The Economist USA - 26.10.2019

36 Asia The EconomistOctober 26th 2019

2 urban planning. Sewers, water treatment

and rubbish collection are all hopelessly

inadequate.

Administrative and political divisions

are at the root of the mismanagement. The

politics of the province are dominated by

the Pakistan Peoples Party (ppp), whose

supporters are mainly Sindhi speakers, but

the city is the base of a rival party, the Mut-

tahida Qaumi Movement, backed chiefly

by the descendants of Urdu-speaking mi-

grants from India. What is more, whole

neighbourhoods are under the administra-

tion of neither the province nor the city,

but of the army, the state-owned railway

company and the port authority. The con-

fusion of responsibilities makes it almost

impossible to co-ordinate any services,

says Raza Ali, an urban planner.

Crime, extortion and corruption make

matters worse. Last month anti-graft inves-

tigators arrested the former director of the

city’s parks over an alleged scam to sell gov-

ernment land. He was found with eight

luxury cars, jewellery and weapons.

No wonder, perhaps, that the national

government has decided to wade in, creat-

ing a committee to suggest solutions to Ka-

rachi’s problems. Its chairman, Farogh Na-

seem, the law minister, has said one option

would be to invoke an obscure article of the

constitution intended to cope with emer-

gencies, which allows the centre to give di-

rections to provincial governments. The

ppp interpreted the suggestion not as a

form of assistance, but as a power grab. It

quickly drew up a plan to resist any such

move through street protests and legal

challenges. The government may be back-

ing away from such a confrontation: the

committee has gone quiet. Meanwhile, the

rubbish continues to moulder. 7

Banyan Lo! The marshal rides again

A

s the firstsnows of winter fell on

sacred Mount Paektu, Kim Jong Un

knew what he had to do. The dictator

threw on his greatcoat, saddled up his

white steed and rode up the mountain’s

slopes until man and beast were gazing

into the caldera lake that glints at the

summit, pure as the Korean race.

Holy mountain and white charger

have long played a central part in the Kim

family’s propaganda. They are stolen

straight from the cult that once sur-

rounded Emperor Hirohito of Japan,

Korea’s former colonial oppressor. But

for the old iconography to be given a

showing now is notable. Until recently

the most striking image of Mr Kim was

against the glimmering skyline of Singa-

pore, where he celebrated an extraordi-

nary coming-out party with President

Donald Trump last year. There have also

been dramatic handshakes at the demili-

tarised zone with Moon Jae-in, South

Korea’s president, as well as with Mr

Trump. Now openness and modernity

are out. The chill, Mr Kim has decided, is

back. The marshal is protecting his vul-

nerable people from his lonely guardpost

atop Mount Paektu.

South Korea is suffering most from

the change. Mr Moon plays the solicitous

suitor to Mr Kim, but gets nothing but

abuse in return. A supposedly friendly

football match between the two coun-

tries in the North Korean capital in mid-

October gave a sense of the chill. South

Koreans and the foreign press were not

allowed into the near-empty stadium.

The North Korean team glowered at their

opponents, as if about to assault them.

The game ended in a goalless draw. This

week Mr Kim announced the end of

South Korean involvement in a rare

instance of North-South co-operation, a

tourist resort at Mount Kumgang built by

South Korean developers. He ordered the

“unpleasant” buildings to be razed.

For Andray Abrahamian of Stanford

University, who like many North Korea

experts saw real prospects for detente, this

default to the old petulance is a “massive

failure of public diplomacy” on the part of

Mr Kim. Why did the dictator turn his back

on the economic opening offered by Mr

Moon? Surely no future South Korean

leader will be so open-handed. Perhaps Mr

Moon’s optimism persuaded Mr Kim that

his paramount goal, a deal with Mr Trump

over his nuclear and missile programmes,

would be easy. Certainly, at a summit in

Hanoi in February, Mr Kim miscalculated

by offering to close only a knackered plu-

tonium reactor in exchange for a lifting of

international sanctions. On October 5th

American and North Korean negotiators

met in Stockholm, raising hopes of a new

flexibility. Again the talks ended abruptly.

It is not impossible that Mr Kim and Mr

Trump will meet for yet another summit

before the end of the year. But if Mr Kim

hopes for a breakthrough, he is surely

overestimating Mr Trump’s desperation

for a deal or his administration’s ability

to focus on one amid the fog of impeach-

ment. In the meantime, the feel-good

factor is gone.

Not least, Mr Kim is trying America’s

patience with fresh missile tests, and

threatens an end to all self-restraint if

not offered goodies by year-end. Since

May the North has tried out three new,

solid-fuel, short-range ballistic missiles.

In early October it fired an intermediate-

range missile into Japanese waters from

an underwater platform.

If it is all a diplomatic failure on Mr

Kim’s part—think of the economic op-

portunities, not to mention the security

guarantees that would have flowed from

a deal—it is also a fiasco for Mr Trump.

On his watch, North Korea has expanded

its nuclear arsenal to about 40 weapons

and greatly improved the missiles need-

ed to use them.

In fact, from Mr Kim’s narrow per-

spective, the failed summitry and re-

version to sabre-rattling could be consid-

ered a great success. His nine years in

power are something Mr Trump can

never match, after all. His mafia state

looks more secure than ever. And after

three years of “maximum pressure”, the

un-led sanctions regime is wilting. Bad

blood between America, on the one

hand, and China and Russia, on the

other, has undermined the unpanel that

enforces sanctions. The hectic diplo-

macy, meanwhile, has allowed Mr Kim’s

envoys to pursue illicit activities, from

sanctions-busting to cyber-heists at

foreign financial institutions. North

Korea’s stricken economy limps on.

It falls massively short, admittedly, of

what ordinary North Koreans deserve.

But they never counted. Mr Kim, by

contrast seems to think he is back: bellig-

erent, bemissiled and beefier than ever.

North Korea’s propaganda and petulance bode ill for talks with America