What drives the North Korean economy?
David Kang, professor of international relations and business, and director of the Korean Studies Institute, at the University of Southern California, and co-author of Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies (2003):
Overall, the economy is crumbling. But at the same time, this has driven individual North Koreans to take matters into their own hands. There is approval for private markets in the farmlands, allowing many individuals to cross the border to sell or trade goods with China. What the government doesn’t like is North Koreans leaving [permanently], but because of the economic collapse, they’ve been forced to tolerate individual initiative. Farmers are allowed to sell their own products, free markets are allowed, and the government will turn a blind eye to it so long as they’re coming back.
As for food, the solution is hardly good. People are quite hungry. The “great famine of the ‘90s” is over and North Korea is no longer in starvation mode. But they remain in survival mode. Everybody has to scramble every year for food. And it’s because there’s no way for the country to produce enough for its people, which is not unique because most countries can’t. But in North Korea’s case, they don’t have anything else they can build and sell in order to buy food.
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What does the anticipated transfer of power in North Korea mean for the peninsula’s future?
Marcus Noland, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and author of Korea After Kim Jong-il (2004) and Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas (2000):
Kim Jong Il came up through the system. He was the designated successor in the 1970s and effectively ran the country as a prime minister before his father’s death. It was a transfer of power that unfolded over 20 years. Due to Kim’s Jong Il’s health, Kim Jong Un will not have anything near that kind of prep. When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, there were predictions that North Korea would collapse in weeks. Those predictions were wrong. Yet for the first time in my career, this feels different and I cannot articulate why.
This is not 1994. This transfer of power will be much more challenging. These transitional trajectories are highly complex and hard to predict but the death of Kim Jong Il is likely to create a range of possible outcomes. One of which may be reunification. Another one: a transformation of North Korea’s political landscape that would look less repressive and would deliver a higher standard of living for the people. In the next years, North Korea will change in much greater ways.
How real is the possibility of war?
David Straub, associate director of Korean studies at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and a former State Department Korean affairs director. He played a key working-level role in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program as the State Department’s Korea country desk director from 2002 to 2004:
The second test of a nuclear device seems to have persuaded most North Korea watchers in the U.S. that North Korea is probably not serious about giving up its nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. That has resulted in Obama taking a tougher approach. He’s pressed for the international community to condemn North Korea’s actions.
Essentially, the administration’s policy is that we’re always ready for dialogue, bilaterally with North Korea or through the six-party talks, and in exchange for giving up the nuclear weapons, we’ll normalize relations and even provide economic assistance. But we won’t enter negotiations on the premise that North Korea will remain a nuclear power.
The bottom line is that the threat of war remains very small. The North Korean leadership knows well that their military is far weaker than not only that of the U.S., but also of South Korea. Launching an actual war would inevitably mean utter defeat and the end of their regime. They know that. Their primary goal is survival, not suicide.
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What is one of the biggest myths about North Korea?
Ramsay Liem, professor of psychology at Boston College, who conducted oral history research exploring the legacy of the Korean War for Korean Americans:
Many Americans think that North Korea is irrationally paranoid and hostile towards the U.S. and, therefore, an irreconcilable enemy. Those who follow the media are also frequently reminded that North and South Korea are technically still at war because the Korean War ended in an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty. What this picture leaves out is the fact that the un-ended Korean War also includes the U.S. who, along with China, was the actual signatory to the armistice agreement with North Korea.
Serious tension remains on the Korean peninsula, but the U.S. and North Korea have also been locked in a hostile standoff for nearly six decades. This unresolved animosity has been the breeding ground for repeated crises. Fortunately, some knowledgeable observers have begun to call for an end to this state of war as a precondition for resolving current differences. North Korean hostility toward the U.S. is real, but not irrational or irreconcilable. A crucial first step to ending it is to acknowledge its origins in the Korean War and to replace the half-century truce with a peace agreement.
