The notion that Kim Jong-un might actually be trying economic reform in earnest -- a Chinese-style move toward socialism with North Korean characteristics, I guess -- Is gaining traction.
According to the WaPo, even skeptics are becoming less skeptical.
Under new leader Kim Jong Eun, North Korea in recent months has shifted its rhetoric to emphasize the economy rather than the military and is introducing small-scale agricultural reforms with tantalizing elements of capitalism, according to diplomats and defector groups with informants in the North.
The changes, which allow farmers to keep more of their crops and sell surpluses in the private market, are in the experimental stage and are easily reversible, analysts caution. But evenskeptical North Korea watchers say that Kim's emerging policies and style — and his frank acknowledgment of the country's economic problems — hint at an economic opening similar to China's in the late 1970s.87dfa8eff430_story.html
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