North Korea’s Foreign Investment Strategy Explained

Reading of North Korea’s new plans for yet another trade zone, just as the Kaesong experiment collapses, must make some observers wonder what Kim Jong Il could be thinking: who could possibly expect to attract significant foreign investment with such uneven policies toward investment?

My response: they don’t want to attract significant foreign investment. That would require some significant opening of their economy and the lowering of the state’s vigilance against the subversive power of ChocoPies. North Korea’s foreign investment strategy is much like the strategy of those “Nigerian generals” who send e-mails by the millions asking for bank account numbers. You have to wonder who would possibly respond, but there are always a few, and a few is all it takes.