James Church is the pseudonym of a former CIA operative who writes remarkable detective novels set in North Korea. His main character is an oddly plausible and endearing North Korean detective named Inspector O. In addition to his novels, Church also writes columns in the online journal “38 North”, which feature conversations between himself and Inspector O – who has since been appointed to assist in conducting North Korea’s backdoor diplomacy. They meet in bars and gloomy cafes in various Asian cities to discuss the issues of the moment. Church’s dialogues with Inspector O cast a sharp eye, not just on the byzantine world of North Korean politics, but also on the vagaries of the US political system, particularly since the advent of the Trump regime.
Casting my mind back, rather reluctantly, to the restructuring of CHL, the image that kept surfacing in my mind was of the world of James Church and Inspector O.
The characters who appear in the dialogue that follows bear no resemblance to any real person living or dead. But the emotions are very real.
Associate Professor K had asked me to meet for a cup of coffee, but rather oddly (I thought) specified that we should meet in a quiet corner of a café off campus where, he said, “we wouldn’t be overheard”.
When I entered the dark wooden booth of the off-campus café, I found Associate Professor K already there, looking rather unwell. He seemed to have aged in the past few weeks, and I noticed that his hand was shaking as he stirred his chai latte.
“I think they have me targeted”, he said quietly as I sat down.
“They?” I asked. “Who do mean by ‘they’?”
“You know”, he said, “The authorities. The people who are planning the restructure.”
“Can you be more specific?” I asked. “Who exactly are we talking about here?”
“Well, that’s what we don’t really know. I’ve heard rumours that it may all be being driven by the Deputy Party Secretary, but others say that it’s really the Finance Minister or the local party boss. Or maybe it’s all three of them. Possibly with others. You know they’ve set up a Special Committee,” he added darkly.
Well, of course I knew about the Special Committee. Everyone knew about that. I laughed. “You don’t need to worry about the Special Committee,” I said, “that’s just a group of your colleagues. There’ll be processes. There’ll be criteria. All you need to do is make a case. And anyway, how could they possibly target you? You a world-renowned expert in your field, and you’re one of the most productive people on campus. Look at all the Hero Worker awards you’ve received.”
But Associate Professor K was not reassured. “I’ve heard that the only criterion they’re using is that you have to be a Good Person. Not someone who Makes Waves, you know. I’m having difficulty providing the quantitative data to prove that I meet that criterion.
I tried another tack. “Besides,” I said, “They surely won’t need to get rid of more than three or four people. Look at all the retirements we’ve had recently. And after all, what’s the budget deficit? One million? Two million?”
“That’s another thing we don’t know,” replied Associate Professor K. My cheerful tone clearly wasn’t getting through to him. “Three weeks ago they said five million. At the beginning of this week it was one million. But now it’s apparently gone up to eight million.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” I exclaimed. “This is a university, not some dodgy back-street small business. They must know what the budget bottom line is.”
“Apparently it all depends on which budgetary parameters you use,” replied Associate Professor K.
I was glad to get out of that gloomy café and back to the university campus. Spring was in the air. The sky was blue, and the shining glass tower of the new biotechnology block was rising from its construction site. This was Canberra, after all, not that seedy bar in Shenyang where I was accustomed to have my meetings with Inspector O. This was a place of plenty, free speech, a fair go, due process, trade unions …
The next I head from Associate Professor K was a rather sad little email.
“The Special Committee has found that my services are no longer needed by the university,” he wrote. “Apparently I didn’t meet the Good Person criterion. I will be made redundant. Thank you for all your support over the years. Can I drop by your office to return those books I borrowed five years ago?”
Needless to say, I wasn’t having any of that. I marched down the corridor and found Associate Professor K in his office, already packing his belongings into boxes.
“This is crazy,” I said. “They can’t do this. They have to give you reasons for their decision.”
“Not when there’s a budgetary crisis, or so I’m told,” he replied. And, as it turned out, he was quite correct.
He wasn’t the only one. We weren’t, of course, officially allowed to know how many people had failed the Good Person test. That was classified information, and the members of the Special Committee had been sworn to absolute secrecy. But the rumour mill was soon at work. It seemed that the number might be nine or ten, or maybe more. Professor G was said to be on the list, and Dr. L, and Professor C too. Surely not? Was that possible?
By now, petitions were being signed, and letters written to the newspaper, and our gallant students were organising to defend their academic staff.
A month or two later, Associate Professor K came to my office seeming a little more cheerful, though he still looked ten years older than he had a few months ago. “Better news,” he said. “I’ve been given a reprieve. Some kind colleagues have found a place for me in the Strategic and Communications Research Unit.”
“That’s great,” I said. “But,” as a thought struck me, “if there was room in the budget to employ you somewhere else in the university, why didn’t they try doing that before telling you that you were surplus to university requirements and being made redundant?”
“Maybe the budgetary parameters have changed again,” suggested Associate Professor K helpfully. “And there’s a catch. It’s only a one-year contract. After that, everything’s up in the air. I’ll have to work 18 hour days to prove my worth.”
“Don’t worry,” I said cheerfully. “You’ll knock their socks off.”
Well, that was three years ago now. We’ve all moved on since then. Water under the bridge. There are rumours that the authorities realised that mistakes were made. Maybe they even instituted some kind of internal enquiry. Perhaps there’s a report about what went wrong, with a list of lessons and recommendations, locked away in someone’s filing cabinet.
Associate Professor K had his contract renewed for another year, but I think the uncertainty was getting to him. He took early retirement, and the last I heard, he was thinking of going into mango farming.
For a while we thought that someone from the Central Committee might come to give us some kind of explanation, but that never happened. And anyway, better not to dwell on the past. The new biotechnology block is finished and has won the Henry Steiner Award for Modernist Architecture, and the university’s new shopping mall and multi-media teaching precinct are nearly complete. Time to look to the future. Let bygones be bygones.
After all, it couldn’t happen again, could it?
