[imText1]On May 19, a one-day conference on the North Korean economy, “North Korea – Economic Perspectives and International Cooperation” was held at Seoul National Univerity, co-hosted by the Graduate School of Public Administration of Seoul National University, the Korean American Economic Association, and the Hanns Seidel Foundation Korea.
The conference consisted of three rounds of three open lectures, with discussion sessions after each round in which a broad range of topics were covered, ranging from potential economic reform in North Korea, to economic aid to North Korea, to IT and industrial cooperation with the North. Understanding economic growth in North Korea is in the interest of the world community, and therefore the lecturers included professors and economists from South Korea, Germany, and the United States.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Seliger challenged the audience by asking fundamental questions on the issue of aid to North Korea, saying that we must think about how aid to North Korea can trigger change, help people in need, and influence the North Korean regime. Yet he stated, “Speaking from the German experience, unconditional aid is not understandable to me, as either an economist or a German”.
The remark highlighted the fact that aid or economic cooperation with North Korea is a difficult but a real issue, and the lectures of the day did not hesitate to address the problems regarding assisting North Korea and inducing economic cooperation from the North Korean side.
Semoon Chang, professor of economics at the University of South Alabama, after listing North Korea’s past actions (such as hijacking and money laundering) which directly led to US economic sanctions, simply described North Korea as “lucky”, saying that such acts could have been enough to instigate war. Chang continued by explaining how North Korea poses a threat to U.S. national security, saying “North Korea’s policies in the past have functioned like a confused animal stepping in a hunters’ trap, clearly treading on U.S. laws and automatically invoking economic sanctions”.
While Chang expressed the pessimistic view that “it is not clear how (members of the six-party talks) can afford not to find solutions to the latest nuclear crisis that may end up being the last chance for peace without incurring huge human and economic costs from its failure,” other lecturers presented technically difficult but possible actions that could be taken to assist the North Korean economy.
Professor Joachim Ahrens of the Private University of Applied Sciences in Gottingen, argued for the need for transitional institutions and viewed unification as something that would come along as a result of long-term market-enhancing governance. Professor Kim Suk of the University of Mercy-Detroit also shared his view of the necessity of doing business with North Korea and foresaw that “the strained relationship between the US and North Korea under the Bush administration is unlikely to change Pyongyang’s open-door policy in the long-run.”
The second session was followed by addressing specific economic issues and evaluating various North Korean attempts at reform, such as the North Korean July Economic Reform and its implications, by Nam Sung Wook of Korea University, and IT cooperation with North Korea, by Park Sung Jo of Free University Berlin.
