascom's billionaire chief executive Naguib Sawiris. "The prospect of this company is to build a network that will accommodate the 22 million people in North Korea," he said.

The BBC report goes on to note that "The new network will be able to provide fast internet connections and handle large quantities of information. However, that is a commodity the North Korean authorities have been extremely anxious to restrict.
Radios and televisions sold there have their tuning controls fixed to official stations and making phone calls out of North Korea is impossible for ordinary citizens."


The North Korean leadership is caught on the horns of a dilemma.  It now has a modern, CDMA-based mobile network that could be expanded throughout the country and used to help bring it up to parity with its highly networked neighbor to the south.  Such a move would help it immensely in economic terms and would help move toward reunification.  However, it would also undercut, in one fell swoop, efforts by North Korea's leadership to control the information its citizens receive.  

A very interesting aspect of all this is that North Korea has installed a CDMA network.  Is this an indication that they may be looking ahead toward unification with South Korea, which has the most extensive and sophisticated CDMA-based mobile networks in the world?  Just how long will people in North Korea be able to resist the various attractions of the information age that is transforming so much of the world?

North Korea Trains Hackers

Although the digital divide between South Korea and North Korea is probably the deepest such chasm in the world, the North Korean military has trained hundreds of hackers, some of whom have used their skills in an effort to undermine the South Korean military.  According to an article in today's Chosun Ilbo English edition, a North Korean spyware e-mail was reportedly transmitted to the computer of a colonel at a field army command via China in early August. The e-mail contained a typical program designed automatically to steal stored files if the recipient opens it. It has not been confirmed whether military secrets were leaked as a result of the hacking attempt, but their scale could be devastating given that the recipient is in charge of the South Korean military's central nervous system -- Command, Control, Communication, Computer & Information (C4I). South Korea's Defense Ministry believes that the skills of 500 to 600 North Korean hackers are on a par with those of CIA experts. In 1999, the department said it traced frequent cyber visitors and found that North Korea topped the list.

Korea's Digital Divide--Iconic Evidence

The information society or the telecommunications revolution in Korea is only half complete. There has been no such revolution or transformation in North Korea, which explains why the satellite photo here has been so widely circulated. It is a powerful and iconic symbol that instantly conveys the problem of national division.