Why Jang Song-taek's demise is not the end of the Byungjin Line

North Korean state media have just made official, via a surprisingly harsh communiqué and revealing visual footage, what South Korean intelligence officials already asserted in the South Korean National Assembly last week: the powerful Jang Song-taek, Kim Jong-un's uncle, has been relieved of all his duties within the reclusive North Korean power structure.

Jang's downfall and even rumored execution marks the latest in a string of purges that Kim Jong-un has undertaken to cement his power over the past two years. The unprecedented prominence given to Jang's ousting also sends a strong signal on the need for absolute loyalty to the young leader and, according to some experts, also a clear message to the outside world: Kim Jong-un is not really aiming at reforming the crippled North Korean economic system with the so-called Byungjin Line – adopted during a Central Committee of the Party plenary meeting last March 31 and putting equal emphasis on nuclear and economic development – and is instead bent on pursuing his late father's Songun, or military first, policy under a new name.

However, Jang's demise could just indicate a strategic shift in Kim's gradual economic opening policy, and not its outright fall into oblivion. As asserted by Andrei Lankov, a reputed scholar and expert in North Korea, economic reforms are perfectly compatible with an increase in the level of political persecution to guarantee internal stability. 

Even if Jang Song-taek was widely considered a relevant reformist figure, he was mostly associated with Pyongyang's increasing economic ties with Beijing, including the development of the Special Economic Zones near the Chinese border. We should not forget that he was never the main symbolic figure behind the adoption of the Byungjin Line: the reemergence of Pak Pong-ju as Prime Minister in April 2013 was indeed the clearest signal of Kim Jong-un's commitment to strengthened economic development. It is no coincidence that a Chinese state-run newspaper, Huanqiu, has been quick to quell speculations that bilateral relations with China may experience a period of unpredictability or even be damaged by Jang's ouster by emphasizing Premier Pak's numerous on-site tours related to economic projects. As asserted by Yonsei University professor John Delury, "Pak Pong Ju is the face of economic reform, such as it exists — reform with North Korean characteristics."

The wide array of accusations against Jang Song-taek featured an unmistakable hint at the North Korean characteristics of the planned economic reform: Kim Jong-un's uncle was accused of living a "lavish, depraved life" infected with capitalism. As Adam Cathcart, an expert at the University of Leeds, told The Guardian, this statement indicates the potential for massive corruption and personal corrosion that lies beyond the borders of the DPRK.

In other words, Jang's harsh removal from power, mostly aimed at sending a strong signal to North Korean internal audiences, shows how the North Korean leaders might be trying to steer economic development away from increasing dependence on Beijing and Chinese interests – Jang was also accused of selling the country's resources on the cheap, a hint directed at deals he signed with Chinese mining companies – by reasserting the central role of the Pyongyang leadership and the North Korean People's Army in the internal and economic affairs of the country. However, as also confirmed by Alejandro Cao de Benós, special representative of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, the Worker's Party has no plans to change its line of simultaneous development of economic and nuclear power.

Therefore, the future of Pak Pong-ju, widely considered to be a member of the pro-Jang faction within Pyongyang politics, might be the real key to knowing if the Kim regime plans to revert the ongoing capitalist reform of its economy or stick to its planned dual development course. His eventual purge, and not Jang's, would be the one sending a clear signal to the wider outside world – not just to Beijing and Pyongyang power circles.

The psychology of North Korea

Beyond the analyses we have grown accustomed to from journalists, analysts and academic experts in North Korea, behavioral psychology can help us better understand what lies behind the words of the Pyongyang regime, what we can expect from it at the end of the day, and what would be the best path to peace. What we often seem to forget is that North Koreans, whether ordinary people or leaders, are individuals with feelings, motivations and psychological processes just like ours.

The North Korean regime has historically distinguished itself by knowing how to survive between major powers and using disputes to its best advantage, often through a 'diplomacy of confrontation' rife with verbal and military provocations which, although it may seem irrational at first glance is actually far from being so. Precisely, one of the main characteristics of this particular strategy is the ability to attract the attention of the international public opinion, something that Pyongyang is very successful at: never before had there been so many people searching for information on North Korea, or had its threats monopolized international news headlines in newspapers, on the radio and on television for so long.

A number of empirical studies have shown that the human brain has a built-in mechanism designed to give priority to bad news: this is what is normally known as the survival instinct. In fact, the human brain is quick to respond to purely symbolic threats: the most emotionally charged words attract attention faster. That is to say that the human brain responds faster and with more intensity to the rhetorical concept of 'war' than that of 'peace'. While the threat is not real, merely remembering the negative characteristics of the concept sets alarm bells ringing. North Korea is a small and poor country which has historically pursued this notoriety through fear to extract concessions from the major powers that surround it.

There is another side to North Korea's actions, which likewise happens to be highly useful for the regime. We humans find it very difficult to multitask: that is to say, if we focus on one issue, we give lower priority to the rest. North Korean leaders are fully aware that the hysteria generated by the current escalation of tension allows them to detract attention from an issue which should always be a top priority: human rights within the country and the appalling living conditions of a large portion of the population.

After worriedly witnessing the events of the Arab Spring, the ruling elite knows that the best way to prevent a hypothetical spread is to avoid both foreign military intervention, the reason why the regime has developed a nuclear program, and prevent North Koreans from being exposed to outside influences, which would be much more likely if the international community were to constantly focus its attention on the situation inside the country. Diverting attention both outside and within the country is one of the regime's top priorities: indeed, this dialectical confrontation is usually directed exclusively at the North Korean public. Simply creating the perception of latent conflicts with external enemy forces is a great way to minimise internal conflict and unite a nation heavily indoctrinated by ultra-nationalist propaganda behind a common cause.

This dual strategy necessarily leads us to the rational calculation made by the key players in the North Korean regime, a political and military elite whose main objective is to retain its control over the nation for as long as possible. Going back to the psychology of human behavior  it is known that our brains are also programmed to give greater importance to losses and failures than to successes and gains. There is a clear asymmetry between the strength of the motivation to avoid losses and risks we are willing to assume in order to maximize profits. This aversion to losses is a powerful conservative force which favors minimal change and makes people and institutions tend to preserve the status quo. In other words, what the Pyongyang regime really wants is peace, not a conflict where the risk of loss is too great to bear.

Despite all this, North Korea is no longer just a spoiled child prone to crying and screaming who, when all said and done, remains a child among adults: unfortunately, thanks to its nuclear and ballistic capabilities, it has now become a rebellious teenager and far more dangerous than ever before. The days when the international community could smother the regime through sanctions and isolation, making it into an international pariah, may now be a thing of the past. Abandoning diplomacy could prove extremely dangerous and counterproductive for all parties involved.

The process thus has to involve dialogue and negotiation. If South Korea, China, Japan and the United States want to guarantee peace and stability in Northeast Asia while promoting economic, social and perceptual changes within the borders of North Korea, they should opt for a policy fostering a gradual opening of the regime, even if this means making concessions that are difficult to swallow initially.

John Gottman, a psychologist and relationship expert, gives us the key to human coexistence: to succeed in the long term, any relationship should spend more time focusing on preventing negative events than in search of positive ones. According to his calculations, for a relationship to be healthy and stable, positive interactions should outweigh negative ones at least five-fold. Therefore, the time has come to start negotiating a multilateral peace treaty, with the U.S. in the front row, and to generate a climate which maximizes positive interactions between the parties currently involved in the conflict.

This article was originally published on number 17 (September 2103) of the Peace in Progress magazine, edited by the International Catalan Institute for Peace. The original article can be found here.