The key to the article is the belief that Myanmar liberalized largely in response to growing Chinese investment and control in their country. The author believes that King Jong Un could become wary of North Korea's increasing dependence on China and decide to turn to liberalize and turn to the rest of the world to balance Chinese power.

 

The dictator’s conundrum, especially a supposedly reforming dictator, is that he is riding a tiger that he dare not dismount. On the one hand, dictators must always fear an uprising or velvet revolution from the oppressed masses. On the other, they must always be wary of a coup from their own inner circle – those who are privileged under the old regime rightly fear liberalization that threatens their prosperity.

 

I see three main paths that the DPRK could take over the next few years. One would be to maintain the status quo. This is the safest option for Kim Jong Un personally, but is ultimately unsustainable. I think we can all agree that eventually something in North Korea has to break down and lead to either a coup or complete collapse of the regime.

 

Second, lil' Kim could take the Chinese route and liberalize the economy while maintaining political authoritarianism. This would bring a lot of desperately needed hard currency into the country, but would be difficult to sustain, as the Chinese are finding out. Middle classes tend to want political freedom. There would have to be some kind of peace process with the South or political liberalization in order for the rest of the world to open up their markets to North Korea the way they have for China. There's also some risk in this course of hardline apparatchiks getting tired of this uppity kid and tossing him out.

 

Third, KJU could embark on the sort of wide-ranging political and economic reform envisioned in the article and modeled (maybe?) by Myanmar. Though liberalization is the most sustainable option in the long term, it also runs the greatest risk of Kim getting thrown out on his pudgy buttocks.

 

But imagine how great it would be if we could finally unfreeze the Korean conflict and bring some freedom and wealth to North Korea.