North Korea: In withdrawal from carrots

Pyongyang announced to two UN agencies plans to conduct a space launch planned for sometime between April 4-8 that will pass over Japan. The US and other countries responded with condemnation, and Japan said it will shoot  down any vehicle flying overheard in accordance to Japanese national self defense law. Earlier in the week, Pyongyang also expressed anger at routine yearly US-South Korean military exercises by shutting off the inter-Korean border and withholding hundreds of South Koreans in the jointly-owned Kaesong complex. South Korean analysts, well versed in Kim Jong Il’s strange ways look at the past to offer analysis. In an article in South Korean Chosunilbo argues that Pyongyang is going through Sunshine ‘withdrawal symptoms’, now completely cut off from free aid under the Lee administration, an abrupt change of pace from the 8.38 trillion won the Stalinist state was given under both Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. According to the article, North Korea’s GDP was 24 trillion won in 2007. Shifting from a policy of carrots to one of sticks, Lee’s principle to give aid only after the nuclear issue is resolved has left North Korea stumbling with only one tactic ‘extreme brinksmanship.’

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N.Korea suffers withdrawal of Sunshine Policy , Digital Chosunilbo