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When I visited Rason in 1997, I was struck by how fresh the air and how beautiful the night skies were. Given the dearth of outdoor recreational opportunities in northeast Asia, I mused that maybe the North Koreans might be better off in the long-run by preserving the wilderness rather than by developing an industrial park. [...]
The US is not the only country in the midst of a presidential election. In an earlier post, I reprinted some snippets of Ahn Cheol-soo’s musings on North Korea taken from his book. Opposition rival Moon Jae-in has made a major policy speech on North Korea; Karin Lee at the National Committee on North Korea [...]
South Koreans sometimes label Chinese investment in North Korea as “economic colonialism.” I normally discount these concerns as slightly paranoiac but a series a press reports from last week are starting to make even me wonder. First, multiple stories appeared in the Chinese and South Korean press describing an agreement between the China Overseas Investment [...]
Yesterday, we played the optimist, looking at some reasons why the regime’s push to revive export processing zones might yield some fruit. But we have also been following an investment dispute between North Korea and a large Chinese private firm that shows the ongoing credibility problems the country faces; our summary can be found here [...]
Last week, Marc Noland posted on Jang Song Thaek’s China visit, and noted the effort to institutionalize cooperation around the two special economic zones. Although it clearly had higher political purpose, the trip was nominally made to attend the third meeting of the China-DPRK Joint Steering Committee on Cooperation in Development and Management of the [...]
So maybe Hu Jintao did not literally say “if you build it, we will come,” (I doubt that he’s a fan of either baseball or Kevin Costner) but it would seem reasonable to assume a certain degree of Chinese frustration with North Korea’s reluctance to embrace economic reform, and a willingness to support such a process [...]
It is clear that change is underway in North Korea and that China will play an important role, though the jury is still out on where it will all end up. The survey that Steph Haggard and I did indicates that Chinese enterprises are unhappy about the North Korean regulatory environment and corruption, and last [...]
Last month KCNA published the laws on the Rason and Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Island zones. Curtis Melvin at North Korea Economy watch has helpfully posted them in pdf form. They make interesting reading. Well, at least for some of us. The Rason law gives extraordinary power and discretion to the Rason City People’s Committee, though [...]
Last week we mentioned apparent Chinese discontent with the rules that were being developed for the Hwanggumpyong, Wihwa, and Rason special economic zones. Ironically, double taxation was apparently one source of dispute. While terms under discussion for Chinese activities in the zones (the right to use Chinese currency and cell phones; the establishment of independent [...]
Over the past couple of months, a number of news reports have appeared indicating that North Korea is revising various aspects of its commercial code. A common thread running through these reports has been the absence of detail and lack of understanding of what was actually going on. IFES has summarized the core changes, reputedly [...]
