Kim Il Sung is rolling over in his grave; souvenirs are being sold at his birthplace in Pyongyang to South Korean tourists.

The short caption with he picture does not say, but it is likely that the vendors are ethnic Koreans from China, as in the case of the workers at the Kumgangsan tours:

While in the country, I desperately tried to talk to some actual North Koreans. But all outsiders travel in a virtual bubble, as a way to just about eliminate contact between North Koreans and outsiders. Except for the hotel’s doormen, all the staff we encountered were recruited from ethnic Korean communities in China - and they are rotated back to China every three months. [emphasis added]

Use of ethnic Korean-Chinese accomplishes the goal of bringing in foreign capital, while keeping the North Korean population insulated as much as possible from the effects of outside information, the bane of Kim Jong-il’s regime. This is a sort of ‘strategic disengagement‘ whereby engagement is one-way (North Korea receives benefits), or extremely limited and carried out in a fashion that is easily reversible.

This illustrates the fundamental weakness of engagement as a way to open up North Korea - it will only strengthen the ruling elite. While information gets into North Korea, more than ever before, the overall effect of engagement will unfortunately not be what engagement proponents expect.