Word: pyongyang
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...that is believed to leak during transmission. Some power equipment is more than 60 years old. Theft of copper and aluminum transmission lines for sale as scrap in China is rampant, even though it's a capital offense. Says Han Young Jin, who worked as an electrical engineer in Pyongyang before defecting to Seoul in 2002: "The grid is a mess." Seoul estimates that building the extra generating capacity and lines needed would cost $1.7 billion, but the final price could be many times higher. Turning on the power could cause the North's dilapidated grid to melt down...
...Moreover, Pyongyang probably doubts it would pay a large price for bargaining tough or even refusing in the end to denuclearize. So North Korea might agree to most of South Korea's proposal but ask for a few more benefits, while also insisting on retaining its uranium-enrichment program (especially because Beijing and Seoul are not convinced by U.S. intelligence that North Korea even has such a project). After all, China and South Korea may not like North Korea's nuclear arsenal but they seem to be getting used to living with it?and prefer it to instability...
...Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia prepare for the first round of six-party talks in more than a year, there is reason to hope for progress on the core issue of denuclearizing North Korea. South Korea has recently offered to provide huge amounts of electricity if Pyongyang will give up its nuclear arsenal, now estimated by U.S. intelligence at roughly eight weapons. The U.S. has been less specific about incentives, but seems comfortable with the South Korean offer, and has promised security assurances to North Korea if it comes into compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and similar...
...North Korea needs to move the way Vietnam and China have in the past quarter-century?gradually liberalizing their economies and even their politics, cutting back on military forces, improving human rights. All these things clearly can be done even within a communist system. If Pyongyang proves willing to do so, the international community can go well beyond electricity deals and security assurances, offering broader packages of development assistance from the other five participants in the six-party talks, the European Union and the World Bank, as well as lifting U.S. trade sanctions...
...hard to get Kim to undertake such reforms. The Romanian example undoubtedly weighs on him: Kim would certainly fear suffering the same bitter fate that Ceausescu experienced if he unleashes reforms he cannot control. That is why any effort to promote structural reform requires not just major carrots if Pyongyang cooperates, but sticks, particularly the credible threat of multilateral economic sanctions, if it does not. The status quo must be made unsustainable. Kim must be forced to choose cooperation or risk a confrontation that would impose an economic noose around his country's neck. He must not be allowed...