Seeing is believing–an exclusive look inside North Korea’s cities

Not much is known about Pyongyang other than it has attracted visits from famous US basketball players, the chairman of Google and former US President Bill Clinton. Richard Forster visited the North Korean capital to speak with city administrators about urban development and their desire to forge links with other cities.

It is 6.15 am when the trill of the 1970s phone announces that it is time to get up. I am used to being woken by my iPhone but here my mobile does not work so it is switched off inside my suitcase. There is no phone signal and no Internet. I am told I am lucky to even have my mobile as they used to be confiscated at the airport and returned on your departure.

“Come to breakfast by 6.40. You will be brought what to wear to your room,” says the voice on the end of the phone.

This is my first morning in Pyongyang, capital of North Korea or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to give it its full title. I am staying in one of the very few hotels where foreigners stay during their “guided” tour of the country.

Ten minutes after the call, there is a knock at the hotel door and a young man, who later will be one of our assigned official guides, hands over a T-shirt and a cap. “Put these on,” he says.

I don my uniform for the day (or will I have to wear it again tomorrow?) and take the lift, which goes straight from floor six to four as it descends in the hotel. There is no fifth floor as it is rumoured that this is where the listening equipment is all based.

Outside the lift are posters and photographs with English text recognising the victory in the Korean war of the fatherland against the imperial US-led forces.  A video of George W. Bush denouncing the Axis of Evil flickers away in the hotel bookshop.

I enter the breakfast room, which is full of people of different nationalities all dressed in the same T-shirt and cap. These are no ordinary tourists. There are Pakistani MPs, Australian trade unionists, UK local government officials, Vietnamese lawyers and New Zealand economists, many of whom were on their third or fourth visit. Later that day I would meet a former US attorney general, Ramsey Clark.

All of them have one thing in common: they are here to support North Korea on the 60th Anniversary of the end of the Korean War so that its people can benefit from a better quality of life.

You feel awkward as a journalist here, nervous about asking questions or challenging what you see. But I soon learn that beneath the propaganda and the rigid way of conducting tours, those responsible for city government and urban development in North Korea want to learn from the west and east and provide better lives for their citizens.

And this message does not come from the assembled sympathetic foreigners. After a long day of city rallies calling for peace and reunification, friendly exchanges with my Korean guides (“What does a pub look like?”) and visits to the demilitarised zone, I meet with the Secretary General of the Korean Cities Federation, Pae Jong Min, who represents 200 cities and counties of the DPRK.

What is remarkable is not only his openness in recognising the problems in Pyongyang but also his enthusiasm to visit London, Paris and Shanghai, to learn from other cities. “Seeing is believing as we say in the famous Korean phrase,” says Pae.

Interdependent cities

This magazine does not have a political agenda—it is not about ideologies but solutions. Our job is to explain what cities are doing to tackle the problems of delivering decent services to their citizens; how national and local governments, multilaterals, civil society and the private sector can help tackle those needs working together; and to discuss how practices which work in one city might benefit those in other cities.

So in visiting Pyongyang, I was interested in what the city could bring to the urban development agenda and whether it even wanted to contribute to that.

The answer is emphatically yes. Pae’s enthusiasm to learn from other cities is remarkable only because North Korea is portrayed as a state which does not seek outside acceptance or support. The fact that officials from Pyongyang want to visit London to see how the Mayor’s team conduct waste management is just further evidence of the interdependence of cities in the 21st century as outlined in Benjamin Barber’s latest book If Mayors Ruled The World.

Barber, a research scholar at the City University of New York, says that in an interdependent world, cities have become the essence for global communication and cooperation. They can achieve more than nation states in tackling environmental and other pressing issues because of their pragmatism, which goes beyond the ideological and territorial squabbling of nation states.

Cities will cooperate together on a transnational basis to resolve issues because they need to get things done.

What is interesting is that Mr Pae–one person certain to have never heard of Benjamin Barber or his book–espouses the very ideas set out in the book.

“Our specialists would like to visit London to hear about waste management and for specialists from the UK to come to our country to give us lectures on waste management,” says Pae. “If you teach us about waste management and assist us with the necessary facilities, we can spread that experience to other cities in the DPRK.”

In developing his thesis, Barber cites the visit of Bill Clinton to Shanghai where the former US president and the mayor of the city appeared together on a radio phone-in. Two-thirds of callers wanted to discuss fixing pot holes and traffic jams with the mayor rather than talk to the former US president which amused but did not surprise Clinton, a man well versed in local government and aware of the need to solve problems and not preach ideologies.

Shanghai is in fact one of the few cities with which Pyongyang has had exchanges. But Pae says the exchanges need to be more practical to achieve real change in DPRK cities.

“In the past there have not been enough practical measures [resulting from exchanges],” says Pae. “We went to Shanghai and visited important places, and a delegation from Shanghai came here. But is there anything we gained from this visit? Exchanges need to result in benefits to achieve sustainable development.”

UCLG membership

One step the Korean Cities Federation has taken to participate in more practical exchanges, was to join UCLG ASPAC, the leading regional city and local government organisation for Asia Pacific. A member since 2012, the Federation now sits alongside city members from South Korea, who have welcomed the new member from the north.

Much of the credit for engaging with the Federation must go to Peter Woods, Ambassador for UCLG ASPAC, who has been instrumental in bringing the benefits of city linkages to Pyongyang and other North Korean cities. One proposal is for workshops to be held in the DPRK with the assistance of UCLG ASPAC, which would focus on waste management, horticulture and energy for heating.

The Korean Cities Federation aims to build its capacity through such workshops but it is severely constrained by available funding.  The Federation was founded in 1987 backed by state sponsorship and members’ fees. However, the collapse of the socialist republics in eastern Europe in the 1990s removed important markets for the country and now UN sanctions are affecting its ability to build trade with the resultant impact on resources available for urban programmes.

“All of these issues depend on funding,” says Pae. “If the funding is there, then we will send specialists in energy, environmental protection, and city administration to cities in developed countries such as [the] UK and Germany and we will invite their specialists here.  We cannot even enter into carbon trading because of sanctions.”

Pae says funding is not being used to develop military activities of the north at the expense of urban services. Cities cannot trade so they cannot build finance for urban development.

“Clearly every city in this country does not have the same living standards but they are trying to sell their own special products to the international markets,” explains Pae. “Kaesong, for example, is trying to sell its tea and the Mayor of Kaesong City has suggested several products and has asked for help with exports. The financial benefits from funding from the international markets would contribute greatly to the development of the city.”

But Pae remains optimistic that capacity building will take place and that the federation will strengthen.

“Once our capacity is built up, we will strengthen our cross-collaboration with cities not only in developing countries but also in developed countries,” he says. “The ultimate goal of the federation is to strengthen the exchange of experiences and contribute to the improvement of citizens’ lives.”

While waste management was highlighted by the Secretary General, the capital Pyongyang and other cities face a whole gamut of challenges.  Energy production is a key problem.

“Overall electrical production is not satisfying the demand of the national economy or the needs of the people and what we want to know is how they solve energy problems in cities of developed countries, this would be a prime reason for travelling to see other cities,” says Pae.  “But the standards for constructing buildings, the materials which can be used for construction, the methods for designing streets, how to maintain old architecture and mix this with modern buildings and what kind of alternative energies can we use, these are all topics we want to discuss [with other cities].”

There is also insufficient electricity to drive transport and although the government wishes to promote more eco-friendly modes of transport, there is strong reliance on old diesel-powered buses.

Pae stressed that water supply is perhaps the most urgent problem that needs fixing:  “As water is leaking from old pipes, its quality cannot be guaranteed and because of the leakages, we cannot keep up with the demand. There are so many pipes under apartments and we do not know where the water is leaking. The key is to find the point of leakage through technology and repair it.”

Reconciliation

It is several months since I was in the DPRK, and in the meantime, all I have heard from afar is that an uncle of the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has been executed.  There is no doubt that the autocratic national government is ruthless in protecting its position as was clear in its disclosure of the treachery of the general in question.

Subsequent rumours in the western and Asian press that the uncle, Jang Song Thaek, had been fed to 120 dogs have since been proven to be absurd fiction, and it said more about the western media’s belief in ‘sources’ on North Korea than it did about the country itself. This week a letter seeking peaceful reconciliation issued by North Korea was not even reported by most of the same press who ran the hungry hounds piece.

As the BBC’s Shanghai correspondent said: “It is certainly a dark and secretive place, but that makes it all the more important that we report the truth, not a sensational parody of it.”

The simple truth is that North Korea’s city leaders want to meet with mayors outside the country so they can provide better lives for their citizens. Mayors in South Korea are actively trying to build cooperation with cities of the North (see interview with the Mayor if Incheon page 26). And the Korean Cities Federation wants to visit western countries and learn from other cities to improve the lives of its urban residents. Who are we to deny them that freedom?

“There are so many problems here and the problems are not countable but what I hope is that you can introduce us to London, Birmingham and other historical cities and from our side we will introduce our own historical cities,” says Pae. “I think there are so many advantages in carrying out exchanges between the historical cities of our countries.”

Early the next morning, the 1970s telephone woke me. The voice on the other end was familiar. “Mr Pae has read Cities Today and is keen to discuss more. Can we offer you a lift to the airport?”

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Cities Today wishes to thank: Ray Ferguson, Secretary of the Australian-DPRK Friendship and Cultural Society for assisting with the visit; Karim Dickie (Administrator for the New Zealand-DPRK Society) for photographs; and Peter Wilson, Secretary of the New Zealand-DPRK Society for his useful insights into cooperative farming and food security, a complex area which can be explored in his article at https://sites.google.com/site/nzdprksociety/commentary/dprk-economy—food-production

Thank you also to Hwang Sung Choi, General Secretary of the DPRK-Australia Friendship and Cultural Society and of the DPRK-NZ Friendship Society for his support and assistance with this visit.