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The question of whether or not North Korea might openly pursue economic reform has been a focus of expert discussions for years. According to optimists, the DPRK’s masters could transform, or even “conventionalize,” the “Stalinist state” to become a “normal” country—if they retained power long enough to achieve reform and eventually change their belligerent foreign policy. However, liberalization associated with any reforms could undermine their power base.
While North Korea’s leaders might contemplate policy changes, the potential destabilizing impact of reform makes them unlikely to do so in the open. In fact, some signs suggest Pyongyang has begun to implement limited reforms beneath a guise of continuity, a gambit intended to obscure the structural changes now occurring throughout North Korean society.
Actions are Louder than Words
The first years of Kim Jong Un’s reign saw some new hints of economic liberalism, despite the new supreme leader’s consolidation of power by terror and other means. If his father’s government merely tolerated marketization (with periodic setbacks like the infamous 2009 currency reform), authorities under Kim Jong Un have resorted to more daring “economic experiments,” producing regulations that have relaxed restrictions on certain private activity and created room for some individual initiative. Such steps stoked hope that Kim would announce a new economic course at the 7th Party Congress in May, and observers were disappointed when he spoke about “building the powerful socialist state planned by the great leaders. … a nation, bearing the hallmarks of a power in all the fields of politics, military affairs, the economy, science and technology, and culture,” as well as “building an economic giant” in accordance with decades-old strategies.
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