North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong Un in a departure from his father’s policy, is embarking on a series of policy initiatives that has all the seeming of a country coming in from the cold. The recent visit by Eric Schmidt signals the precursor to a new North Korea and a gold rush for technology companies looking to cash in on a prime market.
North Korea represents an untapped market waiting for a catalyst
North Korea represents an untapped market waiting for a catalyst, though at this juncture a dilemma. The state department’s option may be limited in dealing with North Korea, but as a nation the US has rarely begun to tap the opportunities it has to influence N Korea’s behavior. The spate of sanctions, penalties, and high level warnings only further instigate the likelihood that a country like North Korea will continue on its path; while the brute force demands to North Korea largely falls on deaf hears, a less dictatorial approach may start to move things in the right way.
Eric Schmidt, a new approach to negotiating with North Korea
The visit of a private delegation including former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, and Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt is a start to a new approach to negotiating with North Korea, it sets off a round of what could be termed the arrival of corporate diplomacy; a space where in the interest of reaching new markets, the corporation takes up the initiative to negotiate market liberality and governmental change sufficient for sanctions to be lifted, terms that would make their operation within said country possible. With the state department at an end to its options outside of conflict, this new player entering the fray has a different set of incentives and rewards, perhaps more enticing and more effective, and this can only be seen as a positive in the environment of tumult characteristic of these negotiations. The continued insistence that the only way to engage these so called ‘rogue states’ is to shut them out completely is an arrest to potential, and an arrest to progress.
