北韓 經濟政策決定의 影響要因에 관한 國際政治經濟學的 分析

Abstract

Since 1990’s, because of the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, DPRK lost the main foreign economic contact. Besides, the centralized planned economy system at home revealed its rigidity day by day and natural diseases happened frequently at that time. All this led to a serious economic crisis in DPRK. In order to recover and develop the economy, DPRK started to seek a new way of development and carefully tried reform and opening. During the twenty years’ development, DPRK has done some adjustments to the domestic reform and the outside opening and some of the policies played quite a positive promotion role. However, the reform and opening of DPRK proceeded really slowly. The enforcement of the policies also lacked stability and permanency. In the reform, steps backwards even happened. This is mainly limited by North Korea’s own condition and the outside environment. Considering DPRK’s own condition, since 1990’s, it has been facing two subjects: one is to protect and strengthen the present structure; the other is to get rid of the economic predicament. At present, for the centralized political DPRK, the maintenance of the system is irreplaceable and highest national interests. DPRK enforces a one-party controlled , centralized political system, taking 'Juche thought' as its guiding thought, Songun politics as its guiding principle and construction of a big socialized country as its strategic aim. All aspects of politics, economy, military and social life take orders from the only governor. Under the centralized political system, the formulation and enforcement of the domestic and outside economic policies inevitably gets a direct and close control from the political system. Therefore, DPRK’s political system's features and trends will necessarily effect the direction of the formulation and enforcement of economic policies and determine the process of the reform and opening. The manifestation of the centralized political system in economic field is the enforcement of the planned economic system. Since the 90’s, DPRK has got stuck in the serious economic difficulty and the rationing system under the planned economic governance system got into crisis. In order to maintain living, DPRK allowed the existence and development of the market. However, the development of the market brought a lot of side effects, which were regarded as a dangerous factor for the stability of political power. Therefore, since 2005, as the centralized political system became more and more conservative, the economic policies were constrained directly and the corresponding policies were made as well. On the one hand, the conservatism in politics directly led to the stronger control of the domestic market in economic field and reinforcement of the maintenance and consolidation of the planned economic governing system; on the other hand, in order to get rid of the domestic economic difficulty and to achieve the strategic objective towards a strong power, DPRK tried to open up outside markets and showed will to promote the opening, though at the same time it started to enclose the domestic markets. As for the outside environment of the opening of DPRK, the main influential countries are America, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. Because the neighboring countries’ policies objectives towards DPRK are different, according to the changes of the national interests, these policies are in constant change in different times. However, the dominant tone of the policies towards DPRK determines whether these countries mainly blockade and impose sanctions against DPRK, or communicate and cooperate with DPRK. Besides, this also poses a profound effect on DPRK’s domestic and outside economic politics. Among the neighboring countries, America is the biggest outside opposite factor in DPRK’s opening. Because America and DPRK haven’t achieved relation normalized, America doesn’t change its hostility and containment towards DPRK, though America’s policy became a little mild in Clinton Administration and the end of George W. Bush Administration. Constrained by this dominant tone of the policy towards DPRK, America mainly imposes sanctions and blockades the DPRK’s economy, which impels DPRK to seek the recovery and development of the economy by relying on its own efforts and tend to push Songun politics route. Under the guide of the Songun politics route, DPRK performed 2 nuclear tests. In the 2009’s representative members’ election, the figures from the headquarters also increased. DPRK’s political institution tends to be more and more conservative, which constrains its opening tendency. Because of the existence of Japanese American Alliance and Korean American Alliance, US-DPRK relations directly ties up the development of inter Korean relations and DPRK-Japanese relations. When the cold war came to the end, the international environment tended to be mild on the whole. South Korea seeks to play a larger autonomy in the policies towards DPRK by its strong economic strength and the protection of the Korean American relations. Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun Administrations implemented the policy of reconciliation and cooperation toward DPRK and inter Korean political relations turned to be milder and economic cooperation also made considerable progress. However, America’s policy towards DPRK constrains and controls the process of inter Korean reconciliation and cooperation, which made South Korea’s reconciliation and cooperation policy towards DPRK hard to achieve a breakthrough. After Lee Myung-bak took office, he turned to follow America’s tough policy towards DPRK and Inter-Korean economic cooperation came to a standstill. Japan’s policy towards DPRK is deeply constrained by American’s policy towards DPRK and also influenced by the changes of DPRK’s policy. In recent years, Japan implemented the policy of following America. Its policy towards DPRK has changed from the mild attitude in the early time of cold war to a tough attitude. Japan’s economic policy towards DPRK is based on blockade and sanctions. Furthermore, Japan sometimes took more severe sanctions policy towards DPRK than America. As America, Japan and South Korea’s policies towards DPRK tended to be tough, DPRK strengthened its communication and cooperation with China and Russia and the economic reliance has increased as well, esp. DPRK enlarged its opening up to China. China becomes the biggest contributing factor in North Korea’s opening up. Since the late 1970’s, as the international relations became mild, China has constantly promoted the reform and opening up policy and the work center shifted to economic construction. Creating a stable environment and maintaining and preserving economic development is China’s highest national interests. China actively promotes economic cooperation with North Korea, on the one hand is to help DPRK recover and develop its economy, preventing it collapse because of economic predicament, which will influence China’s safe environment that is necessary for China’s economic construction; on the other hand, by promoting DPRK’s reform and opening up, further deepen China's reform and opening up and achieve China's revitalization of northeast old industrial base. Russia-DPRK relations have undergone the coldness at the early time of the Cold War to the continued recovery and strengthening since the 90’s. Russia hopes to keep its influence on DPRK and promotes the economic development in the fast east area by economic cooperation with DPRK, South Korea, and China. Under the interaction of internal and external factors, DPRK's economic policy was adjusted to Adduction putting policy on the condition of possession of nuclear weapons. In accordance with changes of political relations with China and South Korea, DPRK adjusted the direction of the opening to China from South Korea. DPRK’s will of possession of nuclear weapons aims to maintain the security of the political system, force the neighboring countries to strengthen the concern for the interests of the DPRK, reduce the international community’s economic sanctions on North Korea, ease the pressure on the domestic economy and create a good environment for opening up. But DPRK's economic policy in the process of concrete implementation will face many obstacles. In the internal reform, because DPRK has not got rid of economic difficulties and the rationing system under planning economic management has not fully recovered, the market can’t be closed completely. DPRK will fall into a dilemma–unable to laissez-faire market nor limit the market. In the opening, the DPRK will continue to caution the wave. From DPRK's own reality, concerns on institutional security limit DPRK's reform and opening up and the planned economic management system contradicts with market economy. Besides DPRK’s economic foundation is weak and the marketing economic factor is too tiny to influence the power of the government’s reform, which limits the tendency of opening up in North Korea. Particularly, the strategy of the possessing nuclear weapons is contrary to the denuclearization policy of the neighboring countries including China, which leads to a lack of a good external environment for reform and opening up. DPRK’s opening up also got into dilemma. Although now there are still many barriers existing in the DPRK’s reform and opening up, it should be noted that DPRK will still be possible to drive reform and opening up. In the DPRK regime transition, DPRK creates external stress to strengthen the internal unity. When DPRK’s regime is stable, the DPRK will return to the negotiating table with neighboring countries and in order to attract more capital to promote economic development, DPRK is likely to get serious with the opening up question.