The “Vietnam Model” for North Korean Reform

Posted by on Dec 21, 2011 in Articles, Blog, Myanmar/Burma, Myanmar/Burma, North Korea, North Korea, South Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Vietnam | 0 comments

Immediately following the death of Kim Jong Il, the U.S. and South Korean military forces went on alert simultaneously. This is the natural reflex on the tactical side to the perceived new instability on the Korean peninsula occasioned by the leadership transition in Pyongyang. This is a good, careful approach. There is, however, a strategic side to the Korean situation that also needs attention as well.

Setting aside the dark, doomsday potential for a collapse of the Regime in Pyongyang for a different discussion, what about the strategy for a hopeful future for North Korea? When the timing has been right, have we not seen former Communist regimes reinvent themselves and emerge with a hybrid of economic reforms that have worked reasonably well? Both China and Vietnam have moved successfully in direction economic liberalization and reform. Is there any hope for North Korea at all?

Jong Un with DPRK military leadership

In the past, it was often thought that North Korea’s Stalinist family dynasty and autocratic rule differed too much from the Communist Party oligarchies like that in Hanoi to allow a “Doi Moi”-like economic liberalization, such as we have seen in Vietnam, to take place. The current reality on the ground in North Korea is that Kim Jong Un is a young, likely more- impressionable leader with an unconsolidated power base. We need to remember that his Father had two decades to consolidate his own position and young Jong Un has barely had 2 years, if that. This all means that, notwithstanding his promotion this past September to a 4-star General (begrudgingly accepted in the Confucian military hierarchy by his fellow octogenarian 4-stars), Jong Un has a fragmented power base. His ability to lead and rule will require much more consensus-building and therein is the strategic opportunity for change.

Moving beyond the stumbling blocks of denuclearization on the peninsula, this change could necessarily include economic reforms which could be reinforced and encouraged by humanitarian assistance, sanction modification (following the Myanmar approach), and, in due course, economic assistance. This is the “Vietnam Model.” The key piece of this puzzle requires both technocrats and reform-minded leadership within the DPRK.

In Vietnam’s case, Hanoi, in the mid-1980′s had the benefit of a few brilliant economists who had a hand in the construction of the Party’s 1986 “Doi Moi” economic platform. The key architect was Dr. Nguyen Xuan Oanh, who came out of retirement as a former capitalist central banker under the defeated South Vietnamese regime and managed to turned himself into the Communist party’s favorite economist. I knew Dr. Oanh, a Harvard-educated economist. He was even South Vietnam’s Prime Minister for a few turbulent months in the coup-ridden 1960s. Somehow, after the fall of Saigon and eight months of house arrest, Oanh managed to persuade the communists that he was a technocrat and a patriot who had stayed on to serve his country. Rehabilitation allowed Oanh to become the architect of Vietnam’s “Doi Moi” economic reform platform in 1986. However, it was the combination of his education and prior government leadership that gave Dr. Oanh the political firepower with the Communist Party in Hanoi to listen and follow his direction for the future of the country.

So where is North Korea’s Dr. Oanh? This is the interesting piece of the puzzle that is difficult to see at this juncture. While it is early for North Korea’s own “Dr. Oanh” to emerge, the seeds for a Oanh-type economic reform leadership or expertise in North Korea already exist in the form of 2 groups: (1) during the 1990′s and prior, a number of North Korean elites were educated in economics in Australian universities before Australia shut down its North Korean visa program; and (2) there are a number of young, North Korean refugees that are currently studying economics in Seoul, the U.S. and the U.K., who are preparing themselves to assist in the North Korean “Doi Moi” in the future.

This “Vietnam Model” is a strategy that both Washington and Seoul need to encourage. It may well be North Korea’s only hope.

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Yet Another China Foreign Policy Stumble: The South China Sea

Posted by on Jun 11, 2011 in Blog, China, Vietnam | 0 comments

China has had a number of foreign policy gaffes over the past couple of years and its very recent attempt at imposing a fishing ban in the South China Sea (known to the Vietnamese as the “East Sea”) is yet another stumble.  Attempting to protect and encourage the replenishment of fishing stock during the spawning season, China announced on May 11, 2011 a fishing ban to run from May 16 through August 1 over an area hotly contested by several South East Asia countries, most notably by Vietnam.

While replenishing the fishing stock may well be a noble ideal, China’s unilateral action is guaranteed to gin up a firey defiance by the Vietnamese, with fishermen ignoring the ban, boat seizures and violent confrontations– all too predictable.

Vietnam has a 1000 mile coastline to protect and its Eastern Sea is an essential part of its defense perimeter that it has, and will continue to jealously protect. China knows this all too well– given its historical battles and scrapes with Vietnam in these same waters over the millennia.

China’s unilateral muscle-flexing in the South China Sea is hardly simply to protect the  fishing stock which Vietnam’s marine industry depends upon. China had to know full well that its fishing ban would necessarily force a response from Vietnam  and give the PRC an opportunity to reinforce its imprimatur over the disputed waters.

For Vietnam, the Eastern Sea is its “line in the sand.”  Vietnamese public opinion will not stand for any moves by China to nip bites out of Vietnamese waters. China knows this but its policymakers blundered ahead anyway.

Defiance by little colorful Vietnamese fishing boats is one thing. China did not anticipate, however, the announcement by the Vietnamese Navy that it now intends to conduct live firing exercises off of Vietnam’s central coast directly into waters affected by the fishing ban.

Such are the perils of unilateralism–especially when you have a little sleeping tiger to the south.

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