The former U.S. governor and Google head honcho certainly drew questions over the intent of
their so-called "private humanitarian visit".
Daniel Pinkston,...
Deputy Project Director of North East Asia Program at the International Crisis Group...
joins us now to shed some light.
Welcome to the program.
Good to be here.
From rocket launches... to internet access... and a jailed American activist...
What do you think was the main purpose of their visit
this time around?
Former governor Richardson said it was a humanitarian mission, I have to take his word for that
although there might be some other motivations.
I don't see the business, economic, for profit motivations there so we will just have to
wait and see.
I think the North Korean motivation is much more clear and easier to understand in my
view.
Can you elaborate on that?
Well I think it is.. this type of visit has a lot of propaganda value for the regime,
and already we can see North Korean state media manipulating and exploiting the value
of this visit.
Now for the average North Korean, who does not have a computer, does not have internet
access this is absolutely meaningless.
However, at the very senior levels of the ruling elite, the top 200 people, the people
on the central committee of the Korean workers party, for example, people who understand
this, know what it is about, wil be very impressed with the visit by an executive of google,
arguably one of the top of the top of the IT companies in the world, coming to PyeongYang.
People see this as a validation of Kim Jeong Un's image, as this project leader and tech
savvy guy who can make things happen like satellite launches and everything else.
The regime promotes science and technology as a way to overcome the ineffiencies in its
planned economy.
So this has a lot of propaganda value internally.
We have seen moves by the young leader to modernize his country...
particularly in agriculture and industry.
Does that include the information age?
And did North Korea's cyberterrorism capabilities enter into the discussion?
Well they do use computers for some things, the propaganda surrounding Kim Jeong Un uses
a lot of science and technology.
They try to portray him as a strong advocate of science and technology, including the internet.
So this is new and a symbol or a sign of Kim Jeong Un, connected to him as CNC, Computer
Numeric Control, which has this broad meaning of high tech in North Korea and they talk
about CNC being applied to all types of production, management, economic, facilities, factories,
etetera.
So this is directly linked to Kim Jeong Un.
People see this, they recognize this as part of his promotion of science and technology
to lead them out of backwardness and economic prosperity.
North Korea is holding U.S. citizen Kenneth Bae,... who faces 10 years in prison... for
allegedly committing 'hostile' acts against the state.
We've seen these hostage situations before...
most notably with former President Bill Clinton coming to the rescue.
What's North Korea's strategy in this case?
Well I would think that they are very concerned about information inflows and any kind of
liberalisation in society.
In fact, over the past year we have seen an increase in repression, increase in security
apparatus, monitoring of society, clamp downs on the borders and so forth.
Now i think the fact that he was not released, you have a delegation like this come to Pyeongyang,
he's on the agenda, they ask for his release, they about his condition, but he's still held.
I think this has a very chilling effect.
It has a signaling effect both inside and outside North Korea.
That if you engage in activites that the state, the DPRK views as subversive, you will be
held accountable.
There will be retribution.
If will be held in court, you will be prosecuted for it.
So they are very serious about this and I think that's probably their motivation in
holding him.
Thank you for joining us.