North Korea=East Germany?

The collapse of communist East Germany began, informally speaking, when thousands of East Germans sought asylum at the West German embassies in Budapest and Prague in 1989. That was the East German regime’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment, and five months later the Berlin Wall was opened. Is the same process underway for North Korea’s Stalinist regime? Probably not, but a stream of gate-crashings in Beijing, where North Koreans are finding their way past increased security to seek asylum at foreign embassies, is an intriguing development and not good news for “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. I was based in Seoul from 1987-1990 and heard, every week or two, a new theory about the imminent collapse of North Korea, so I’m not holding my breath, but at some point, hopefully soon, that prison/country will disappear.

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.