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.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS