ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 examines North Korea’s view on economic opening and regional economic integration. North Korea has mixed feelings and has thus far adopted a conflicting stance towards economic opening and regional economic integration. Clearly, economic opening is considered a significant threat to its regime stability. But North Korea also recognizes that regional collaboration and integration will bring direct benefits such as foreign currency and infrastructure development as well as indirect benefits that support a smooth movement towards economic reform within a politically more acceptable framework. When we suggest strategies that North Korea can utilize to address the issue of regional integration in formulating its external economic policies, it is important to consider these mixed feelings of North Koreans. Based on this consideration, we derive the second principle that strategies for opening North Korea should remove the regime’s perception of economic opening as a potential threat to its existence.
