Kim Jong-il's regime in North Korea desperately needs security guarantees for economic reforms to take root, but he is unlikely to get them at six-nation talks on the Stalinist state's nuclear program starting today.
In the streets of Pyongyang small businesses have always been state-owned but the prices are now fixed by the market, and buyers use cash instead of ration coupons.
For those who have money, several hundred market salesmen on Unification Street now offer imported goods from China or Southeast Asia, such as clothing, televisions and washing machines.
"When we are in North Korea, it is like going back 20 years" to a time when economic reforms first started in China, said Cheng Peng, vice president of the Society for Friendship and Sino-Korean cultural exchange which organizes trips for Chinese businessmen.
Quoted in the Chinese economic journal Zhongguo Jingying Bao, Cheng talks of "virgin territory" and gives assurances that there are dream opportunities for small and medium-sized Chinese enterprises in the country.
But the chances of the reforms lasting depends on the regime's own chances of survival.
"In North Korea the reforms are imposed from on high. They are there to stabilize the system and to make the situation better for the elite," Ruediger Frank, a specialist on Korea at Vienna University, said.
But he said the North's leaders were yet to be convinced that "foreigners are not going to exploit internal conflict caused by the reforms to provoke a change in regime."
"For the economic situation in North Korea to improve in the long run, it must transform its military-run industries into civilian ones," said Zhao Huji, a specialist on North Korea from the Central Party School in Beijing.
"But for that to happen North Korea needs security guarantees, a requirement the United States refuses to meet since Pyongyang is only offering a compromise, and not a dismantling of its nuclear program," said Zhao.
While North Korea admits to having a plutonium-based nuclear program, which it has offered to freeze, it denies the existence of a uranium-enrichment one, which the US insists it must dismantle.
China, Russia, South Korea and perhaps Japan could for their part accept the more basic compromise, the Chinese expert suggests, but much depends on the US.
Seoul recently signed agreements to develop its economic relations with the North, while pledging a huge aid package if a solution is found to the nuclear standoff that erupted in 2002 with US claims that Pyongyang had resumed its nuclear program.
"South Korea seems determined to press ahead with engagement, regardless of the nuclear situation," said Marcus Noland, a researcher at the International Economics Institute in Washington.
Washington realizes this and, in order to prevent it becoming isolated, "the United States is likely to present more evidence regarding North Korea's second, highly enriched uranium-based, nuclear program, in an effort to keep China and others on board," Noland said.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
RSS