november4,2002vol.160no.17.docVIP

November 4, 2002/ Vol. 160 No. 17 Northern Exposure North Korea is a monolithic black box to the rest of the world, but stress cracks can be seen in the aspiring nuclear power BY DONALD MACINTYRE/SEOUL The teenager looks at least three years younger than his 17 years. His eyes dart around or lock on his shoe tops when he talks. But when you take him to a neighborhood restaurant and put a steaming plate of dumplings in front of him, he suddenly perks up and starts to look you in the eye. Walking for a day from his village in North Korea, he crossed the Tumen River into China in early October, hoping to earn some money to buy food for his parents. He doesnt want you to use his name or take his picture. If a copy of this magazine were to fall into the hands of North Korean authorities, theyll really beat me up, he says. Jae Young?a pseudonym he agrees to?has heard about the economic reforms unveiled by his countrys leaders in July. But all thats happened in his village, Jae Young says, is that the price of grain has gone up, leaving his family hungrier than before. He falls silent at the mention of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, the man all North Koreans are taught to revere as a demigod. Jae Young has nothing to say on that topic except There is nothing to eat. Without knowing it, the stunted, starving young man speaks for a nation that is beginning to show the stress cracks of a bankrupt leadership. On Oct. 4, North Korea acknowledged that it was secretly trying to build nuclear weapons. The shocking admission, to senior U.S. diplomat James Kelly, was not made as a threat or a taunt. It was as much as anything else the distressed cry of a beleaguered nation running out of options. In fact, North Koreas nuclear confessions were among a stream of pronouncements issued from Pyongyang over the past few months, each one more surprising than the last. The country is scrambling to prop up its collapsed command economy with a dose of capitalism. The centerpiece of