Something strange and disturbing is happening in North Korea. The closed-off secret police dictatorship has discovered prosperity in the shape of heavy car traffic and Southern-style fried chicken.
Who can tell what this means? The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have both recently published major reports on what may be a highly significant change. But is it really what it seems?
I have still not recovered from my first and only visit to this more or less mad country. It is so fresh and bright in my mind that I was amazed when I looked up my files to discover that it was in 2007, nearly 20 years ago.
I went semi-legally (journalists are not usually allowed in at all), through a series of strange back channels. The process ended with me having to dance (which I cannot really do) with the beautiful female staff of the North Korean consulate in Shenyang, in north-east China.
The next day I boarded a shuddering Yuri Gagarin-era Soviet aircraft, which the Chinese authorities would not allow anywhere near their airport buildings, and was shortly afterwards in one of the most beautiful and insane places I have ever seen.
My first sight, on the long road in from the airport, was of desperately thin men and women, their cheekbones worryingly prominent, in ancient peasant costumes, toiling in rice fields in the evening light.
Much of what I saw later confirmed this sad impression. The country was tragically poor. Electricity was in such short supply that my supposedly luxury hotel was plunged into darkness as soon as I left it each morning. The whole city was dark and almost silent by 10pm. The streetlights never came on.
When I wrestled my 14th-floor window open, to admire the capital Pyongyang by moonlight, there was total peace across the tree-shaded city, except for the distant sound of one man singing, and I am prepared to swear that he was drunk.
Electricity was in such short supply that my supposedly luxury hotel in Pyongyang was plunged into darkness as soon as I left it each morning, writes Peter Hitchens
There were hardly any cars, though beautiful girls in gorgeous militaristic uniforms directed the non-existent traffic from high podiums at junctions. Seen close to, North Korean soldiers looked ill-nourished and small and their weapons ancient and decaying.
As far as I could tell, many men managed to endure the regime by drinking heavily, mainly the potent, astringent rice spirit soju.
I saw a drunk person prone in the street outside the restaurant I had been taken to by my minders. Several citizens were immediately summoned to stand around him and prevent anyone taking pictures.
Likewise, I was anxiously blocked by my embarrassed escorts when I tried to enter a glum-looking suburban bar, outside which grizzled old boozers in dusty pale blue dungarees, and looking a bit glazed, gambled or just squatted on the pavement. Everything was closed unless it was specifically open.
Unstaffed shops, their doors locked, displayed – behind the same dusty window – motorcycles, cornflakes and instant coffee.
Could I see Pyongyang’s bowling alley? No. How much was a cheese sandwich at the stall by the Metro? They wouldn’t tell me. What does North Korean money look like? I don’t know. There may have been three currencies, and only one of them was used by locals.
Could I use my mobile phone? No. It was not even clear if there was any signal. In fact, they took my phone into custody at the start of my trip.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the 80th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Korean Children’s Union at Kim Il-sung Stadium in Pyongyang this month
A pizza restaurant in Pyongyang. The new Hwasong district is now a ‘showcase of sleek glass-and-steel apartment towers, manicured boulevards and neatly arranged parks and plazas’
After they gave it back to me, on departure, it took 48 hours to get it to work again. Ever since, every phone I’ve had has been haunted by strange flickerings and humming noises, usually late at night.
This world is gone. It is not so now. An Australian tour operator, Rowan Beard, has recently published an astonishing account of his 100th visit to the country since 2012.
Whether you have been there or not, it is quite shocking to read. The route from the airport now takes the visitor through a spanking new show zone.
He noticed ‘the entire road from Pyongyang International Airport to the city had been newly re-paved.’ The traffic girls, withdrawn for a while during recent crises, are back, but now they have real jams to manage.
‘Private car ownership has skyrocketed,’ Mr Beard continued, ‘and traffic congestion is a genuine challenge. What used to be a five-minute drive across the city can now take 30 to 45 minutes.’
But this is not all. The route into the capital now goes through a smart new district called Hwasong (it means ‘Mars’, or ‘powerful’ and the name was also given to North Korea’s Hwasong-20 Intercontinental ballistic missiles).
Mr Beard says: ‘Hwasong district is now the city’s grand new welcome mat. A showcase of sleek glass-and-steel apartment towers, manicured boulevards and neatly arranged parks and plazas.
‘The skyline is dominated by a cluster of tall residential buildings, the highest of which soars to 80 storeys, making it the fourth tallest building in North Korea.’
Kim Jong Un watches a demonstration flight with his generals and his daughter Ju Ae
He sampled Korean Fried Chicken in a beer bar with eight different beers on tap (I recall Pyongyang beer as being refreshing at first, but swiftly producing a horrible jangling headache, a form of chemical warfare if ever there was one).
The Wall Street Journal reported travellers’ accounts of pizzerias and BMW dealerships. There has definitely been a construction boom, despite supposed Western sanctions.
What struck me most about Mr Beard’s description was that he was able to hail an Uber-style taxi on a sophisticated mobile phone, on what appears to have been an independent expedition (which I would never have been able to do in 2007).
But I wondered slightly when he added: ‘Once dropped off, we had the district largely to ourselves. The streets were spotless, brightly lit and impressively modern.’
Read More
HITCHENS: There is a war-obsessed group in this country, trying to drag us into another conflict
Why, I wondered, did they have it largely to themselves? Are all these glittering restaurants and boutiques there for show? Is this all in fact a very clever front?
The UN is still reporting malnutrition in rural areas of North Korea, and its appalling labour camps have not, as far as we know, been closed.
Has the regime spent hard currency on a fake show city to impress the Chinese leader Xi Jinping on his visit to Pyongyang earlier this week? How could we know? Even if you are there, you cannot really be sure.
One thing I was certain of throughout my time there was that I could not be sure of anything I had not seen myself, and that even then I could not know for certain if it had been specially staged for me.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un suddenly has cash, thanks to his cynical decision to lend 15,000 troops to Vladimir Putin.
A third of them are believed to have been killed or injured, but one South Korea-based think tank, the Institute for National Security Strategy, estimates that the Kremlin paid Kim billions of dollars for his soldiers.
How can we know? I would urge caution. North Korea is a small patch of our planet where the truth is more elusive than anywhere else in the universe. And Xi’s China has already warned us that consumer goods, big cars and bright lights can all flourish under tyranny.
Pyongyang’s bright new streetlamps may now be visible from passing satellites. But I am sure the darkness of despotism still lies thickly over that unhappy country.
