Stephan Haggard Quoted on Kim Jong Il's "Market Activities" Speech
In North Korea, Then as Now, Anxiety About 'Markets'
09/08/2011
Evan Ramstad,
The Wall Street Journal
Remarks by Kim Jong Il on "market activities" ahead of a harsh 2009 crackdown on private entrepreneurs have surfaced just as the dictator again appears to grapple with what level of economic development is tolerable for North Korea.
Accounts of the speech, made in 2008 just two months before Mr. Kim suffered a stroke-like illness, were recently unearthed by North Korea experts talking to defectors. The accounts highlight the regime's tremendous anxiety about modest stalls selling food or clothes that had popped up spontaneously across North Korea and that allowed ordinary North Koreans a rare chance to accumulate some savings.
In the speech to business and government officials—an extremely rare occasion for those outside Mr. Kim's immediate circle to directly hear his thoughts on economic matters—the dictator warned against being "captured by the fantasy that the capitalist market economy promises."
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