‘It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air.’
Staring up at the Ryugyong, for decades a shell but today better dressed than it ever has been before, it’s often seemed as if Pyongyang’s cartoonishly nick-named ‘Hotel of Doom’ has been taking its creative direction from George Orwell’s description of the Ministry of Truth, the overpowering office responsible for propaganda in the dystopian world of 1984.
So depending on how you look at it, the announcement that it will be opening next year under the banner of German luxury hotelier Kempinski is either an unlikely about-turn for the closed-off socialist kingdom, one that takes the bite out of their Juchean policy of ‘Kimsters doing it for themselves’; or more sinisterly, a sea-change piece of historical revisionism that hints at a possible new direction for the country, one that puts a different style of capital-friendly autocracy in the driving seat.
Kempinski’s CEO Reto Wittwer announced that he’d made a deal with the North Korean state at a business forum in Seoul on 1 November, calling the Ryugyong a “money-printing machine” that would “monopolise” tourism in the city as North Korea opens up. The news comes as part of a wave of luxury re-developments in Pyongyang, including its new showpiece Mansudae area. Together they denote the strengthening of a new elite infrastructure – one that is more outward-looking and business-focused than ever.
In fact, all the signals coming from Pyongyang project a sense of economic optimism. If it is true that North Korea has found a new confidence when engaging with the outside world, why has it come about now? Kim Jong Un may have been educated in Switzerland and love NBA Basketball, but it’s the global economic shift and a new trend in capitalism taking place across Asia that is much more likely to have emboldened the regime’s outlook.
TOWARDS A FAST FOOD AUTOCRACY
In an essay for Foreign Policy, Slavoj Zizek argues that Eastern countries like China and Singapore are successfully setting “the conditions for the further radicalization of capitalism” by implementing “ the marriage of capitalism and authoritarianism,” which are then euphemistically referred to as “Asian values.”
Watching China and Singapore successfully navigate capital-lead economic growth without threatening the autocratic status quo, North Korea finds itself existing under unprecedented global conditions, whereby it can legitimately engage in un-democratic capitalist practices without compromising its own autocratic ideology. Kim Jong Un may well be thinking, “If the Chinese have found a way to eat McDonalds AND still be lead by the guidance of the party, why can’t we?”
As for the Ryugyong hotel itself, its former role as a symbol of economic stagnation could be flipped on its head. “If it is successful then in the long term it could encourage other companies to invest in building up more western-standard hotels and restaurants,” offers Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, who was the first person allowed inside the Ryugyong to take photographs, “but I don’t think anyone will be rushing to do so until they see how this works out. Hopefully it will encourage more foreign investment in other areas too.”
There are already a number of foreign companies operating to varying degrees of success in North Korea. The most well known is Egyptian telecoms company Orascom, who built a 3G phone network in the North and were responsible for finishing off the Ryugyong’s glass cladding. Smaller companies like German tech firm Nosotek and the Singapore fast food franchise Waffletown have also set up shop in Pyongyang. Meanwhile, Heineken is the beer of choice in many bars and restaurants in the capital.
“IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
But despite the optimism, the small print of the Kempinski deal reveals they will only be opening 150 rooms of the originally touted 1500. Despite this modest outlay, a source working at the heart of North Korean business and tourism, who agreed to speak to NK NEWS on the condition of anonymity, sees more practical barriers to the dream being fully realised.
“150 rooms shouldn’t be too hard to do,” the source said, “although if they are relying on local sourcing for the interiors this could result in a sub-international standards product which might not be the ‘money-printing machine’ Mr. Wittwer is envisioning.”
The source also suggests that, with the majority of foreigners being brought into the country via the powerfully placed Korean International Tourist Company (KITC), Kempinski might have a hard time charging premium rates at the Ryugyong:
“The two best hotels in North Korea, The Hyangsan Hotel in Mt. Myohyang,and the Emperor Hotel & Casino in Rason, raised their prices so high that KITC won’t book anyone into them on package tours unless tourists insist and are willing pay the considerable difference. If the Ryugyong does the same KITC may also boycott them too.”
Kempinski may have seen the light and a future for investment in North Korea, but for the country itself, the pay-off is more ambiguous. North Korea might have found a new willingness to engage with foreign investors after seeing the success of its neighbours in marrying capitalism with autocracy. But whether the nation, whose people are so deeply disconnected from the rest of world, can find the skills to pull off something similar is itself yet to be seen.
To some extent, both Kempinsiki and the Korean Government seem to be banking on that nugget of wisdom that greeted visitors as they approached the foot of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. The banner read, ‘IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH’.
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