A high-level meeting raises speculation Pyongyang is looking to emulate Hanoi’s experience of mixing communism and economic reform
AS NORTH KOREAN Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho met Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xhan Phuc on Friday, speculation was rife that Kim Jong-un had sent Ri to Hanoi to learn tips on economic reform.
While details of the four-day trip are sparse, South Korea ’s Yonhap News Agency has described the trip as a fact-finding mission to learn about doi moi, a series of economic reforms initiated in Vietnam in 1986.
Similar to the reforms initiated by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, doi moi, which continues to this day, stresses devolution of economic power under the uninterrupted control of a single party communist state.
Kim, it has been reported in South Korean media, has several times mentioned his desire to emulate Vietnam’s economic model during meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also encouraged Kim to look to Vietnam for inspiration.
“Your country can replicate this path,” said Pompeo, addressing North Korea, during a July visit to Hanoi following a trip to Pyongyang.
“It’s yours if you’ll seize the moment. The miracle could be yours, it can be your miracle in North Korea as well,” he added.
Le Dang Doanh, a former senior economic adviser to five Vietnamese prime ministers, said it would not be the first time the North Koreans had probed Vietnam for advice.
Doanh himself has been invited to speak to North Korean delegations on economic development in recent years, and from all indications, he said, Pyongyang had been eager to learn from Hanoi’s success.
