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 Like many North Korea questions, we don’t know but we have some ideas.  All of them regarding finance must be worrisome to Kim Jong-un and his cabinet as they try to deal with a near Chinese embargo on their exports that is likely causing an outflow of reserve dollars needed for…

By William B. Brown Everything else has been tried, and failed, so why not have Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump meet face-to-face? I’ve advocated for it for more than a year now, and it looks like it might happen. Many details need to be worked out but, given it is a North Korean request, coming on…

By William B. Brown “War” might be a little strong, but I think everyone would agree it’s at least a fierce and growing skirmish.  China’s Customs Bureau on Friday reported a sharp, 23 percent drop in exports to North Korea in December from the year-earlier month, to $258 million, and a stunning 83 percent drop…

By William Brown In previous blogs we have looked at several anomalies in market and foreign trade data related to North Korea, including the crude oil situation and the won exchange rate. In the former, we conjecture that China’s government has simply put crude oil “off the books” since January 2014 and that the flow…