Must-read: Myers (again) and Noland on the ethics of engagement
Brian Myers isn’t finished making his argument that “engagement” transforms its foreign participants more than it transforms North Korea. The [Associated Press’s] presence in Pyongyang is a good...
View ArticleCrackdowns fail to reverse marketization of Peoples’ Economy
THE ELITES ARE DISGRUNTLED at Kim Jong Un’s impulsive temper and insensitivity, according to this Chosun Ilbo report. Separately, this report talks about endemic corruption and economic inequality in...
View ArticleHow Kim Jong Un’s border crackdown has affected cross-border smuggling
A source in North Korea’s North Hamgyeong province bordering China said increased security had forced smugglers to carry goods such as medicinal herbs and wild edible greens, which are easier to...
View ArticleWhat if the capitalist North Korea is just as bad as the communist North Korea?
There are many reasons why the Sunshine Policy failed, most of them rooted in the character of the men who rule in Pyongyang, and in the character of the men in Seoul who conceived and executed it. And...
View ArticleNKPW: North Korea cracks down on remittances from refugees to their families
Our latest edition of North Korea Perestroika Watch comes via the Chosun Ilbo, which quotes North Korean insiders as saying that the tolerance of markets is temporary, and that a crackdown will come in...
View ArticleAnother reason North Koreans need an independent cell phone network: online...
The AP’s Hyung-Jin Kim reports on how the 25,000 North Korean refugees in the South use Chinese cell phones, which reach across the border into North Korea, to send remittances to their families at...
View ArticleNorth Korea perestroika watch
The Daily NK reports that North Korean security forces in the bleak border province of North Hamgyeong are “shaking down” smugglers to make them rat out the identities of those who’ve escaped to South...
View ArticleNorth Korea perestroika watch
Two new reports from The Daily NK update us on Kim Jong Un’s efforts to (as Don Gregg put it) “change the nature of his country.” Certain areas bordering China in Yangkang Province have been labeled...
View ArticleChina’s bridge to nowhere?
The AP’s Pyongyang Bureau Chief reports that as China completes a $350 million bridge across the Yalu River from Dandong to Sinuiju, and weeks after its announced opening date, the North Korean side is...
View ArticleRobert Potter’s “third way” is a good way, but it’s really a second way
Writing at The Diplomat, Potter takes on the futile task to navigating between pro-engagement extremists like Mike Bassett, Felix Abt, and someone named Joe Terwillager, on one hand, and...
View ArticleCougar Town, North Korea
Twenty years ago in North Korea’s outer provinces, heavy industry seized up. In short order, so did most of the beneficial functions of government, including the food distribution system. The state...
View ArticleN. Korea perestroika watch: corruption defeats information crackdown
I’ve previously reported on Kim Jong Un’s efforts to crack down on illegal cell phones, memory sticks, DVDs, and other subversive information flows, even as some wishful observers clung to sketchy...
View ArticleN. Korea perestroika watch
Following North Korea’s expansive crackdown on illegal mobile phone calls being placed to other countries – namely South Korea and China – some 30 residents of North Hamkyung Province’s Musan County...
View ArticleN. Korea Perestroika Watch: Woman sent to firing squad for “gambling and drug...
Did you hear the one about how Amerikkka’s prisons are filled with small-time drug offenders? Well, the workers’ paradise has solved that problem: In mid-November 2014 in Sinuiju, North Pyongan...
View ArticleKim Jong Un seeks friends and funds abroad as he isolates his people.
In the three years that he has been in power, His Porcine Majesty has found plenty of time for Dennis Rodman, but none for meetings with foreign leaders. Suddenly, in the last two months, he has...
View ArticleMarkets, food, and trade: steps forward, leaps backward (Pts. 1, 2 & 3)
~ Part 1 ~ Do you still remember March, when the “May 30 measures” were the next wave of “drastic” perestroika that would change North Korea? Those measures were supposed to “give[] autonomy...
View ArticleGuerrilla Engagement: A strategy for regime replacement and reconstruction in...
~ 1 ~ One day, either this President or the next one will awaken to the realization that the regime in Pyongyang is collapsing, and that he has just inherited the costliest, messiest, and riskiest...
View ArticleDaily NK: Massive brawl in Musan market after traders resist confiscations
This may be the most significant known incident of anti-regime resistance by North Korean civilians since the Ajumma Rebellion that followed the 2009 currency confiscation: A massive brawl between...
View ArticleMust read: Jieun Baek on how North Koreans beat the border blockade
Admittedly, Baek’s explanation of the North Korea’s guerrilla banking system isn’t the first I’ve read, it’s only the best: The next time Kevin talks to his mother, she asks him for $1,000. She gives...
View ArticleIn North Korea, prostitution used to be a survival strategy. Now, it’s just...
The Great Famine of the 1990s changed North Korean society so profoundly that we are still trying to understand the breadth and depth of that change. During and after the famine, millions of North...
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