Stephan Haggard on North Korean Criticism of Chinese Investment
Standing Up to China
09/07/2012
Parameswaran Ponnudurai,
Radio Free Asia
Tensions and resentment over China's investments in ally nations such as Burma, Pakistan and Zambia may have raised eyebrows in recent months. But, North Korea takes the cake with its extremely rare attack this week on a major investment by China, its closest ally and benefactor.
While experts are scratching their heads trying to figure out the factors behind Pyongyang's blistering attack on China's large iron ore investment, some believe that nuclear-armed North Korea is possibly sending a message to Beijing that it cannot be pushed around.
North Korea's official news agency KCNA's criticism of the Xiyang Group, a Chinese state-owned miner and steel maker, comes four months after new leader Kim Jong Un's regime upset Beijing with its defiant but failed rocket launch.
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Stephan Haggard is the director of the Korea-Pacific Program at IR/PS, where he specializes in the Korean economy. In 2011 Haggard published Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea with co-author Marcus Noland, with whom he had previously authored Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform. Dr. Haggard writes the "North Korea: Witness to Transformation" blog at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
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