7.1조치 이후 북한정권의 경제개혁‧개방전략과 향후 전망

Abstract

The economic reform steps which North Korea has pursued over the economy after the reform-oriented economic measures on July 1st in 2002 have a clear direction toward the so-called economic delopment policy for the Military-first politics. Based on the concept of the Military-first politics, the reform processes has strategically and intentionally followed the routines of; decentralizing planned economy, establishing monetary economy, pursuing open-door policy (2002)→ marketnization(2003) → expanded reform by decentralization and establishment of monetary economy(2004) → enlarging the open-door policy(2005) → reform speed contro for the minimization of side effects of the reform. Therefore, North Korea is reforming the socialist economy not just by following up the real economy as several literatures has assessed but by building a ‘North Korean Style’ model with a clear national strategy. This assessment can be verified and supported by North Korean literatures and records which has attempted to theorize the reform policies after the July 1st, 2002 measures as well as by the implicit context of policy arguments in North Korea. What are the economic reform strategy and open-door policy by the North Korean regime? In short, they are the military-first leading economic reform and open-door policy. The North Korean regime has deliberated the maintenance of the Military-first politics, reconstruction and normalization of the existing North Korean industry, strategies for economic recovery based on once for all economic take off in order to continue the current regime. With this consideration, North Korea has established a set of strategies; normalizing and developing the military industry, the heavy-chemical industry, and the key industries with plan as well as making full use of self-regulation of market for the people’s economy sector based on the theory of transitional stage to socialism. This strategy aims to make use of economic surplus from the market economy in order to normalize the planned economy and to regulate the market economy through maintaining the planned economy for the key industries. Therefore, the strategy is to construct the relationship between the market and the governmental plan as into the ‘two-track system.’ This North Korean strategy can be compared with the Chinese strategy in 1980s which aimed to set the relationship between the market and the governmental plan as the ‘dual system.’ This study expects the North Korean strategy will be attainable if all of the given conditions are favorable after North Korea makes its second step toward denuclearization. It is because the necessities for the reform and the anti-reform of the ruling class in North Korea are both satisfied through this strategy. However, the uncertainty still remains very high when the North Korean reform strategy is analyzed from the view point of comparison of socialism.