North Korean Review最新文献

{"title":"From Pre- to Post-Famine: Trends in Underweight among North Korean Children, 1987-2012","authors":"D. Schwekendiek","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.2.59","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.2.59","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionTo let all people \"eat rice with meat soup,\" as a common propaganda slogan has it, has been an objective of the leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), also known as North Korea.1 Yet contrary to official proclamation, nutritional stress has lingered in North Korea ever since its foundation in 1948, which was brought about by the emerging Cold War (1945-1991). As a manifestation of food calamities, mean final height of North Korean men, taken as a proxy for nutritional and epidemiological stress in early life,2 merely stagnated for all decades of the Cold War.3,4 In stark contrast, contemporary South Korean men are by now the tallest in all of East Asia because of healthy and wealthy living conditions in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.5Worst of all, by the 1990s, North Korea experienced a great famine.6,7 Massive starvation of North Koreans occurred with the downfall of socialism and the geopolitical disintegration of the Eastern Bloc. Food, fertilizers, and energy could no longer be afforded on the basis of world market prices. Lacking these necessary inputs, North Korea's economy collapsed in the 1990s.8 More important, in the previous Cold War era, the socialist government inefficiently focused on heavy industrialization and symbolic mammoth projects of marginal economic use in addition to overspending up to one-third of its budget on the military.9 This leftNorth Korea without comparative advantages in exports in the post-Cold War era to raise the levels of living and revive its economy.Though macroeconomic shocks and long-term strategic malinvestments are the underlying causes for North Korea's decline after the Cold War, the food crisis of the 1990s itself was triggered by two consecutive floods in 1995 and 1996 that devastated large parts of the country and \"evolved into a major famine.\"10 The floods in turn were a result of the El Nino weather anomaly at that time, although deforestation accelerated the crisis. However, by the early 2000s, North Korean living standards improved thanks to international assistance. In the early 1990s, North Korea joined the United Nations, and after the first floods in 1995, it officially appealed for aid. Ever since then, international food aid has been pouring into the DPRK, with peaks from 1997 to 2005 (Figure 1). Another important factor for North Korea's revitalization in the post-Cold War era was liberalization reforms. These were officially introduced in 2002 (\"July First Reforms\") and led to a paradigmatic shift, including marketization and decentralization.11,12,13 Table 1 demonstrates that probably 78 percent of North Koreans were participating in the informal economy by the time they were interviewed from 2004 to 2005.This article investigates the trends in underweight of children in North Korea from 1987 to 2012 to explore how the nutritional status of the North Korean people developed in the critical decade of the 1990s and beyond. First and foremo","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Human Rights and Refugee Status of the North Korean Diaspora1","authors":"J. Kang","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.2.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.2.4","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionSince the mid-1990s, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) economic collapse and subsequent food crisis have caused numerous North Koreans to starve to death. Moreover, such events have prompted thousands to seek refuge in the Republic of China (PRC) and beyond. An estimated 600,000 to over 2 million North Koreans were killed by the famine.2 It is also estimated that approximately 100,000-300,000 North Koreans moved to China.3 Many North Korean escapees in northeast China have lived in hiding from crackdowns and forced repatriations by the PRC and neighboring countries, vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. The food crisis has resulted in an explosive increase in the migration of North Koreans to northeast China, other neighboring Asian countries, and, thereafter, the Republic of Korea (ROK). As of December 2012, North Koreans who arrived in South Korea numbered 24,614.4 Furthermore, one in three North Korean escapees is heading to countries other than South Korea, and many escapees want to defect to Western countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.5 While North Koreans in South Korea have been granted ROK citizenship, many North Korean asylum seekers staying in other countries have not been under legal or humanitarian protection. Due to political, diplomatic and legal problems in the international and domestic contexts, the North Korean diaspora has maintained an illegal or unstable status as border-crossing people or trespassers.Until now, existing studies have researched the migration and human rights violations of North Koreans in terms of refugee status under international law. Are North Korean escapees political refugees, economic migrants or simply border-crossing people? This has been one of the critical questions regarding the North Korean diaspora. While North Korean escapees are often referred to as refugees in mass media, in many cases, especially in Asian transit countries, they have not received refugee protection under international law as well as from the concerned countries' domestic law. Today, most of the related Northeast and Southeast Asian countries rarely guarantee refugee status to North Koreans, and the U.S. and European countries also enforce a very selective policy of admitting North Koreans. In this regard, Western and South Korean civic organizations of North Korean human rights argue that those defecting due to human rights violations should undeniably be granted refugee status.The number of refugees of concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stood at 10.5 million at the beginning of 2011. The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) in 1951 and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Protocol) in 1967 provide a framework for the legal protection of a large number of displaced people. The Refugee Convention defines \"refugee\" as \"someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owi","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Business Risk and Ethics in Prospective Emerging Markets: The Case of Sports Sponsorship in North Korea","authors":"S. Horak","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.2.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.2.18","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionSince the death of Kim Jong-il in 2012, the international media has speculated whether the new leader, his son Kim Jong-un, will put economic development on his political agenda and open up the North Korean economy for foreign investors. In his new year's speech held in 2013, Kim Jong-un called for far-reaching reforms in the following year including an opening up of the economy to foreign investors and achieving better relations with South Korea.1 While skepticism remains as to whether an economic opening can be achieved in the short term, potential foreign investors need to focus on business opportunities and market attractiveness.While not yet being considered an emerging market by the major indices,2 the popular media ascribe the country basic potential to become an emerging market in the future due to its relatively large domestic market, with its population of 24 million inhabitants and due to its richness in natural resources (e.g., gold, silver, copper, magnesite, coal, uranium and iron ore). If economic reform takes place, Goldman Sachs, for instance, sees enormous growth potential in the North Korean economy.3 The bank's analysis of the North Korean economy assumed the value of domestic mineral resources at 140 times of the 2008 gross domestic product (GDP). However, the country has a relatively young and technologically educated labor force which is available at low labor costs of around USD 160 per month.4A comparatively small but increasing number of international investors have already ventured into business with North Korea. The Cairo-based firm Orascom established the first GSM mobile phone network there in 2008 and contributed to funding the construction of the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel, located in the capital, Pyongyang, that is planned to open in 2013 and which will be managed by the Swiss luxury hotel group Kempinski Hotels.5If North Korea fully opens up its economy to foreign investors, the business opportunities will be plentiful.The Ethical Dilemma SituationDespite potentially lucrative business prospects, international investors are at the same time faced with ethical dilemmas and substantial business risk when intending to invest in North Korea. From a theoretical point of view, ethics in business used to be defined as \"behavior that is consistent with the principles, norms, and standards of business practice that have been agreed upon by society.\"6 But what if society is not free to participate in political decision-making processes but is instead oppressed by a dictatorial leadership, as is the case with North Korea (more details will be provided in the further course of the study)? How should foreign investors respond to such an environment? Engage in business activities and risk receiving bad press that may cost them consumers in the firm's home country?7 Theoretically it is assumed that a country which violates human rights, in which legal arbitrariness prevails, in which corruption is high and which lacks","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"North Korea's Cultural Diplomacy in the Early Kim Jong-Un Era","authors":"A. Cathcart, S. Denney","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.2.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.2.29","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionSince the accession to power of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean state has lost no time in establishing the appearance of an accelerated internationalization.1 One important element in this process has been what is, by North Korea's own closed standards, a rather vigorous program of cultural diplomacy. The performing arts have been at the forefront of these exchanges and activities. In 2012, a North Korean symphony orchestra traveled to France, and North Korea's huge \"Sea of Blood\" opera company toured all over China. Meanwhile, at home, a new brand of North Korean regime-pop, christened the Moranbong Band, was even used to tantalize Western commentators with visions of a North Korean \"opening up.\" Photography exhibitions went forward with the U.S., musical exchanges continued with Norway and Germany, and joint film projects with China also emerged as important elements in cultural diplomacy. These elements are part of a developing North Korean \"softpower\" strategy which complements and assists the country's diplomatic and strategic goals.When discussing North Korean softpower, however, context matters more than ever before. Spring 2012, the time frame under consideration in this article, was a period of extreme activity by the DPRK on the world stage, culminating in a muchanticipated and -protested missile test on April 13, 2012. Given that the DPRK's cultural diplomacy in that period coincided also with domestic propaganda that was intensely xenophobic even by North Korean standards, it is possible and probably likely that the reasons behind the move to engage in cultural diplomacy in early 2012 were purely tactical. These soft-power efforts thus bear upon North Korean politics of aid as well as nuclear weapons. This is not to say that the efforts were fruitless or not engaged in willingly with the American and French partners who we discuss in this article. In both cases, the DPRK enlisted the collaboration of legitimate partners (the Associated Press and France Radio Orchestra) and an actual audience for their art, music, and a political message thereby. The support of legitimate partner institutions aids in illustrating that cultural diplomacy has served an important and limited success for the Kim Jong-un regime, if only meant to show domestically as a sign of the DPRK's growing internationalism. Finally, looking into the interactions more deeply allows for greater insight into the questions of whether Kim Jong-un's rule represents, portends, or only feigns a bona fide internationalization of the DPRK.IR Theory, Cultural Diplomacy and North Korea's HistoryPower, a somewhat nebulous concept defined succinctly as the ability to affect others, lies at the center of international relations (IR) theory. This concept has traditionally been explained in a bifurcated way, describing how one state affects another state's behavior through some combination of coercion and inducement, an understanding of power best represented by the \"carrot a","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Explaining North Korean Nuclear Weapons Motivations: Constructivism, Liberalism, and Realism","authors":"Liang Tuang Nah","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.1.61","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.1.61","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionMass media coverage of nuclear weapons proliferation by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)-North Korea-produces security-centric perceptions. Typical news about North Korean saber-rattling highlights threats to engulf the South Korean Blue House (presidential residence) in a \"sea of fire\" in response to military drills.1 An identical threat was made during North-South talks about the North Korean nuclear weapons program in 1994, and the \"sea of fire\" rhetoric was interpreted as a nuclear strike. Because the mass media frames the DPRK as threatening, the idea is created that nuclear weapons are the only pillar of its militarycentric national survival strategy.A more discerning analysis of North Korean nuclear weapons motivations should involve not only factors concerning military security (realism), but also economic interdependence and development (liberalism) and international nuclear nonproliferation norms (constructivism). Neglecting other explanatory dimensions results in one-sided appraisals.Hence, as the North Korean nuclear arms conundrum can be better understood from a tripartite realist-liberalist-constructivist framework, it is proposed that only when North Korean national security concerns vis-a-vis the United States-South Korean alliance are adequately addressed, the weakness and isolation of the moribund DPRK economy ameliorated and due recognition given for denuclearization norms expressed by Pyongyang, can there be concrete progress on North Korean nuclear disarmament. Accordingly, the rest of this article will elaborate the contemporary historical relevance of each component of the tripartite framework for North Korea, explain U.S. nuclear disarmament failure due to one-dimensional policies or benign neglect and establish the relevance of the tripartite framework for concurrently addressing North Korean existential and reputational pressures to achieve nuclear disarmament on the Korean Peninsula.Contemporary Research and Analytical ApproachCoverage of liberalism and realism is extensive in nuclear weapons scholarship. Regarding unitary theory studies applicable to North Korean nuclear decisions, some examples include the security-centric analysis of Scott Sagan and the politicaleconomic basis behind nuclear weapons policy in Etel Solingen, the former touching on proliferation as an attempt to restore the balance of power vis-a-vis nuclear armed rivals and the latter positing that nuclear armament/disarmament is determined by the relative strength of domestic factions promoting globalized trade and investment (hindered by nuclear pariah status) versus militant isolationists promoting nuclear arms as central to national strength.2In studies relevant to North Korea, single theory analysis is prevalent. For instance, Jaewoo Choo covers asymmetric economic dependence on China, with China as a principal supplier of crucial food, fuel, and fertilizer to North Korea. Here, China is an example of a senior partner ","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Engagement? Containment?: The Role of Identity in the Formation of South Korea's Policy toward Pyongyang","authors":"Soon-ok Shin","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.1.83","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.1.83","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionThis article focuses on the role of identity in the formation of South Korea's foreign policy behavior. Given its geopolitical location at the intersection of neighboring powers' strategic and economic calculations, Korea has been profoundly influenced by the fluctuating regional environment. Indeed, it has inhabited different identities in relation to neighboring countries at different historical junctures. For example, throughout the Japanese occupation of 1910-1945, the Korean War of 1950-1953, and the Cold War, different identities took the form of opposition to Japan, and then North Korea, that is,. an adversarial identity; and, in the case of the U.S., an associational identity.With the demise of the Cold War it was assumed that tension on the Korean Peninsula would ease. In addition, the Republic of Korea's (ROK) dramatic policy shifttoward the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), exemplified in President Roh Tae-woo's 7/7 Announcement in 1988-calling for peaceful coexistence-generated an expectation that inter-Korean relations would improve. Indeed, the South's rapprochement toward the North during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moohyun governments resulted in significantly improved relations. One outcome was the emergence of an affirmative associational national identity toward Pyongyang. However, these rapprochement approaches were abruptly halted by the Lee Myung-bak government.This alerts us to the problematized nature of the South's sense of national identity vis-a-vis the North. An affirmative identity collided with the archetypical adversarial identity, and sat uneasily with serious concerns about Pyongyang's emerging nuclear ambitions, a development which had begun to reshape the post-Cold War regional security environment and to pose a serious challenge to South Korea. This article argues that the essential tension around the nature of changing ROK national identities toward the DPRK holds the key to understanding the sources of Seoul's different foreign policy behaviors.The article proceeds in three parts: firstly, it explores the constructivist analysis, which argues that identity-constructs drive a state's behavior. Building on a critique of the conventional constructivist approach, it suggests how the key concept, \"identity,\" recurrently addressed in conventional constructivist texts, might be refreshed, and introduces an alternative analysis of a state's foreign policy development. Secondly, it explores the formation of South Korea's national identity toward North Korea during the Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003), Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008), and Lee Myung-bak (2008-) governments, and examines how national identity has been constructed and reconstructed in the interplay of domestic, regional and international political realities. It develops a typology that sets out the different ROK policy manifestations and investigates its foreign policy behavior by exploring the historical development of inter-Korean relations and ex","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"North Korea's Threat Perception and Provocation under Kim Jong- Un: The Security Dilemma and the Obsession with Political Survival*","authors":"Yongho Kim","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.1.6","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionA lack of consideration of the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, and his family's perceptional variants has misled the estimation of North Korea's provocative policy and its determination to take risks. It is argued here that North Korea's security dilemma and its obsession with father-to-son successions have been the principal causes of its provocative behavior. The security dilemma1has impelled North Korea to generate, and thus portray to the world, provocative signals; and the everpressing issue of Kim Il-sung and his family's succession has driven them to prioritize their political survival over that of the survival of the North Korean state. When Kim Il-sung and his family engage simultaneously in encounters related to the security dilemma and major issues involving the succession, they provoke. When their political survival is threatened, they take a step back.Threat Perception and North KoreaWhen a leader perceives that his values and interests are endangered, and at the same time he perceives an inability to control events and faces a lack of resources that can be manipulated against this threat, we witness a leader who perceives threat.2 When a leader is uncertain about his international and domestic circumstances, which would limit his choice between alternatives, perceptions matter.3 A leader's choices are not explicable without some reference to his priorities, obsessions, and perceptions of international relations and domestic politics. His priorities, obsessions, and perceptions are significantly influenced by his assumptions, views, and preexisting beliefs.4 This is why each analysis encounters the issue of the objectivity of the leaders' perceptions and conceptualization.5 One of the most important reasons for the North Korean nuclear stalemate was the perceptional gap between Washington and Pyongyang.6A perception of threat would frame the situation in a way that would emphasize possible gains or possible losses. To frame a threat is to highlight some aspects of the threat and make them more salient in such a way as to suggest a particular problem-solving definition. Essentially, frames define the threat, identify the causes of the threat, and recommend policy alternatives. In this process, threat percep-tion frames the situation and choice of alternatives by drawing attention to specific ways in which to respond and at the same time marginalizing more dovish perspectives. In this respect, the leader would ultimately take greater risks than he had intended.7How a situation is framed, intentionally or unintentionally, affects a leader's policy choices. The most fundamental effect of framing is to define the boundary of a leader's perception by placing a certain situation within a certain sphere of meaning.8 In doing so, frames influence the process in which the leader perceives, understands, and remembers a certain incident, thereby affecting and guiding his subsequent judgment and responses.9A state's foreign polic","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69765842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why Did So Many Influential Americans Think North Korea Would Collapse","authors":"B. Cumings","doi":"10.3172/NKR.9.1.114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.9.1.114","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionIf \"know your enemy\" is the sine qua non of effective warfare and diplomacy, the United States has been badly served by those who claim expertise on North Korea in Washington. It is now twenty years since a bipartisan consensus emerged inside the Beltway that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) would soon \"implode or explode,\" a mantra that began with Bush I and lasted through Clinton and Bush II, right down to the present. This was the hidden premise of the American pledge to build two light-water reactors to replace the Y¢ongby¢on plutonium complex in the 1994 Framework Agreement: since they wouldn't come onstream for eight or ten years, by then they would belong to the Republic of Korea (ROK).Iraq War architect Paul Wolfowitz journeyed to Seoul in the aftermath of the apparent American victory over Saddam to opine (in June 2003) that \"North Korea is teetering on the brink of collapse.\" In intervening years we heard Gen. Gary Luck, commander of U.S. forces in Korea, say (in 1997) that \"North Korea will disintegrate, possibly in very short order;\" the only question was whether it would implode or explode.1 In this he was plagiarizing another of our commanders in Korea, Gen. Robert Riscassi, who never tired of saying Pyongyang would soon \"implode or explode.\" (Riscassi retired in 1992.)When does the statute of limitations run out on being systematically wrong? But I know from experience that any attempt by outsiders to break through this Beltway groupthink merely results in polite silence and discrete headshaking. North Korea's coming collapse is still the dominant opinion today.2In what follows I want to briefly examine this Washington consensus, and then attempt to explain why the collapse scenario was, is, and will be wrong. But my argument can be stated simply:* North Korea is sui generis and not comparable to any other communist regime.* It is much less communist than nationalist, and less nationalist than Korean.* It draws deeply from the well of modern and pre-modern Korean political culture.* Its nationalism traces back 75 years, to a never resolved conflict with Japan.* Its legitimacy is entirely wrapped up with this anti-Japanese struggle.* It is a garrison state the likes of which the world has never seen.* Its military leaders take pride in having faced up to the U.S. military for six decades.* If it probably can't defeat anyone, it is still militarily impregnable.3* No foreign troops have been stationed in the DPRK since 1958.* It has always had close backing from China.* It also got backing from Moscow, but never had close relations with it.* It is run by a gerontocracy of solipsists who care nothing for what the outside world thinks.* This elite proved itself capable of starving hundreds of thousands to death while retaining power.* This elite has proved for more than 60 years that it knows how to hold onto power.Collapse or Overthrow?The leading Washington pundit on North Korea is Nicholas Eberstadt, who h","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Future Tasks and Strategy for Inter-Korean Fisheries Cooperation","authors":"Seong-gul Hong, Sungjune Park","doi":"10.3172/NKR.8.2.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.8.2.17","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionHow should North Korea's structural economic problems, which have been evolving for decades, be addressed? North Korea's socialist economy, which had begun its downward spiral in the mid-1980s, plummeted dramatically to a near-collapse condition coincidently with, and in the wake of, global disintegration of the Cold War structure in the early 1990s.1 Economic data supplied by a number of organizations, including the United Nations, estimate that North Korea's total imports in 2008 were US$2.7 billion, while recording exports of US$1.2 billion in the same year. Since 2000 onward, North Korea has suffered severe hard-currency pressures, stemming from huge trade deficits averaging US$1.0 to $1.5 billion annually. For its economy to survive, North Korea has to earn foreign currency. The core problem here is that the North Koreans have, at least at present, no ability to foster the nation's industries that sufficiently demonstrates their export competitiveness, especially in the short term.In a general pattern, countries at the incipient stage of their economic development tend to have interests in exporting goods such as fishery products that can not only be easily produced by relatively low-skilled or manual labor, but that can also be easily converted into hard currency. This has been the case for South Korea. By the mid-1960s, its fishery products accounted for 20 percent of its total exports. Even by the early 1970s, fishery products remained as South Korea's main export staple, accounting for about 10 percent of its total exports.North Korea shows the same story at present. Fishery production in North Korea still occupies a heavy position in respect to its export performance and potential. For about a decade since 2000, North Korea's fishery products have accounted for about 20 percent of its total exports; 75 percent of the exports have gone to South Korea in the form of inter-Korean trade (\"Minchok Naebu Korae\"). South Korea's fishery imports from North Korea have increased by an annual growth rate of 20 percent- 25,000 tons in 2000, 50,000 tons in 2005, and 60,000 tons in 2008 (equivalent to US$40 million in 2000, US$60 million in 2005, and US$120 million in 2008, respectively). Although North Korea had exported significant amounts of fishery products to Japan, Japanese economic sanctions toward North Korea, including a trade ban in the aftermath of North Korea's underground nuclear test in October 2006, dramatically severed North Korea-Japanese economic ties, halting Japan's trade with North Korea almost completely. On the other hand, recent fishery trade between North Korea and China has been tending to decrease.2Considering the current trend in inter-Korean trade-and if cooperation is implemented successfully-South Korea's fishery imports from North Korea are projected to rise by 150,000 to 200,000 tons within five years. Because there is a huge gap in the fishery product market prices between the North and South, the imported","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69765797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Six-Party Talks in the Post-Kim Jong-il Era: An Emergent Path toward a Northeast Asian Security Mechanism","authors":"Ki-Joon Hong","doi":"10.3172/NKR.8.2.111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3172/NKR.8.2.111","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionThe Six-Party Talks were initiated as an ad hoc multilateral framework for dealing with the second round of the North Korean nuclear crisis in 2003. Since then, the talks have functionally expanded and been institutionally reinforced, with occasional fluctuations of ups and downs. Over the past years, there has been a dominant speculation that the talks would be a significant \"litmus test\" for determining future circumstances on the Korean Peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region. The underlying assumption of this speculation is that the successful completion of the talks would lead to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, a formal ending of the Korean War with a peace treaty, and building a Northeast Asian security mechanism. Even though the talks have stalled since November 2008, it still holds valid that the six-party process would serve as an intermediary path toward achieving peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.After a two-year-long stall of the Six-Party Talks, a new momentum for the resumption of the talks seemed to have returned recently. The inter-Korean denuclearization dialogues were held in Bali in July and in Beijing in September 2011, and the U.S.-DPRK high-level talks were held in New York in July and in Geneva in October 2011. Most recently, the third round of the U.S.-DPRK talks was held on February 23-24, 2012, in Beijing, which was the first since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on December 17, 2011. It was reported that North Korea agreed to a moratorium on nuclear tests and uranium enrichment activity, and to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment. Can this be interpreted as a signal that North Korea is ready to agree to steps demanded by Washington and Pyongyang's neighbors to restart the Six-Party Talks?Since the sudden death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il last year, it has been speculated that the resumption of the Six-Party Talks appears unlikely for the time being. However, on the contrary, the sudden political change in North Korea seems to give an impetus to the talks. Given the recent diplomatic developments, it is sensible to speculate that the Six-Party Talks are likely to be resumed in the foreseeable future. In the same vein, the Six-Party Talks are still reasonably expected to have the potential to serve as an emergent path toward a Northeast Asian security mechanism in the future.The objective of this article is to examine the viability of the Six-Party Talks and the possibility of its transformation into a Northeast Asian security mechanism in the post-Kim Jong-il era. This article draws on the terms \"path dependence\" and \"path emergence\" as a theoretical apparatus to guide the evolutionary path from institutional self-reinforcement to transformation. Path emergence is conceptualized as a complement to the concept of path dependence. The concept of path dependence has been used to refer to a historical se","PeriodicalId":40013,"journal":{"name":"North Korean Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69766177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}