‘Vietnam model’ offers insights for developing NK
With the leaders of North Korea and the US set to hold their second summit in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, next Wednesday and Thursday, there have been growing discussions surrounding whether North Korea will follow Vietnam’s path to develop its economy. While it is not realistic for North Korea to completely copy “the Vietnam model,” given its different national conditions and the global environment, Vietnam’s experiences may indeed offer some useful insights for North Korea.
It should be acknowledged that North Korea and Vietnam have something in common historically. But as a socialist country, Vietnam rolled out reforms in the 1980s and normalized ties with the US in the 1990s, which was later upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership. It is currently one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, with annual GDP growth around 7 percent.
Moreover, Vietnam’s high degree of diplomatic flexibility and market openness has earned it close economic relations with the US. Although Vietnam has maintained a trade surplus with the US, the latter hasn’t imposed too many restrictions on Vietnam due to the small trade volume. It is widely believed that Vietnam’s development has greatly benefited from the improved relations with the US. To a certain extent, the US appears willing to use Vietnam’s success to convince North Korea into denuclearization.
From the perspective of North Korea, whatever the development model, it is hoping to ease the tension with the US, making it somewhat similar to Vietnam decades ago.
While the national conditions, times, global environment and development opportunities faced by North Korea and Vietnam are sharply different today, there is still something North Korea could learn from Vietnam in terms of its successful experiences.
The most important is Vietnam’s political stability, the foundation of its economic development, which is very attractive to North Korea. Vietnam, despite a variety of social movements and ideologies over the years, has managed to maintain a relatively stable political situation. The rapid economic growth hasn’t shaken its political stability, but rather consolidated the legitimacy of the ruling party. Likewise, economic development through opening-up may also serve to consolidate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s management of its economy.
Moreover, it should be noted that North Korea’s study of Vietnam’s opening-up is unlikely to harm its economic independence. If North Korea wants to promote its own economic development and political stability, it will naturally need to enhance economic exchanges with its neighboring countries, like China,
Japan and South Korea, which have expressed interest in the country’s market. And diversified investment in the North Korean market will be conducive for the country’s economic independence and stability. In fact, many Asian countries like Vietnam have had a similar experience in opening their markets.
Nevertheless, no matter what kind of economic growth model North Korea chooses, its most urgent task is to ease relations with the US in order to create a more favorable international environment for economic development. The North Korean side certainly hopes to treat the second Trump-Kim summit as an opportunity to pave the way for its economic development, such as getting US sanctions lifted so that it can develop economic relations with other countries.
However, according to the comments from various parties, the upcoming summit will mainly focus on the issue of denuclearization, which may involve topics like how to ease and improve the relationship and trust between the two countries. From the US side, as North Korea’s economic scale is too small, the security issue seems much more important at present.
It is generally hoped that both sides will reach some degree of understanding and reconciliation, which would allow North Korea to carry out economic cooperation with neighboring countries and improve its people’s livelihood.
Only when people’s livelihoods and the economy improve can the country be more confident to go further in the direction of denuclearization. If North Korea cannot gain any substantial economic benefits or commitments from the US, it will be hard for it to pursue its own economic growth and make it difficult for Kim to convince his people – and himself – to make greater concessions on denuclearization.
The article was compiled by Global Times reporter Wang Jiamei based on an interview with Zhou Shixin, an associate research fellow at the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn