If communist Vietnam can thrive on capitalist enterprise, why not North Korea?
- Donald Kirk says aside from a meeting with Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un’s trip to Hanoi may open his eyes to the possibility of unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit in a tightly controlled society, at no risk to his grip on power
As everybody knows, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has a lot to learn from the capitalist success of nearby communist countries. No example is better than that of China, whose leaders have urged him to walk the capitalist road to success. His late father, Kim Jong-il, was photographed during trips to China traipsing around one project or another as living evidence that communism and capitalism could survive together, to everyone’s benefit, at no risk to his grip on power.
Kim’s Vietnamese hosts can also assure him that a few capitalist enterprises won’t deprive him of his communist credentials, much less the trappings of a dictatorship. “Look,” they can tell him, “we arrest troublemakers all the time, give them a show trial and send them away to jail for years for the crime of criticising us, doubting the munificence of communist rule.” What better evidence could there be that capitalism and communism definitely go together?
Can Kim Jong-un become North Korea’s Deng Xiaoping?
It’s not likely, though, that Kim will take the hint, even if he’s welcomed in Hanoi not only for friendly chit-chat with Trump but also as a state guest. For one thing, Kim, if he’s able to take a serious look around, will be shocked to discover just how capitalist Vietnam has become. Sure, the state sticks its hand into everything, but factories and shops, roadside snack stands and elite nightspots are capitalist enterprises, living proof of the great transformation the country made from rigid communist principles to laissez-faire socialism and capitalism.
For another thing, much though journalists and activists like to criticise Vietnam for its record on human rights, the system isn’t nearly as atrocious as that in North Korea. For a decade or two after the communist victory in 1975, we did hear terrible tales of the brutality, and the hardships, inflicted on former officials of the defeated Saigon regime.
China situation for Christians ‘worst since Cultural Revolution’
Possibly the greatest shock for Kim, if he has a moment to explore Vietnam’s mixed system, would be that Koreans are playing a role in making it happen. Upwards of 100,000 South Koreans live, work and study in Vietnam – about as many as are in the Philippines. The figure for Vietnam is all the more striking considering that South Korean forces during the Vietnam war were reputed to have conducted massacres that researchers are still uncovering.
It’s unlikely that Kim, while in Vietnam, will meet any South Koreans. He is even less likely to learn from their experiences as free-enterprising capitalists in a communist country than to hear what Vietnamese leaders have to say about their system. He may not want to know that Vietnam has gone through a transformation that remains unimaginable in North Korea as long as the Kim dynasty prevails.
Still, it’s possible that Kim, as a guest in a country once divided between a China-backed communist “north” and a US-backed capitalist “south,” may wonder how communist Vietnam emerged as a relatively capitalist success while holding off Chinese influence and inroads. That’s all the more remarkable considering that real freedom, the freedom to vote leaders in and out of power, to criticise the regime, to disagree and protest, does not exist in Vietnam.
That’s a paradox that Kim may want to explore and emulate when he gets back home.
Donald Kirk is the author of three books and numerous articles on Korea
