[KS] Inside North Korea Today: Kim Chong-Il's Hopes for the Future

ICAS icas at icasinc.org
Thu Dec 20 07:48:22 EST 2001


from: Sang Joo Kim /ICAS
December 15, 2001

Dear Friend:

We are pleased to share with you that Helen-Louise Hunter* presented the
subject paper, "Inside North Korea Today: Kim Chong-Il's Hopes for the
Future"(ICAS Lecture No 2001-0621-HLH), at the "ICAS Spring Symposium
2001:Asia's/Koreas' Challenges Ahead" on June 21, 2001 in Washington, D C.

*Author of Kim Il-Song's North Kroea

She opines that "Kim Chong-il's hopes for the future are not necessarily
at odds with U.S. and South Korean long-term interests to the extent
that they promote a North Korean future more closely associated with the
West. To the extent that we and Seoul gain greater influence in
Pyongyang relative to Russia and China and greater control over North
Korea's developing economy, including its nuclear industry, our
interests are well served. In the long run, as the North develops an
economic system more compatible with the U.S. and South Korean systems,
economic reforms are inevitable, if not during Kim Chong-il's lifetime
than somewhat later. Thus, although there have been no real economic
reforms to date, no suggestion that Kim Chong-il is willing to risk a
free market system (which many insist on as the sine qua non of economic
reform), his professed hopes for North Korea offer promise of real
reform down the line and better relations with the U.S. and South Korea
in the meantime, improving the prospects of eventual reunification
sometime in the future, when the two Koreas presumably will have more
compatible economic systems. The question remains who will pay for such
progress. The costs are only likely to grow as the Koreas grow more and
more disparate, as they have over the past thirty years but especially
over the past ten years".

A full text of her paper is posted on the "ICAS Lectures" page of the
ICAS website:

http://www.ICASinc.org
http://www.ICASinc.org/lectures/lectures.html
http://www.ICASinc.org/s2001/s2001hlh.html


Thank you and regards,
Sang Joo Kim
ICAS

T: (610) 277-9989
T: (610) 277-0149
F: (610) 277-3992
E: icas at ICASinc.org
http://www.ICASinc.org
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