Weekly Digest

By | February 24, 2012

Steven Denney is the Editor-in-Chief of the Yonsei Journal of International Studies (PEAR) — a journal which is accepting submissions from graduate students and junior faculty until March 15, Seoul time. As if sharpening his knives for the carnage of editing to come, Denney has been reading and thinking about the work of Bruce Cumings, […]

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 […]

Think-Tank Watch

By | February 10, 2012

Steven Denney is editor-in-chief  of PEAR, Yonsei University’s graduate journal, a leading voice at the Political Cartel (East Asia) blog, and a master’s student in Global Studies at Yonsei University. In the “week in review” for February 6 – February 10, 2012, Denney, Think-Tank Analyst for SinoNK.com, compiles a list of recent articles on North Korea and Sino-North Korean relations. […]

Introduction to North Korea’s Rason Economic Trade Zone

By | February 02, 2012

Will Rason, the DPRK’s bold experiment to attract foreign investment and introduce a sliver of market oriented reforms, go boom or bust? North Korea has toyed with special economic zones in areas along the Chinese border in the past, but the results have never been transformative or even economically significant—there is still no North Korean […]