Economics

Generational Change in China and North Korea

By | March 13, 2012

Generational Change in China and North Korea by Scott Bruce 2012 is a year of political transition in North-East Asia. Russia and Taiwan have both had recent elections, South Korea will have both a parliamentary and a presidential election this year, in April and December respectively, and the political environment in Japan remains fluid. With […]

Strategy for the Successful Development of the North Korean Minerals Sector

By | March 01, 2012

The DPRK is quite literally sitting on a goldmine, and is endowed with considerable mineral resources. The successful exploitation of this mineral wealth has not yet been realized, but a number of international firms–including Chinese and South Korean–are actively courting the North Korean government. Alan Ferrie, an international economics analyst based in Puget Sound, Washington, […]

Opportunity for Engagement and Reform: An Interview with Dr. Park Young-jun

By | February 18, 2012

The speed with which facts, currencies, ideas and rumors flow through and weave around the Korean peninsula has clearly accellerated in the information age.  Students in Pyongyang trace (if vaguely) the spread of revolution in Syria; a grainy drone strike over remote Pakistan makes the paper in Sinuiju;  a village 25 miles from the Chinese border […]

North Korean Elites: Implications for Commercial Activities with China

By | February 16, 2012

At an early point in his sprawling 2100+ page memoir With the Century, Kim Il Sung initiates a line of discussion of which we are sure to see more in the coming years: praise for patriotic Korean capitalist-nationalist-revolutionaries.  Recollecting his youth in Pyongyang (“a city of shacks, made of cardboard boxes and four-by-fours”), Kim turns […]

Evaluation of the Development Plan for Hwanggumpyong Island and Wihwa Island

By | February 15, 2012

It would now be hard to find a single serious analyst who believes that Chinese aid is not central to keeping the DPRK afloat. But despite the huge influx of Chinese capital into North Korea, many Chinese investors continue to harbor serious doubts about the reliability of investments in North Korea. In this essay, Alan […]