Blog
North Korea Turns to Bonds to Address Financial Distress
According to a story in DailyNK by Jang Seul Gi, the North Korean government has taken the initiative to issue government bonds; several astute analysts of the Korean economy have picked up on the story (Tom Byrne at Foreign Policy here and Benjamin Katzliff Silberstein at 38North here). As with all such stories, we need to take it with the appropriate grain of salt. Nonetheless, the particular details reported by their informants are highly plausible. The episode provides another piece of evidence that the regime is coping with significant financial distress from the combination of sanctions and the economic effects of the border closures with China as a result of COVID-19. And it is also likely to show that as in the past, this distress is going to lead to a struggle for resources between the regime and the private sector.
Disrupting Supply Chains: Evidence on the Japan-Korea Conflict
The economic success of the Asia-Pacific has rested in no small measure on its finely-tuned supply chains. These global production networks are coming under stress from the COVID-19 crisis, but also from the new political economy of trade. The U.S.-China trade war has had as one of its stated objectives a “decoupling” from China, which of necessity means reducing American dependence on Chinese suppliers.
North Korea and the COVID Crisis: The Sanctions Angle
Humanitarian disasters in closed, authoritarian regimes pose particular challenges to the international community. Government actions can exacerbate or even create crises; this was certainly true of the great famine of the early 1990s. Yet the victims of the regime’s choices are innocents, including overstretched but dedicated doctors and health care workers. If the sanctions regime is impeding an outside humanitarian response, it needs to be adjusted–and quickly. There is evidence—outlined below—that sanctions exemptions are being granted to multilateral institutions and NGOS with greater speed. But by sheer proximity, China and South Korea are best positioned to play a role, and should exploit the discretion they are being given to act.
The China-Russia Security Council Resolution Part 2: Chinese Motives
In the last post on the proposed China-Russia Security Council resolution, we showed that exempting just two product categories—seafood and textiles—would restore as much as 50% of North Korea’s exports. But that does not capture the full extent of China’s ability to keep the regime afloat, even if we set aside the inevitable leakage in the sanctions regime (on that issue, see the August 2019 interim Panel of Experts report).
The China-Russia Security Council Resolution Part 1: Sanctions Relief
As 2020 gets underway, it is hard to avoid the obvious: diplomacy surrounding the Korean peninsula is stuck. The core question that divides the parties is—as it has long been—a tactical one. Are North Korea and the United States willing to trade incremental moves on the nuclear issue for partial sanctions relief?
The Report on the 5th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee Part 2: The Economic Message
I argued yesterday that the report of the party plenum was an attempted exercise in leverage; to hold out the threat of ongoing missile and nuclear developments—and as far as the eye can see—to extract concessions. But the report also suggests that the regime’s frustration stems from the fact that sanctions are having material effect.
The Report on the 5th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee Part 1: The Belated Christmas Gift
In lieu of a New Year’s speech, Kim Jong -un convened an unusual plenum of the Central Committee in December, issuing a widely-distributed Report on the meeting in its stead. What was said—and what it augurs for 2020—are considered in two parts: the bargaining with the United States, which has gotten most attention, and the economic messages—taken up tomorrow–which are equally if not more important.
The US-China Trade War: Prospects for a Deal (September 2019)
[Smart Q&A] U.S.-China Trade War: What Are the Prospects for a Deal?
Lecture on conducting research on North Korea (May 2019)
April 27, 2019: Professor Stephan Haggard on Negotiating with North Korea
Lecture on Developmental States at the University of Manchester (February 2019)
The concept of the developmental state emerged to explain the rapid growth of East Asia in the postwar period. Yet the developmental state literature also offered a heterodox theoretical approach to growth. Arguing for the distinctive features of developmental states, its proponents emphasised the role of government intervention and industrial policy as well as the significance of strong states and particular social coalitions. Comparative analysis explored the East Asian developmental states to countries that were decidedly not developmentalist, thus contributing to our historical understanding of long-run growth. Prof. Haggard provides a critical but sympathetic overview of this literature and ends with a look forward at the possibilities for developmentalist approaches, in both the advanced industrial states and developing world.