Why North Korea Could Not Implement the Chinese Style Reform and Opening? The Internal Contradiction Between Economic Reform and Political Stability

Can North Korea implement Chinese-style reform and opening-up policies? This is an important question, directly relevant to the policy debate on North Korea’s nuclear challenges. Through comparative historical analysis, I argue that Pyongyang has failed to adopt the Chinese-style reform and opening-up for the internal and structural restraints. The Chinese experience shows that the economic reform and opening, to be successful, requires a certain degree of political reform and openness to be executed together. North Korea could not implement the economic reform and opening policies as effectively as China did, not because of the external conditions like international sanctions or security threat to the country, but more for the internal contradiction that North Korea’s own economic development is likely to endanger the stability of the political system more rapidly and widely than China has experienced. For this analysis, I rely on North Korea’s published laws and economic policies, previous survey works and scholarly works published in Korean and Chinese.