Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pyongyang has taken an equally self-destructive position on food aid. Thanks to bad floods in 2007, food shortages last year were likely the worst experienced since the 1990s. The World Food Program (WFP) says it has launched a program to feed 6.2 million people in North Korea, or more than a quarter of the population. Yet in March, North Korea, without explanation, rejected all food aid from the United States, its largest official donor, and kicked five aid groups distributing the food out of the country. The step is potentially disastrous for the North Korean people. The WFP figures...
Noland argues that this "almost back-to-the-future reversion of economic policy" stems from the same root cause as Pyongyang's recent belligerence: North Korean politics. North Korea watchers speculate that Kim Jong Il, who likely suffered a stroke last year, is maneuvering to install his son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor, and that Pyongyang's May nuclear test, recent war threats and anticipated long-range missile launch are all part of an effort to build support for the Kims, especially among the country's powerful military brass. Economic policy, Noland says, has become tied...
That behavior can be seen in Pyongyang's treatment in recent weeks of an industrial park just north of the border. The Kaesong industrial zone, opened in 2004, was developed mainly by South Korea as part of Seoul's attempts to engage its northern neighbor through economic cooperation, and today it houses more than 100 South Korean companies that employ about 40,000 North Koreans. The zone has been a major source of trade for North Korea, but that hasn't stopped Pyongyang from threatening its operations. In May, North Korean officials said that all contracts regarding the South Korean...
...which South Korea pursued its "sunshine policy" of engagement with the North, Seoul became a major trading partner and source of aid, especially of much needed fertilizer. But current South Korean President Lee Myung Bak reversed the policy when he took office in 2008, linking economic cooperation with Pyongyang's dismantlement of its nuclear-weapons program. The result is that North Korea is now more dependent than ever on its main patron, China. Nicholas Eberstadt, a North Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, figures that the gap between the amount of goods China ships into North Korea...
That fact makes Beijing's policy toward North Korea even more central in any effort to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear-weapons program. But the North's recent disregard for its own economic conditions doesn't bode well for any attempt to use financial incentives to woo Pyongyang into better behavior. "They may still negotiate for some kind of deal," Noland says. "But I don't think we're going to get denuclearization" in the near term. That means North Korea's economy, just like its relations with the outside world, is likely to get worse...