Peace, Commerce, Honest Friendship (and Régime Change)

Andrei Lankov, associate professor of North Korean history at Kookmin University in Seoul, notes the "spontaneous growth of grassroots markets in the North and partial disintegration of state controls" and suggests "active engagement with the North in the form of development aid, scholarships for North Korean students and support for all sorts of activities that bring the world to North Korea or take North Koreans outside their cocoon" — Toppling Kim Jong Il. He writes, "Such exchanges are often condemned as a way of appeasing dictators, but the experience of East Europe showed that an influx of uncensored information from the outside is deadly for a communist dictatorship."

[link via The Marmot's Hole]