It might be surprising to learn that Stalinist North Korea actually has a private university. But it’s true: Since 2010, the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), which is funded largely by western donors, has been educating many sons of the country’s political elite.
Of course, being North Korea, PUST is hardly an ordinary private school with frisbee on the quad, weekend ragers, and freewheeling dorm-room bull sessions. The novelist Suki Kim actually taught there as an undercover journalist—in her book recounting the experience, Without You, There Is No Us, she describes disturbing (though, alas, unsurprising) levels of social control imposed on both students and faculty. And then there are the ethical implications of such a place. PUST likes to think it’s doing good by exposing North Korean elites to outside influence. But is it wise to aid a political class guilty of committing horrific crimes against its fellow countrymen? Should westerners be teaching math to the future leader of the State Security Department, the North Korean gestapo? Or science to future nuclear scientists?
Legal issues abound as well. One North Korea sanctions expert tells me that PUST is “subject to immediate designation [for sanctions violations] for any one of several reasons.” As he explains via email:
All of which might explain why PUST tends to be so secretive. Indeed, a delegation from the school is currently here in the United States. Leaders of the university visited Texas A&M University the other day, seeking help in teaching agricultural subjects. PUST plans to visit roughly ten American universities—but it refuses to disclose to the media (including THE WEEKLY STANDARD) which ones, besides Texas A&M, it will be stopping at. In any event, students at Cornell University’s agricultural school, among others, may want to keep their eyes open this week and next.
