Columbia University Press, 2007
Victor D. Cha, government, Georgetown University
David C. Kang, government/business, Dartmouth College
The regime of Kim Jong-Il has been called “mad,” “rogue,” even, by the Wall Street Journal, the equivalent of an “unreformed serial killer.” Yet, despite the avalanche of television and print coverage of the Pyongyang government’s violation of nuclear nonproliferation agreements and existing scholarly literature on North Korean policy and security, this critical issue remains mired in political punditry and often misleading sound bites. Victor Cha and David Kang step back from the daily newspaper coverage and cable news commentary and offer a reasoned, rational, and logical debate on the nature of the North Korean regime.
Coming to the issues from different perspectives—Kang believes the threat posed by Pyongyang has been inflated and endorses a more open approach, while Cha is more skeptical and advocates harsher measures—the authors together have written an essential work of clear-eyed reflection and authoritative analysis. They refute a number of misconceptions and challenge much faulty thinking that surrounds the discussion of North Korea, particularly the idea that North Korea is an irrational nation. Cha and Kang contend that however provocative, even deplorable, the Pyongyang government’s behavior may at times be, it is not incomprehensible or incoherent. Neither is it “suicidal,” they argue, although crisis conditions could escalate to a degree that provokes the North Korean regime to “lash out” as the best and only policy, the unintended consequence of which are suicide and/or collapse. Further, the authors seek to fill the current scholarly and policy gap with a vision for a U.S.-South Korea alliance that is not simply premised on a North Korean threat, not simply derivative of Japan, and not eternally based on an older, “Korean War generation” of supporters.
This book uncovers the inherent logic of the politics of the Korean peninsula, presenting an indispensable context for a new policy of engagement. In an intelligent and trenchant debate, the authors look at the implications of a nuclear North Korea for East Asia and U.S. homeland security, rigorously assessing historical and current U.S. policy, and provide a workable framework for constructive policy that should be followed by the United States, Japan, and South Korea if engagement fails to stop North Korean nuclear proliferation.
Press in Yohap:
N.K. likely to jump in growth if under open-minded regime: U.S. scholar
Yonhap
4/13/2007
Lee Dong-min
North Korea, once it adopts a normal political system, has the potential for 10 percent annual economic growth, an American scholar said Thursday.
The North’s economic openness, however, in the long run can create a contention between Seoul and Washington on how to deal with such growth, Prof. David Kang said.
Given the “inherent dynamism” in the region, North Korea would be able to achieve high growth, he said in a forum hosted by the South Korean embassy in Washington.
Kang is adjunct professor at Dartmouth University’s Center for International Business. He is a co-author of “Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies,” which he wrote with Victor Cha, currently director for Asia at the National Security Council.
“If North Korea can get rid of this horrible political regime, you have to guess the natural rate of growth for North Korea over the next generation… you have to put at 10 percent a year,” the professor said.
The task is to how best to take advantage of this national strength existing in the region in terms of education and development, Kang said, and an ideal situation is for a slow integration to weaken the psychological shock from embracing capitalism, he argued.
But once North Korea’s opening gets fully under way, coordination problems may arise between South Korea and the United States, according to Kang.
One example is Kaesong industrial complex, an inter-Korean pilot economic project, he said.
Located just north of the South-North border established at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, the complex houses manufacturing plants with capital from the South and cheap labor from the North.
Seoul tried to get Kaesong products covered under a free trade agreement (FTA) concluded with Washington earlier this month, which would have allowed them to be exported to the U.S. The two countries compromised by agreeing to consider establishing “outward processing zones” on the Korean Peninsula in the future.
Kaesong was able to be “papered over” because it is not yet a lucrative effort, Kang said.
“But it shows potential for conflicts on what to do if North Korea slowly begins to open up,” he said.
“What’s going to happen to those goods under the FTA? What would the U.S. think about it? We really have some coordination problems to get over.”
The professor also questioned the general assumption that North Koreans, should their regime collapse, would welcome South Koreans as their “liberators” and accede sovereignty.
Nationalism and outside pressure often strengthen the internal bond, he said.
“Often, it becomes us against them,” not unlike what is occurring in Iraq, said Kang, and without North Korea’s receptiveness, the situation “could become ugly very quickly.”
“As we start to think (through) these assumptions, it becomes far more complex,” he said.
