Policy Forum

Marcus Noland, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, writes, “If fully realized, the Orascom venture would represent a major foreign investment in the North Korean economy… and in the context of generally favorable trends in external relations, a successful outcome could have a favorable knock-on precedential effect with respect to future infrastructural deals.”

Jia Xijin, Associate Professor at the NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, and Zhao Yusi, Project Assistant of NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, write, “Noting the tension between migrant workers and cities under the household registration system, civil society in China has worked to protect the basic rights of migrant workers and resolve the conflicts involved in their residence in cities to make the migrant population function more harmoniously during China’s urbanization process.”

Yongsheng Zhang, contributor to the East Asia Forum, writes “the most essential element for good economic performance is preventing governmental opportunism. To achieve this, the government needs to be limited by rule of law and civil society. A better institution for long-term economic prosperity can thus gradually evolve in a civil society.”

Peter M. Beck, Professor at American University in Washington, D.C. and Yonsei University in Seoul, notes “several suggestions that would greatly increase the chances of successful negotiations” with the DPRK including insisting “that any deal reached between Pyongyang and Washington incorporates improved North-South relations… If the North follows through with its threat to close border crossings between the two Koreas, it would completely undo the rapprochement of the past decade. Washington should make it clear that this is unacceptable.”

Read a discussion of this article here.

Wooksik Cheong, representative of Peace Network (www.peacekorea.org), writes, “Obama’s and Bush’s North Korean policies are very similar but have important differences. Lee’s and Bush’s North Korean polices differed greatly and did not go well together. Then, there should be much greater difference in Obama’s and Lee’s North Korea policies. Then what should be the future of the ROK-US alliance and cooperation on dealing with North Korean nuclear issues?”

John Feffer, the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, writes, “We can’t simply buy North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, because it is inextricably connected to the country’s pride and the leadership’s survival. But if the United States endorses economic engagement with North Korea, the country and the leadership will, sooner or later, be able to uncouple pride and regime stability from the atom.”

Bruce Klingner, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, writes, “More troubling, however, is a growing sense that Pyongyang’s obstructionist antics are not merely negotiating ploys but are instead designed to achieve international acquiescence to North Korea as a nuclear power. If that is the case, then it is prudent to begin contingency planning, including identifying financial sanctions that could be imposed against those companies and nations in violation of U.N. Resolution 1718.”

Leonid Petrov, Research Associate at the Australian National University, writes, “As for North Korea’s erratic behaviour in rejecting the nuclear sampling and verification process, again it is the conservative mood that dominates today’s Pyongyang… Every time when Washington reneged on its promises given at the Six Party Talks it would undermine the power of the liberal group in Pyongyang.”

Yukio Okamoto, President of Okamoto Associates, Inc. and a former Special Advisor to two prime ministers, writes, “Rather than further pledges of integration, I believe that advisors to the new American president would be more impressed with Japan’s demonstrating a greater self-reliance and autonomy in security affairs.”

K.A. Namkung, Foreign Policy Adviser to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson,and Leon V. Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Projectat the Social Science Research Council, write, “getting North Korea to reverse course now will not be easy, but a comprehensive approach is needed if the next administration is to give Pyongyang more of a stake in keeping deals. Italso would give Washington its first real leverage: U.S. steps could be withheld if – and only if – Pyongyang does not follow through on its commitments.”