Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University
The sudden death of Kim Jong-il changes North Korea, in Donald Rumsfeld’s useful phrase, from a known unknown to an unknown unknown.
With Kim senior we knew where we were — to some extent: the old trickster liked to keep us guessing. But his son is a blank — so far. Read more…
Author: Ruediger Frank, University of Vienna
Kim Jong-il is no more. The state news agency KCNA reported that he died on his train on Saturday 17 December 2011. This is the official version (now doubted internationally) that observers of North Korea have actually seen under preparation for quite a while, including in works of art that were discussed here.
Author: Bradley O. Babson
At the moment of his accession to power, Kim Jong-il inherited the devastating impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the subsequent trade shock to North Korea’s economic output, the onset of the worst famine in modern history, and a humanitarian crisis that required a direct appeal to the outside world for help.
By the late 1990’s, he was forced to accept the realities of dependence on international aid, the rise of farmers markets as a grassroots response to the famine, and the introduction of capitalist notions such as ‘profits’ in the Constitution itself. Read more…
Author: Geoffrey K. See, Choson Exchange
My team was finalising our 2012 program plans for North Korea exchanges — preparing to implement workshops on fiscal strategy and financial sector development, as well as discussing the potential of an economic think tank comprised of policy makers — and in close contact with our local partners shortly before Kim Jong-il’s passing.
These were all very interesting ideas because our North Korean partners were driving them, rather than us. Now, programs will be delayed and disrupted. Read more…
Authors: Peter Hayes, Scott Bruce, and David von Hippel, Nautilus Institute
When North Korean leader and founding father Kim Il Sung died in July 1994, his son Kim Jong Il had effectively held the reins of power since 1981.
The problem with Kim Jong Il dying during an ‘on the spot guidance’ on December 17 — as announced by the North Korean official media on December 19 — is that not much is known about his third son and designated 27-year-old successor, Kim Jong Un. Read more…
Authors: Geoffrey K. See and Andray Abrahamian, Choson Exchange
Intra-elite competition for investments in North Korea, with multiple channels backed by different individuals at the highest levels of the North Korean government, has significantly increased in the last two years.
This competition appears to mark a shift towards increasing reliance on economic performance as a primary source of legitimacy for the North Korean government. Read more…
Author: Robert E. Kelly, PNU
President Lee Myung-bak’s October trip to the US represents an ostensible high point in the US-ROK alliance.
But there are cracks in the relationship, primarily on the American side. Read more…
Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University
After three and a half years of a hard line with nothing to show for it except worsened inter-Korea relations, Lee Myung-bak is at long last executing a U-turn. Not openly and without fanfare of course; but the signs are clear.
In a speech in New York on 20 September, Lee sounded a note both old and new. As ever he stressed denuclearisation, but in a way which suggests this may no longer be a first step and precondition for progress. Read more…
Authors: Peter Hayes, RMIT and Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University
A declassified 1978 CIA report related to nuclear proliferation during the Park Chung-hee era shows that, far from making South Korea more secure, Park’s toying with the nuclear option made him an unpredictable and even dangerous client who needed restraint in the eyes of US policy makers.
The ROK’s nuclear ambitions, especially in the post-1975 period, resulted in the US threatening to rupture the security alliance if the ROK did not stop its nuclear intransigence. Read more…
Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University
North and South Korea held talks in Beijing last week, which means the next episode of the endless diplomatic soap that is the Six-Party Talks is approaching.
The official goal of these talks is North Korean denuclearisation. Read more…
Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University and ANU
In mid-August, the armoured train of the ‘Dear Leader’, Marshall Kim Jong-il once again crossed the Russian border. This time, he did not venture far: the summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took place in the city of Ulan-Ude.
Among other things, the summit produced a statement about a gas pipeline which is to go through the North to reach the South. Read more…
Author: Gilbert Rozman, Princeton University
In much of the world the Six-Party Talks represent a futile attempt to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and deter it from a path of belligerence.
But in China the talks offer hope for a new regional security arrangement. While observers took keen interest in China’s resistance to condemn the North’s two attacks on South Korea in 2010, few paid attention to Chinese rhetoric on the Korean peninsula, apart from expressing surprise at Xi Jinping’s revival of Chinese support for the North in the ‘glorious’ Korean War. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
Political manoeuvering aimed at resuming the Six-Party Talks process on reversing North Korea’s nuclear weapon program is intensifying following a Russia-DPRK summit in August 2011.
Washington’s and Seoul’s experience with the DPRK since its nuclear objectives were first suspected has left scar tissue, and new ideas and initiatives have been conspicuously absent recently. Exploratory moves on re-engagement are laden with caution and scepticism.
Authors: Alexander Vorontsov, Russian Academy of Sciences and Oleg Revenko
Despite Libya and North Korea’s geographical distance many analysts have drawn parallels and even forecast similar fates for their leaders.
The NATO intervention in Libya poses the following question: In the contemporary world can a small country conduct an independent foreign policy, regardless of the approval of the global ruling class, without running the risk of being punished for it? Read more…
Author: Choi Kyung-soo, NKRI
The mining industry is one of the most important components of North Korea’s economy and minerals are its most important export commodity.
North Korea hosts sizeable deposits of more than 200 different minerals. Of those mineral resources identified, deposits of coal, iron ore, magnesite, gold ore, zinc ore, copper ore, limestone, molybdenite, and graphite are the largest and all have the potential for the development of large-scale mines. Read more…