North Korea Undercover Read Online Free

countries, workers will not abandon their positions for higher salaries once they are trained.’ That might be, perhaps, because they and their families could be sent to the gulag for three generations if they do. On and on Cao de Benós goes: ‘Lowest taxesscheme in Asia... A government with solid security and very stable political system, without corruption... Transparent legal work.’
    None of that is true.
    In the Big Zombie we endured a surreal and surreally boring meeting with three North Koreans who were selling the idea of business opportunities in the country. A PowerPoint presentation followed, with Venn diagrams sporting gnomically entitled spheres such as ‘Economic Investment’ and ‘Joint Venture Committee’. Business gibberish had arrived in Pyongyang, big-time. I didn’t want to bring attention to myself, because the entrepreneurs had email and, therefore, either in Pyongyang or more likely in Beijing, access to the internet. They were clearly in the elite of the core class, especially licensed by the regime to come and go at will. Remember, there are only two flights between Beijing and Pyongyang a week, so this licence covers just a few thousand people. All of them will have family in North Korea; all of them know that if they defect, their family will suffer, horribly.
    But I couldn’t quite forget the sight of the poor North Korean woman doing her washing in the freezing river, so I put up my hand and asked: ‘Why would anyone invest in a country if its leader is threatening thermo-nuclear war against the United States?’
    Silence followed.
    After a long pause, someone mumbled something about not being involved in politics – a statement that doesn’t quite wash inside the world’smost totalitarian regime – and the meeting droned on.
    Leaving aside the threat of Armageddon, North Korea ought to be a smashing investment opportunity for the more icy-hearted capitalist. In 2007 a worker’smonthly wage in the comparatively wealthy region around Pyongyang was estimated at around £40($60, €50), before tax. 2 If you can get away with paying your work-force £1.50 a day, then why isn’t everyone piling in?
    The downside – apart from the government beingas crazy as a box of frogs – is that everything else doesn’t work or costs an arm and a leg. The power supply is a joke. We experienced at least one power cut every day we were in North Korea, some days more than one. The railway system is largely electrified, so delays of several days come as standard. As far as shipping goes, the West Sea Barrage restricts ships to 50,000 tonnage – pitifully small in today’s world – and the locks can only handle one ship a day. Worse, the docks are comically old-fashioned and controlled by themilitary, who charge extortionate rates. For example, one container shipped from the South Korean port of Incheon toNampo costs $US1,000, almost as much as a journey to Europe. The round trip takes twenty-four hours for a journey of only 60 miles. 3 That means business investors have to fork out enormous sums on simple logistics, so the vast majority don’t bother.
    Despite all this, I did meet one North Korean entrepreneur, but not in North Korea.
    Meet Jimmy the Gold-Smuggler. He’s a tinychap, only 5 foot 2 inches tall, but he carries with him his own personal high voltage charge. Jimmy – not his real name – is lithe and vivid and, as the North Korean regime found out to their cost, as hard to control as an electric eel. He was the runt of the litter, far smaller than his two brothers who ended up in the army. When he waslittle, his big brothers would save his bacon when he got into a scrap. His family were ordinary folk, his father a factory worker off sick because of bronchitis, his mother working on a farm, but they were doing better than most because the two oldest sons were in the army. They were not rebels, but regime conformists, who did their best to stay alive while doing pretty much exactly