This is one of major reasons why the DPRK economy has been falling continuously without any sign of recovery. The DPRK's intention to develop nuclear weapons is one of the measures to escape from difficulties of domestic instability, diplomatic isolation, economic decline, and military inferiority to the South. However, without liberalizing the market, the DPRK's economy can never recover. The risks of freedom waves by openness may threaten the regime, but the closed autarkic economy causes the DPRK to fall without noises. Therefore, the DPRK has no choice but gradual and simultaneous development of politics and the economy, like China since 1978.
Time is essential in economic development, particularly in the age of information and globalization.
The DPRK has recognized that gains from long negotiations with the United States and South Korea are much less than the costs of time lost in economic development. If the DPRK loses the opportunity of the package deal offered by the US leadership, its economy will be stagnated another decade with many deaths of innocent people, while the world enjoys prosperity in the age of globalization owing to borderless competition. This implies that the DPRK is unable to sustain for another decade if the policy of non-intervention with economic sanctions is continued, which Kim Jong Il should recognize. There is no other way for the DPRK to escape from the existing difficulties but open. The following comments are by Haksoon Paik, The Sejong Institute, Republic of Korea.