Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Citing frequent occurrence of North Korean defectors recently, media and scholars from the US, Japan and South Korea are now once again hyping the theory of a North Korean collapse. A group of 13 North Korean restaurant workers defected to South Korea in April, and a teenage math genius escaped to Hong Kong on July 16. Reports also say that a general-level North Korean military official recently defected from the country. Hence, some South Korean media predict that these young defectors may cause a butterfly effect.

The North Korea collapse theory emerged in the end of 1990s and has once misled the decision-making in governments of the US, Japan and South Korea. The US and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework in Geneva over Pyongyang abandoning nuclear development in October 1994.

However, due to reasons like natural disasters, North Korea suffered severe economic depression and a food and resources shortage, with a number of unstable factors emerging in its society. Out of a variety of reasons, some North Korean citizens defected to their neighboring countries by illegally crossing the border.

Based on that, the US, Japan and South Korea judged that a breakdown of North Korean regime was just a matter of time. They thought instead of carefully fulfilling the Agreed Framework and providing 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the country per year, they should break the deal, stop the aid and accelerate the pace of the nation's collapse.

Nevertheless, North Korea survived the hardship under its military-first political system, and stabilized the political situation in the country, while picking up the speed of nuclear weapons development to boost its national defense capability.

In this regard, today's deteriorating nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula and the missed historical opportunity to realize denuclearization is the result of not only Pyongyang's perseverance in nuclear development, but also misjudgment and infringement of the Agreed Framework by Washington, Tokyo and Seoul.

Now the US, Japan and South Korea should not recommit the same error and make wrong judgment on North Korean situation again. Although the latter's economic development is not optimistic under the international sanctions, and the country is still short of food, resources and foreign currencies, the living standard of its people is gradually rising, which turned into a powerful pillar of the nation's social stability.

Moreover, the military-first system is still functioning. After several adjustments among the army's high-level officials, the successful holding of seventh Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea marked that the nation's party and political institutions are tending toward stability. Under such background, a few defectors at any level will not rock the big picture of its society. Some in the US, Japan and South Korea might be disappointed in their hopes of North Korea's collapse.

Over the past decades, regime collapses due to economic depression, such as the dissolution of the Soviet Union and revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, color revolutions and Jasmine Revolution, are not rare. However, North Korea cannot be compared with those East European or Middle East countries, for Pyongyang has its unique social structure, social governance, history, geopolitics, mentality, and national characteristics. For instance, its people's strong support for the three generations of hereditary power succession is hard for many to imagine.

Although North and South Korea belong to one nationality, after over 70 years of hostility, their mental and cultural gap might be bigger than that between different nationalities. For South Korean policy-makers, getting to know Pyongyang objectively is still a tough task. North Korea's endurance capacity against economic hardships is like a puzzle. Seoul once believed that shutting down the Kaesong Industrial Complex would deal a heavy blow to North Korea's economy, and asking China to increase sanctions against Pyongyang would bring immediate effect. But this did not turn out as expected.

Economic sanctions will not bring North Korea to its knees. Threatening the country by deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system in South Korea is even more ridiculous. In light of this, abandoning the unrealistic North Korea collapse theory, making joint effort with international community for the Six-Party Talks, sitting down with Pyongyang at the negotiating table for denuclearization on the peninsula is a better choice for Washington, Tokyo and Seoul.

The author is a professor with the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn