KEI Contributor – William Brown

This chapter takes the perspective of North Korea’s leadership as it confronts difficult economic problems in the remaining months of 2018. The major current and potential issues are listed and…

Much is made in Western circles of North Korea’s economic dependence on China amid questions of whether and how much leverage this gives Beijing. In an end game, however, Pyongyang…

North Korea badly needs change but whether that change can and should be induced or forced from the outside is open to question. This paper proceeds from the perspective that…

By William B. Brown North Korea’s won has slipped ever so slightly against the dollar in recent weeks. This is not surprising given the dollar’s worldwide strength but presents an interesting conundrum for the Chosun central bank. It no doubt knows that pegged currencies could break suddenly when a small divergence, a wiggle, catches the…

By William B. Brown First, the things that I liked Overall the tone is good. The business suit and Kim’s bearing suggest an earnest man wanting to get important problems resolved and see progress on major developments that are underway. And his warnings to the United States - the possibility of negative actions if the…

By William B. Brown Presently, the imperialists are relentlessly clinging to ideological and cultural infiltration maneuvers to destroy our socialist system. … Even though currently everything is in short supply and a penny of fund is so precious…The road to revolution … is absolutely not an easy road. Without the conviction of optimism … one…

By William B. Brown Consider this. In a well developing suburb of Pyongyang, households are no longer able to tap into the electric power grid for their meager, centrally planned, and virtually free allotments of electricity, in theory enough for lights or TV two or three hours a day. Instead, most have purchased small solar…