The Marmot’s Hole

Also from the Korea Times:

North Korea has already introduced a market economy by reinterpreting one of its underlying communist principles, South Korea Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said on Tuesday.
“The North would likely reinterpret its ruling ideology of ‘Juche’ to justify its shift to the market economy,” Jeong said in a meeting with American businessmen at the Korean Society in New York. The minister has been visiting the United States since Sept. 28.
“While visiting Seoul, the North’s delegation once told me that their former leader Kim Il-sung had directed their predecessors to learn capitalism, but, they said, their seniors did not,” Jeong said. “The North Koreans said they were doing in Seoul what their predecessors did not,” he added.
Pyongyang first adopted a market economy principle in July last year by scrapping the rationing system and went a further step last March by allowing private trading of industrial products, he added.

Well, I guess if North Korean officials told him so, it must be true.
The scary thing is, sometimes I think Jeong actually believes the shit he says. Anyway, I wouldn’t count on North Korea becoming a budding Hong Kong (if that’s still a good thing) anytime soon - the kinds of reforms that North Korea requires are the kinds that result in dictators hanging from trees.
And Kim Jong-il knows it.

BTW, read the piece in full - it’d be a side-splitter if it weren’t coming from an official in high public office (OK, perhaps “high public office” is a bit of a stretch for the Unification Minister). My favorite part:

Jeong pointed to the recent opening of the demilitarized zone and military hot lines as well as the increasing inter-Korean economic cooperation, calling it “no less significant than the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Excuse me?

UPDATE: Where are the lefty loons crying about Third World exploitation now? From the Korea Herald:

North Korea has set corporate tax rates in its envisioned industrial park in Gaeseong between 10 percent and 14 percent of settled profits, and minimum monthly wage for workers there at $50 based on a 48-hour week, the North’s media reported yesterday.
Radio Pyongyang said North Korea announced a set of regulations governing the industrial complex near the inter-Korean border after its parliament adopted them Sept. 18.

South Korean officials said the latest announcement reflects North Korea’s efforts to attract more investors into the zone, to be built by South Korean Hyundai Asan and the state-run Korea Land Corp.
Companies can pay less in corporate taxes or social insurance fees there than they could in the South, according to the officials.

Don’t get me wrong - I have nothing against exploiting cheap labor, but if North Korea were some Central American right-wing dictatorship rather than the Workers’ Paradise, half of San Francisco would be in Seoul right now protesting this deal. Where the hell are they now?