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By contrast, Kim appears to have come around to the idea — long promoted by ally China — that the best way to control average citizens is to distract them with money. Incipient market reforms have given farmers the right to keep more of the profits from their crops — up to 60 percent — and factory managers the freedom to hire and fire, buy necessary supplies and pocket a significant part of whatever they sell. For now, this gives average North Koreans more of a stake in maintaining the status quo: They can legitimately aspire to owning a cell phone or even a motorbike, while having less fear of being carted away for minor infractions. While still guilty of appalling human-rights abuses, the regime has over the last few years steadily reduced the size of its gulags.

When a purge means almost certain death, threatened officials might well consider actions which would have been unthinkable before.

The strategy seems to be working: There’s little sign of any real opposition to Kim’s rule among the Pyongyang elite. But it’s likely to prove destabilizing in the long run. Previously, any officials under suspicion knew their best bet was to remain calm and redouble their professions of loyalty, hoping to be rehabilitated. Now, when a purge means almost certain death, threatened officials might well consider actions which would have been unthinkable before — fleeing overseas with bags of compromising documents to trade, or even trying to foment a conspiracy or coup in Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, the more economic freedom average North Koreans are given, the more their aspirations will grow. It’s long been known that revolutions seldom happen during periods of despair and economic collapse, but rather when commoners have tasted a bit of the good life and long for more. Kim’s efforts to stabilize his regime could just be what end up provoking a crisis.

Bloomberg View

Andrei Lankov, a history professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, is the author of “The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia.”