The slow motion integration of North Korea into China continues:
Pyongyang and Beijing reached a consensus to launch full-fledged development in joint economic zones, viewed as an attempt at a market economy in that specific region.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency yesterday reported the result of the so-called “meeting of the DPRK-China cooperation committee for the third joint development of Hwanggumpyong and Rason districts,” where Jang Song-thaek, uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, attended with his counterpart Chen Deming of the Ministry of Commerce and other Chinese government officials.
There, the KCNA said that both sides signed a deal called “Comprehensive Plan for Rason Economic Zone,” a joint enterprise zone near the border of the two countries in which they will carry out full-scale construction for a harbor and railroads.
Once construction is completed, they will launch operation committees for various businesses, such as tourism and agriculture. A project for directing electricity from China to the region has already been prepared, state media reported. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link.
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7:00 am on August 18th, 2012 1
In other words, China’s willing to spend a little bit of cash so that the North Korean dictatorship can boast, for now, that they’ve turn the economy around before 2012 is up and North Koreans really start demanding where is the economic development they had been promised for this year.
1:24 pm on August 18th, 2012 2
Will they succeed? I seriously doubt NK will be able to pull this off.
6:04 pm on August 18th, 2012 3
#2,
Of course they’ll fail, but they’ll pretend it was a success or they get to blame some for their failures once again.
6:27 pm on August 18th, 2012 4
From what I’ve read in various articles Kim Jong-un seems to be serious about reforming the NK economy. Since his wife & him have actually spent time outside on NK they know the reality of situation. KJU has reshuffled the NK military to put people loyal to him in positions of power. Reform opponents have had to retire for “medical reasons”. NK is so fouled up that the odds of reform working are slim but if the spark of entrepreneurship can be kindled then who knows. Part of true reform has to be opening up the spigots of communication. The danger to the NK leadership here is obvious. Once a large percentage of people learn how they have been screwed for over a half century then there will be hell to pay. The NK leadership has to realize that the present system is not sustainable. This will be very interesting to watch.
6:52 pm on August 18th, 2012 5
“From what I’ve read in various articles Kim Jong-un seems to be serious about reforming the NK economy.”
Or are they just going through the motions because they’ve been dangling the carrot of “economic success by 2012″ in front of North Koreans for years?
11:18 pm on August 18th, 2012 6
not surprising…
7:07 am on August 20th, 2012 7
This is old stuff but if I were China I would subsidize the crap out of their economic zones and try to get what development I could to create an economic buffer zone between China and North Korea in order to keep from having a border run in the event of a collapse. I would develop around the border and push inward.
This doesn’t work with the GLANS Plan:
China helps development and pushes in.
US stays in to check Chinese expansion.
Korea unifies gradually for a soft landing at the cost of
some loss of sovereignty in the North versus a
hard landing.
I’m beginning to think that the GLANS plan doesn’t work because
Chinese development may be a necessary evil to get the economy
running in the right direction.
I’d like to increase the level of discussion back to a higher format
so let’s ignore race baiting efforts and discuss if China is an
economic necessary evil versus the GLANS plan.
2:26 pm on August 20th, 2012 8
kangaji, it’s very clear China doesn’t accept the Glans Plan.
1. PRC stays out. No, they intend to hold on to North Korea as an economic and political satellite forever.
2. ROK annexes DPRK. No, they’d prefer the reverse. Since that’s not feasible, they tolerate ROK and trade with it, but they don’t want it on their border.
3. USA gets out. Yes, they like that.
The Glans Plan is so obviously good that the evildoers in Beijing will never accept it. Almost all people of good will, after they hear of the Glans Plan, see its beauty and goodness. The only exception that springs to mind is kushibo.