Story of Pyongyang University of Science & Technology (“PUST”) Founded By a Capitalist

By Man Ki, Kim

It is perplexing that North Korea, with its longstanding human rights abuse and obstruction of development, would allow the establishment of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), where capitalists teach Western values of education. North Korea might be one of the few countries to claim rights based on the approach to their communist ideology since 1970, with its  all-around “equality for ESC rights” for the people.  Until recently, North Korea never accepted the word “donation” or “donor” for  aid distributed in the country.

One must ask who approved and who established  PUST, which  aims  to educate the elite young men of North Korea on science and technology.

PUST became a popular theme but nevertheless a controversy and dilemma for the United States, the United Nations, international non-governmental organizations, and human rights/development agencies, on how to interpret its motives .   There was a dilemma on how to limit and contain this new venture within the North Korean populace. .  North Korea terminated most  international humanitarian programs in 2005, leaving limited operations such as the World Food Program.

Political conditionality has normally been considered unethical and difficult to implement by most standards. North Korea has been the exception to the rule  based on the standards  of the United States,  United Nations, and  international community .  It goes without saying that the United States and the United Nations within the last twenty-four years have had no choice but to  provide additional aid and support, since these were, in a sense, mandatory in order to improve  fundamental conditions of human rights and the right to development.

Despite being approved by the North Korean government in 2001, Dr. James Kim and other founding members of PUST have struggled ever since to justify its importance to the government, raising funds from South Korea and the Korean diaspora.   Though initially unwelcomed , Dr. James Kim managed to pull the limited resources from the Korean Christian community to complete the PUST campus consisting of 17 buildings and costing more than $35 million. The campus is ready to accept its first enrollment of 600 graduate students in 2010.

Recently, the Science Magazine, Sept 2009 (VOL 325), covered a story about PUST and the background of dedicated teams headed by Dr.James Kim.  The FORTUNE KOREA, affiliated with FORTUNE  500, wrote a special article about PUST titled “The Capitalist Who Loves North Korea”  laying out background information on  the university and the various challenges that lie  ahead.

I had a rare opportunity to meet with the president of PUST,  Dr. James Kim, who was in Washington D.C. recently while recruiting a faculty member and attempting to raise additional funds for PUST.  I focused my questions on economic, social, and cultural rights rather than the sensitive issue of civil and political rights.

In 1992, Dr. James Kim started his first project with the Chinese Communist Party to set up Yanbian University of Sciences & Technology (YUST).    Dr. Kim started to travel to North Korea as a US Citizen to provide food and clothes to orphanages in North Korea but was later arrested  on allegations of espionage for the United States governmentand detained him for 6 weeks.

After the North Korean authorities were convinced that Dr. Kim had a simple and pure cause to provide better education to the youth  as he did in China as a humanitarian with no political agenda, the North Korean government allowed Dr. James Kim to travel without restrictions.  In 2001, Dr. Kim signed the joint venture agreement to set up PUST with the North Korean Ministry of Education and obtained approval from the Ministry of Unification of South Korea.

The core concept of this venture is rather similar to a typical public/private partnership, where a hosting country provides land and labor to support construction, and private parties bring outside resources to build the campus and run the program. The most significant and shocking achievement was to have the approval to run the university for fifty years with the guarantee of freedom for faculty members in the country and campus,  including the allowance of limited  Internet access for the students, faculty members and the rest of world!

When I asked about PUST’s Value Proposition and Mission of Education, Dr. Kim explained that and PUST’s commitment to human rights and rights to development as follows: “The teaching program at PUST will offer curricula that seek to strengthen North Korea’s economy by cultivating engineering and business professionals who are conversant in foreign languages, training a workforce that will live up to the expectations of progressive global industries and producing specialists who are as comfortable with practical application as they are with theory.” The mission of PUST is to provide graduate level education to the future technocratic elite in North Korea, preparing the post-era of Kim Jong Il.”   PUST will offer courses such as Information Management, Engineering, Agriculture, Food and Life Sciences, and Pubic Health Care.

As an economist, I asked a couple of simple questions:  what text books could PUST use to teach Economics? Can PUST use textbooks written by Samuelson and Nordhaus to teach the fundamental theory and analysis of economics?He answered affirmatively that  the North Korean authorities would allow a professor from the United States and EU to teach capitalist, free market economic theories  by  Samuelson’s and other Western economists..

By the same token, Dr. Kim was confident that PUST would be able to provide a unique source of information to the UN and other international NGO’s for human rights and development on how to develop a practical and adaptable approach in North Korea.  [1]

By no means has the human rights situation in North Korea changed. We have various  reports about the grim state of human rights in North Korea, such as that of the Heritage Foundation, the World Report 2010 by Human Rights Watch and the White Paper for Human Rights in North Korea by the Korea Institute for National Unification.  In 2008, the U.N passed a resolution to extend its presence in Pyongyang to promote human rights with a special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea to demonstrate its ongoing concerns and commitments in North Korea.

According to the White Paper for Human Rights in North Korea, 2010, published by the Korea Institute for National Unification, and personal testimony by a North Korean refugee,  public executions in North Korea have decreased since 2007, but the attainment of civil rights has a long way to go.

The reality of ESC rights in North Korea is not in good shape either. The economy is woeful, with only 20-30% of factories operating, a grain shortage of 500,000 to 1.7 million tons , and malfunction of social systems across the board.

PUST’s main challenge is to avoid being seen as a political tool of the North Korean regime in any sense and to be a truly independent school with limited capacity that complies open-mindedly with the International Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICCPR, the ICESCR, and various other UN covenants to lay the foundation of human rights and the right to development.

At the same time, Koreans and the international community must be patient with the concept developed by PUST and provide additional support to empower the North Korean people to  change their system to strive toward a higher standard of living. Whatever the future of communism in North Korea, hopefully PUST strengthen the nation as a beacon of entrepreneurship and broad-mindedness.

---

[1] With all fairness, Dr. James Kim(“James Jing Kyung Kim”)  deserves respect and recognition for the works he accomplished in North Korea.  There is still a rather harsh environment for human rights and right to development in North Korea.

© 2010, smigroup. All rights reserved.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 2:18 AM and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.