North Korea -- Rogue State, or Hub For Asian Development?

This appeared in the March 12 issue of EIR, discussing the renewed drive by Russia, China, and to a lesser extent even South Korea, to open up northern North Korea as a development area, aiming for breaking the impasse on the political issues through physical economic development. -- MIke Billington

North Korea -- Rogue State, or Hub For Asian Development?

by Mike Billington

March 13--North Korea has taken steps over the past months to
fully open up its northeastern port city of Rajin, about 50 km
from both the Russian and Chinese borders, to international
investment and trade, extending potentially to Japan, the United
States, and the world at large. North Korea has been the single
gap in the expansive regional development perspective initiated
by Russia and China during their historic October 2009 agreement
to utilize Chinese dollar reserves and rail technology, together
with Russian scientific capacities, in the development of the
resource-rich Russian Far East. South Korea, which has recently
emerged as a significant nuclear power exporter, has also
approached Russia with proposals for using Korean technology and
engineering capacities in opening up Russia's Far East. Now,
North Korea is moving to integrate itself into this
world-historic transformation of the world's greatest ``new
frontier'' for global development.
North Korea recently granted Russia a 50-year contract to
utilize the northeastern port city of Rajin, and agreed with
China to extend for a second ten years, a lease for a pier in
Rajin, granted in 2008. China's northeastern provinces of Jilin
and Heilonjiang have been blocked from the Sea of Japan by this
short Korea/Russia border area since the 1895 Sino-Japanese war,
in which Japan expelled China from the Korean Peninsula.
The new China is anxious to move its industrial and raw
material exports from the northeast, through the nearest
available port--Rajin--while Russia wants to extend the
Trans-Siberian Railway down into the Korean peninsula. Both
countries are developing their leased port facilities in Rajin,
while upgrading the long-decayed transport connections from their
own territory into the North Korean port. Russia is upgrading the
rail connections between Vladivostok and Rajin, while China is
building a modern road from Rajin to Hunchun in the Korean
Autonomous region of China's Jilin Province.
The ``Four Power Agreement'' among Russia, China, India, and
the United States, proposed by Lyndon LaRouche as the necessary
power bloc to create a new global credit system to replace the
crumbling monetary system, could have access to virtually all of
Asia as a development frontier, if the North Korean crisis, and
related problems in Myanmar, were solved on the basis of such
infrastructural development projects for the entire region.
Twice before, in 1991 and 1996, the nations of the region
attempted to initiate development cooperation in this area, known
as the Tumen River Area Development Project. The project also
included Japan, which sees the region as a gateway to the huge
development potential in the Russian Far East, and a transport
link to the Trans-Siberian Railroad connection to Europe. These
previous efforts failed, as China had not yet emerged as a major
productive power in the world economy, and Russia had neglected
the development of its own Far East. With the focus of world
development now shifting to the Pacific, as the Atlantic powers
engage in a paroxysm of self-destruction, the Tumen River region
has taken on a dramatic new potential.

- Korean Unification -
South Korea is also directly involved in these new
developments, signing an agreement in January to invest in a
food-processing joint venture in Rajin with a North Korean
company, employing 200 North Koreans. This is the first joint
venture investment in the North by a South Korean company, and
the first South Korean business venture of any kind outside of
the Kaesong Industrial Park and the Kumgang Mountain tourist
site, both on the North Korean side of the demilitarized zone
separating the North and South.
Before the Bush-Cheney Administration sabotaged the
significant moves towards peace and development on the Korean
Peninsula, initiated by the Clinton Administration, the divided
Korean nation was moving rapidly toward integrating the vastly
divergent economies of North and South, primarily by rebuilding
the rail connections which had been cut since the Korean War in
the 1950s. While that process is now on hold, South Korea is
interested in finding a way to ship goods by sea to the North
Korean Rajin port, and from there, link to the Trans-Siberian
Railway to reach markets in Europe, as well as to facilitate
South Korean cooperation in the development of the Russian Far
East.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited Moscow in
September 2008, laying the basis for utilizing South Korean
expertise in transportation and energy to develop the Russian Far
East, and for building pipelines and rail connections between
Russia and South Korea--which, of course, means building them
through North Korea, requiring an end to the hermetically sealed
division of Korea, a legacy of the British-instigated Cold War.

- U.S. Involvement? -
The United States, meanwhile, is engaging North Korea
through diplomatic means, trying to re-start the Six Party talks,
aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program
in exchange for economic aid and investment, and a peace treaty
to officially end the Korean War, which concluded with an
armistice in 1953. But, until then, the U.S. is standing behind
the foolish UN sanctions against new investments in North Korea.
Asked about these sanctions, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman
said, on Feb. 25, that its business investments in North Korea
are ``normal business deals,'' and therefore do not run counter
to the UN sanctions.
Speaking of the North Korean situtation at the Summit of
Honor on Atoms for Peace and Environment (SHAPE) in Seoul, on
March 12, Mohamed ElBaradei, the retired head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, said, ``The issue involves
North Korea's insecurity and need for economic development, and
in order for headway to be made, the world should address both
these issues.'' He said that only by alleviating concerns that
Pyongyang will not be attacked or be subject to regime change can
there be progress.
Scott Snyder, head of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at
the Asia Foundation, and Jack Pritchard, president of the Korea
Economic Institute and former U.S. special representative to
North Korea, visited North Korea in November. While still
cautious about improving Washington-Pyongyang relations, Snyder
noted that following North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's visit to
Rajin in January, the local leadership has been replaced by
people with experience in international relations, headed by the
former minister of trade, and that a $10 billion Taepung
International Investment Group has been established to finance
investments in food, rail, roads, ports, and power supply. Will
the United States engage with its Eurasian allies, to develop the
next great frontier on Earth?

mobeir@aol.com