For those of us living in Asia, traveling to Hong Kong, Singapore, and other destinations we do, on occasion discuss North Korea. Like Myanmar of the 1980s and 1990s, this is a country that most are curious about, but have little opportunity to visit.
The US President Donald Trump has been engaging North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un, with the support of China, Japan and South Korea to bring the reclusive nation into the wider world, to integrate its economy into the region and of course, make it a rich nation.
These countries want Kim Jong-un to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for become the next “Asian Tiger” just as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea followed each other into affluence with investment and exports to the US and Europe.
Vietnam is the next success story or Asian Tiger – hence the recent summit was held there. Many economists in Asia see North Korea as the next Vietnam, as its Socialist economic philosophy can be transformed into a capitalist leaning system with massive wealth potential.
Despite Kim Jong-un enthusiastically listening to stories about the success of South Korea and Vietnam, there have been comments coming out of the regime the suggest that foreign firms are dirty and could bring “contagious germs” to this insular and isolated nation.
The distrust for Japanese, Americans, Chinese and South Koreans even is strong in this nation that teaches its people to fear and distrust anything that is not produced by the state government.
We must keep in mind that the young Kim Jong-un, unlike 99 percent of the North Korean population has traveled abroad and seen other countries – he studied in Switzerland – so his openness to a global work is not shared by his people.