Economic Geography of Russia and North Korea

Pragmatism is undermined by all ideologies, including nationalism and grand nationalism. Russia's invasion of Ukraine also has its roots in ideology.

 

At the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia's geographical location was not good for the West to accept Russia as a European country. Although the Soviet Union itself is an integrated giant country, geographical conditions did not lead to economic integration or centralization of Russia's other regional countries (such as Ukraine). In other words, it had an economic structure that was not a problem even if it was divided into several countries.

 

Professor Paul Krugman expresses the problem in [Geography and Trade] as follows.

 

Well, not necessarily-because countries are not identical to regions. To take the most spectacular recent example, we have suddenly become aware that the Soviet Union, although a huge economic unit,is a collection of regional economies ; if,as seems to be happening, that economy breaks up into it geographical components, those components will individually bulk no larger than the nation’s erstwhile Eastern European satellites.

 

So it may be more accurate to think of a large country as consisting of many regions, we discover that it is by no means necessarily true that economic integration will favor regions in the larger country.

 

After the war between Russia and Ukraine ends, Ukraine can grow rapidly due to its closer geographical relationship with the West, but Russia has to be in a position of isolation as always. Presumably, Putin’s government may have expected North Korea and South Korea to communicate economically and open the way for the Russian economy toward Siberia.

 

However, Putin's government had political and economic flaws that failed to achieve Russia's integration, falling short of South Korea's Park Chung-hee administration. This is probably because Korea's dense economic geography conditions prevailed over Russia's lax economic geography conditions. Therefore, Russia must find a solution in a more different way. - A more conciliatory relationship with the outside world will be needed -

 

The same is true of North Korea. It is thought that the economic geographical conditions in which North Korea cannot reform and open its doors are distorted by ideological issues and are affecting North Korea. If national unity is needed, it is possible to try national unity using the "strong legal order" that Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew tried and succeeded.

 

Russia and North Korea should not be buried in the issue of leadership. This is because there will be many prosperous conditions in which the external economy will depend on the Russian or North Korean economy due to abundant underground resources in the future. Rather, in the case of China, there will be many conditions for a domestic economy or an isolated economy. Due to its large population compared to resources and territories, there will be concerns that it will gradually become difficult if China does not value its "relationship with the outside world."