[BRIEF NOTE] Bad News for the Koreas

[rfmcdonald]

Joel at Far Outliers quotes from an analysis of the North Korean state, its internal dynamics, and their relationship to reform by Andrei Lankov. Lankov is pessimistic, seeing little incentive on the part of the North Korean state to reform and little ability to accomodate new changes like the expansion of foreign contact. As I've written earlier, the intensification of cross-border contacts between the Koreas that could save the North's economy in theory would be more likely in practice to utterly destabilize the North by showing off just how much better the South is.

Joel's conclusion?

I suspect relations between the two Koreas after unification will soon evolve into a fierce antagonism between a North Korean colony offering little more than unskilled labor and raw materials, and a South Korean colonial occupation force that quickly loses patience with its helplessly dependent cousins. Fierce South Korean classism (and impatience) will soon overwhelm the abstract sympathies so many South Korean citizens now feel for their North Korean compatriots. North Korea will be like Yankee-occupied Mississippi during Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. Tough times for all, for at least a generation or two.