Throughout this project, we have noted that some authors in North Korea’s two premier economic journals—Kyo’ngje Yo’ngu and the Journal of Kim Il Sung University, also known as Hakpo—often use a form of intellectual sleight of hand in order to be seen as staying within orthodox boundaries while actually advocating positions beyond those limits.
Kim Jong Un’s economic reform agenda introduced new ideas and initiatives for a wide variety of issues—enterprise management, agriculture, banking and special economic zones, to name a few. As such, the pulling and hauling over how far the new policies could or should go was almost inevitable.
The call to expand foreign trade presented special tests because it potentially presented direct challenges to the regime’s bedrock concept of Juche. How could a country supposedly dedicated to an extreme concept of independence and self-reliance justify expanding trade with the outside world, particularly with capitalist countries? In some cases, articles on trade in the journals raised Juche in a cautionary manner, to warn against compromise of basic principles even while cautiously expanding trade. In others, however, Juche was used not as an excuse to limit foreign trade, but as grounds for actually enlarging it.
In this article, we examine how the North Korean economic journals used the topic of Juche to build the case for broadening, rather than limiting, foreign trade since the early years of Kim Jong Un’s reign. We then review how these journals, which were generally more forward-leaning in their thinking on foreign trade, took on a more conservative tone by 2020, seemingly a reflection of Pyongyang’s hardening foreign policy after the collapse of the Hanoi Summit and the lack of any further diplomatic progress with Washington by the end of 2019. This shift to a more conservative tone on trade was significant in that it was one of the early signals of Pyongyang heading toward virtual repudiation of foreign elements and imports.
Juche as Justification for Trade
An article in Kyo’ngje Yo’ngu fairly early in Kim Jong Un’s reign was heavy on warnings about trading with capitalist countries and stressed that the dangers of the infiltration of capitalist practices far outweighed whatever economic benefit might accrue.
In 2014, the same journal carried what read like a forward-leaning reply to orthodox circles’ conservative position on trade. This article threw up a defensive screen by warning against accepting “capitalist elements,” and argued that “we should maintain the Juche-oriented standpoint” in conducting foreign trade, which by itself might have been an argument for limiting trade. Instead, the author argued, Juche was not so confining. In fact, the article argued, Juche did not mean “unilaterally pursuing just the interests of one’s own country in external economic transactions,” but “opposing all kinds of unequal and unfair international economic relations and enabling all countries to benefit from one another on an equal footing and with equal rights, thereby carrying key significance in broadening economic relations between countries.”
You can read the full analysis on 38 North.
Understanding Kim Jong Un’s Economic Policymaking: Juche and Foreign Trade
By Robert Carlin • Rachel Minyoung Lee
Korean Peninsula
Originally published on 38 North.
Throughout this project, we have noted that some authors in North Korea’s two premier economic journals—Kyo’ngje Yo’ngu and the Journal of Kim Il Sung University, also known as Hakpo—often use a form of intellectual sleight of hand in order to be seen as staying within orthodox boundaries while actually advocating positions beyond those limits.1Note: This paper is the fourth in the “Understanding Kim Jong Un’s Economic Policymaking, Part 2” series, which focuses on the external elements of North Korea’s economic policy. The first installment of Part 2 was on Kim Jong Un’s tourism policy; the second installment dealt with his economic development zone policy; the third installment addressed Kim’s foreign trade policy with a focus on decentralization, diversification, and sensitivities involving trade. This series uses a modified version of the McCune-Reischauer romanization system for North Korean text. Diacritics are replaced with apostrophes. Some proper nouns follow internationally recognized spellings or North Korean transliterations instead.
Kim Jong Un’s economic reform agenda introduced new ideas and initiatives for a wide variety of issues—enterprise management, agriculture, banking and special economic zones, to name a few. As such, the pulling and hauling over how far the new policies could or should go was almost inevitable.
The call to expand foreign trade presented special tests because it potentially presented direct challenges to the regime’s bedrock concept of Juche. How could a country supposedly dedicated to an extreme concept of independence and self-reliance justify expanding trade with the outside world, particularly with capitalist countries? In some cases, articles on trade in the journals raised Juche in a cautionary manner, to warn against compromise of basic principles even while cautiously expanding trade. In others, however, Juche was used not as an excuse to limit foreign trade, but as grounds for actually enlarging it.
In this article, we examine how the North Korean economic journals used the topic of Juche to build the case for broadening, rather than limiting, foreign trade since the early years of Kim Jong Un’s reign. We then review how these journals, which were generally more forward-leaning in their thinking on foreign trade, took on a more conservative tone by 2020, seemingly a reflection of Pyongyang’s hardening foreign policy after the collapse of the Hanoi Summit and the lack of any further diplomatic progress with Washington by the end of 2019. This shift to a more conservative tone on trade was significant in that it was one of the early signals of Pyongyang heading toward virtual repudiation of foreign elements and imports.
Juche as Justification for Trade
An article in Kyo’ngje Yo’ngu fairly early in Kim Jong Un’s reign was heavy on warnings about trading with capitalist countries and stressed that the dangers of the infiltration of capitalist practices far outweighed whatever economic benefit might accrue.2Note: 최영옥, “실리를 보장할수 있도록 대외무역전략을 세우는데서 나서는 중요한 문제,” Kyo’ngje Yo’ngu 4, (2013).
In 2014, the same journal carried what read like a forward-leaning reply to orthodox circles’ conservative position on trade. This article threw up a defensive screen by warning against accepting “capitalist elements,” and argued that “we should maintain the Juche-oriented standpoint” in conducting foreign trade, which by itself might have been an argument for limiting trade. Instead, the author argued, Juche was not so confining.3Note: 황한욱, “주체적립장은 대외경제발전의 주요담보,” Kyo’ngje Yo’ngu 2, (2014). In fact, the article argued, Juche did not mean “unilaterally pursuing just the interests of one’s own country in external economic transactions,” but “opposing all kinds of unequal and unfair international economic relations and enabling all countries to benefit from one another on an equal footing and with equal rights, thereby carrying key significance in broadening economic relations between countries.”4Note: Ibid.
You can read the full analysis on 38 North.
Notes
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