Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. xiii, 288 pp. (Tables, B&W photos.) US$110.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-108-84365-2.
In North Korea and the Geopolitics of Development, authors Kevin Gray and Jong-Woon Lee interpret North Korea’s economic history through the lens of what they call the nexus between development and geopolitical contestation. This is the core theoretical idea of their book, which offers “a holistic explanation of the particularism of the North Korean trajectory of development, albeit within the universality of the late developmental experience” (xi).
The book starts with an eclectic tour de force through the literature on colonial and post-colonial economic development. The introduction presents about 20 research questions, including: How exactly did Korea’s experience of colonization shape the emergence of the North Korean developmental regime? What role did the division of the Korean Peninsula and its locus on the frontline of the Cold War play in shaping the North’s project of national development? How did catch-up industrialization in the context of the Cold War shape the subsequent decline of the North Korean economy and its collapse in the 1990s? To what extent can China’s deepening economic relations with North Korea be seen as a form of neocolonialism or an emergent form of South-South cooperation? Why have North Korean experiments with market reform been relatively limited compared to that of China? (21, 25).
The eight core chapters address these issues in the context of a chronological discussion of North Korea’s economic development from 1945 until about 2018. The final chapter returns to where the book started: the issue of late development as a conscious attempt to achieve security and to overcome the fundamental inequalities of the international system. The success or failure of such attempts and the substantive character of projects of national development can be explained only with reference to their “mutually constitutive relations with broader processes of geopolitical contestation” (245).
To achieve the stated goal of the book, the authors list a number of such factors and conclude that North Korea is not just another case of state socialism, but a case of post-colonial development. Following liberation, North Korea was in a unique geostrategic position that allowed it to pursue a heavy-industry-first strategy due to political support from the Soviet Union. Korea’s national division resulted in competitive pressure and a strong motivation to develop, but also led to the desire to channel resources into a military build-up.
Since the 1960s, North Korea had to cope with major shifts and even disruptions within its roster of allies, which contributed to the decision to develop an independent and highly self-sufficient national economy. Competition with South Korea, civil war, and mistrust against their own allies led to the establishment of a domestic political system that helped North Korea survive the collapse of socialism in the late 1980s, and the resulting crisis of the mid-1990s. The marketization measures since the late 1990s are seen as a pragmatic adjustment to new needs and changed realities. A major external factor for North Korea’s development is China, but rather than serving as a model to be emulated, it functions as a lifeline for an outdated system. Last but not least, the negative impact of sanctions on economic reforms is an often-overlooked side effect of these punitive measures.
Considering the book’s comprehensive approach, the level of detail is remarkable, even though compromises are inevitable. Chapter 4, for example, lists measures that could have developed into actual reforms in the 1980s, such as the Independent Accounting System, Unified Enterprises, August 3rd Goods, Joint Venture Law, and the first Special Economic Zone. The seismic changes of the 1990s are covered with useful detail as well, including, for example, numbers on the decline in the availability of fertilizer and pesticides. Nevertheless, not every reader will be satisfied with seeing what has arguably been one of the most important and controversial stages of North Korea’s economic development being covered in only eight pages.
The book processes much of the available material and scholarship on North Korea’s economic development in English and in Korean. What needs to be highlighted is the authors’ effort to frequently include North Korean primary and secondary sources despite the many related difficulties—a rare undertaking.
A typical problem of publications on current affairs is that they become outdated the day the manuscript is submitted. The book, for example, covers trade until 2017 and thus does not include the sudden drop (by almost 50 percent) in bilateral trade volume with China in 2018 and the further reduction back to the level of the year 2001 in 2020.
The book keeps a professional and objective tone. Some readers might, however, disagree with the assumption in chapter 6 that a significant number of analysts have tried to explain the limited nature of North Korean reforms—reforms within the system, not of the system—through domestic politico-ideological factors. One could also challenge the notion that many analyses “do not adequately take into account the degree to which economic management and the daily life of the population have already diverged from the principles of the centrally planned economy” (191).
As every author knows, minor errors are inevitable. For example, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, not on August 9 (40). Worldview in German is spelled “Weltanschauung,” not “weltanshchauung” (108), and the dual line is “Pyŏngjin,” not “Pyŏngin” (110). In a hopefully forthcoming less expensive paperback version, these will hopefully be corrected.
This book will be very useful for students, journalists, and others who need a detailed yet concise summary of what is known about North Korea’s economic development. It is well suited as the main textbook for an introductory course on that subject. Long-term experts with a more focused interest in North Korea will appreciate the book’s value as a reference work.
Rüdiger Frank
University of Vienna, Vienna