経済困難に直面する北朝鮮とベトナムの政策決定に関する研究

This study examines the approaches taken by the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Workers’Party of Korea when facing with economic crisis during the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The authors analyzed policies carried out by Hanoi and Pyongyang in an attempt to point out the differences in their reasoning and results. At the Communist Party of Vietnam’s 6th National Congress, hard-liners took responsibility for the economic failure of the country and voluntarily stepped down and make way for more liberal politicians. The new leadership then shifted the centrally-planned economy of the country to a socialist-oriented market economy. North Korea’s leadership, on the other hand, refused to admit the ineffectiveness of their economic policies while shifting the blame to people and natural disasters for the perilous situation of the country. The ruling Kim family also clung onto power. In order to maintain their influence in North Korea, they decided to isolate the country from the outside world. Furthermore, reforms were far and few while failing to live up to their purpose. The study pointed out three reasons behind those decisions (1) Pyongyang would be more vulnerable to legitimacy loss if they had admitted to mistakes and carried out reforms in comparison to Vietnam (2) Vietnam was not able to secure a stable source of foreign aid due to the invasion of Cambodia and Soviet Abandonment and (3) due to the constant state of warfare, Vietnam was in a more perilous economic situation than North Korea during the 1970s–1980s which put more pressure on the need to reform. As a result, despite the fact that both regimes survived the fall of the Soviet Union, Vietnam enjoyed a period of rapid economic development from the late 1980s while North Korea’s economy remained in a stagnant state.