Kim Jong-un’s North Korea: What Should We Expect?

Abstract

In the short run, one should not expect any significant change in Pyongyang. The North Korean leaders will continue diplomatic maneuvers aimed at extracting foreign aid, and they will stubbornly avoid domestic reforms and will not consider denuclearization. All these policies might be annoying and even dangerous to the outside world, but from the point of view of North Korea leaders, such things make perfect sense, so one should not expect them to reverse these policies. In the long run, however, the emergence of Kim Jong-un might indeed have far-reaching consequences. He has been unable to build up a legitimacy which would equal that of his father, and he might be open to some reformist ideas - especially once his current advisers will be gone. And, irrespectively of the leaders’ subjective intentions, the system is changing from below. The growth of market forces and spread of uncensored information from overseas is gradually corrupting and undermining the current system. Therefore, sooner or later the system is likely to collapse under its own weight - largely because of its ingrained and incurable inability to bring about living standards commensurate with its neighbors, above all, South Korea. Nonetheless, we should not expect this collapse to happen too soon.