Tickets to Singapore

At the time of the Hanoi summit between the United States and North Korea, I had emotional expectations and concerns about President Kim Jong-un. I was anticipated because President Kim Jong-un was young, and I was worried that President Kim Jong-un was young. Before that, I had experienced a lot of disgust with the agile brains of people a generation ahead of me, so I wanted to group young leaders such as President Kim Jong-un and President Macron of France in a more pure group.

  

Russia's President Putin promised North Korea 20,000 tons of food aid and China's President Xi Jinping promised a huge amount of food aid in order to break the deadlock in the North's economic situation after the Hanoi summit failed. And shortly afterwards, a South Korean group was criticized by President Kim Jong-un for driving a wedge between North Korea and China. Looking back, I wonder if they probably said that President Putin's manly promises of support should be trusted to some extent and that President Xi Jinping of China should reflect on his promises. - I wish China had provided a little food aid during the North's miserable march.

 

Over the past few days, my blog has become very popular in Singapore. Singapore is definitely welcome. Simpson, the cartoon character, says that chicken is delicious when put in tagine, fried, or in any way cooked. Singapore, which has grown into a small but democratic powerhouse despite its one-man rule, is good for North Korea to design itself as an ideal country, negotiate with the U.S. in Singapore, and bring in many of my bloggers from Singapore. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew deserves respect for being a good dictator who overcame difficult times.

 

I've discussed it a lot with AI, but it bites my three-way perspective. I'm a purposeful third party. AI says that even if there are a lot of visitors to my blog in Singapore, it's possible that another country just passed IP. But anyway, it's good because it's through Singapore. One of the realizations of a politically growing citizen or leader is that there is no reliable ally in international relations to the end. It means that it's right to go my way rather than hate it.

 

The Political Economy of Pyongyang: Growth Poles, the Singapore Model, and the Structural Conditions of US–North Korea Negotiations

Lee Hyeong-chun · Independent Columnist

Abstract

Satellite imagery analyzed in the first half of 2026 shows that nighttime lighting in Pyongyang has steadily expanded since Kim Jong-un assumed power. This paper re-examines that expansion through the lens of Park Chung-hee's growth-pole development strategy, analyzing the political-economic significance of the formal similarities and functional differences between the two. It then assesses the structural conditions under which North Korea could adopt a Singapore-style model of one-man rule combined with economic prosperity, comparing it against Vietnam's Doi Moi reforms as a more realistic path. Finally, it examines how an external variable — the Trump administration's shifting foreign-policy priorities following the provisional settlement of the Iran war and the resurgence of denuclearization on its agenda — interacts with North Korea's internal motives for change. The paper argues that Pyongyang's modernization, the question of regime-model transition, and the dynamics of diplomatic negotiation may converge on a single political logic: the preemptive accumulation of domestic achievements to strengthen Kim's negotiating position.

Keywords: North Korea, growth-pole development, Pyongyang, Singapore model, Doi Moi, US–North Korea negotiations, denuclearization

I. Introduction

For approximately twenty-five years, the author has participated in informal back-channel exchanges concerning North Korea, guided consistently by the proposition: “keep your nuclear weapons, but save your people.” This formulation sought to decouple regime security from the welfare of the population, creating logical space for gradual change that does not require denuclearization as a precondition. Against this background of long-term engagement, this paper examines whether three phenomena observed in the first half of 2026 — the physical modernization of Pyongyang, external attempts to persuade North Korea toward a one-man-rule market economy model, and the Trump administration's shifting foreign policy — are independent events or are bound together by a single structural logic.

II. The Expansion of Pyongyang's Nighttime Lighting and the Political Economy of Growth-Pole Development

Nighttime satellite imagery from NASA and NOAA, analyzed by 38 North and the Stimson Center, shows that the luminous area around Pyongyang has expanded at an accelerating pace since 2014, particularly since 2021. This timing coincides with Kim Jong-un's directive to build 50,000 apartments in Pyongyang between 2021 and 2026, with the lit area expanding from the Taedong River core into northern districts such as Ryongsong. Areas outside Pyongyang — Hamhung, Wonsan, Anju, Kaesong — remain comparatively dim, and the quality of light (white versus gray) differs markedly from the capital.

Comparing this phenomenon to Park Chung-hee's growth-pole strategy of the 1960s–70s reveals both formal similarity and functional divergence. Park's growth poles (Ulsan, Gumi, Masan) were export-oriented production bases that generated a cycle of foreign-currency accumulation and reinvestment. Pyongyang's lighting expansion, by contrast, is concentrated in consumption- and display-oriented infrastructure — apartments, monuments, building facades — that depletes rather than earns foreign currency under sanctions. Both cases share a spatial concentration of resources, but Park's poles faced outward toward world markets while Pyongyang's face inward, toward the management of elite loyalty — placing the two in functionally opposite roles despite their structural resemblance.

III. Market-Economy Transition Under One-Man Rule: The Applicability and Limits of the Singapore Model

As a case of sustained one-man rule combined with economic prosperity, Singapore can serve as a psychologically appealing reference point for an authoritarian leader. Indeed, certain informal diplomatic channels have proposed the Singapore developmental-state model to North Korea and recommended Singapore as the negotiation venue with the United States, partly to cultivate Kim Jong-un's psychological affinity with the model. However, Singapore's success did not derive from one-man or one-party rule itself, but from three institutional conditions layered on top of it: predictable rule of law, a bureaucracy selected on merit rather than loyalty, and a strategy that converted its geography — the Strait of Malacca — into an asset for entrepot trade and finance.

North Korea remains structurally distant from all three conditions. First, a history of arbitrary confiscation and purges undermines the predictability of property rights and contracts that foreign capital requires. Second, North Korean cadre selection treats political background (songbun) as the absolute criterion; shifting toward meritocracy would directly threaten the interests of the existing elite cartel and, by extension, regime stability itself. Third, converting geography into an asset through openness entails an inflow of information that risks undermining the regime's legitimacy, which depends on blocking comparison with the outside world.

A more realistic comparator, therefore, is not Singapore but Vietnam's Doi Moi model. Under the principle of “closing politics while opening the economy,” Doi Moi preserved the Communist Party's monopoly on power while gradually introducing market elements — separating political legitimacy from economic openness in a way that better fits North Korea's structural constraints. Still, “Singapore” as a name — not as a precise institutional template — may function as a symbol that Kim Jong-un finds emotionally acceptable, one that could later be deployed as a justifying narrative if real reform proceeds.

IV. The External Variable: The Trump Administration's Foreign-Policy Shift and the Politics of Negotiation

As of June 2026, the war between the United States and Iran has entered a provisional lull through a memorandum of understanding centered on a sixty-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, though the nuclear question has been deferred to future technical negotiations and sanctions relief remains a conditional promise rather than a resolution. Washington presents this as a diplomatic achievement, but Iran incurred significant costs to reach this point — strikes on its leadership, sustained bombing, a maritime blockade, and economic pressure — so the characterization of “a settlement with no losses” may reflect a US-centric framing; a balanced assessment must weigh the costs borne by both sides.

At the same time, US officials have stated that North Korean denuclearization is again being placed very high among policy priorities, and the fact sheet issued after the Trump–Xi summit as well as the G7 joint statement both reaffirmed a commitment to denuclearization. This lends empirical support to the hypothesis that the Trump administration, having settled the Iran question to some degree, is now turning to North Korea as its next diplomatic agenda item. Experts nonetheless anticipate that, given North Korea's posture, any forthcoming negotiation will involve “a difficult back-and-forth.”

This shift in the external environment gives Kim Jong-un a specific strategic incentive. The motive to accumulate domestic achievements — Pyongyang's modernization, visible improvements in living standards — before sitting at the negotiating table, in order to strengthen his bargaining position, may coincide in timing with the acceleration of Pyongyang's modernization. Under this reading, Pyongyang's lights serve a dual function simultaneously: a card for external negotiation and a card for internal cohesion.

V. An Interpretive Hypothesis: Model-Learning Among Authoritarian Leaders

The claim that Putin explicitly named Park Chung-hee as his own developmental model is widely circulated within South Korea, but its primary source cannot be clearly traced, and it should not be treated as an academically verified fact. Some Russian-language analyses instead emphasize a key difference — that Russia formally retains a multi-party democratic structure — and caution against a simple equation of the two leaders. This connection should therefore be treated as a politically circulating claim rather than an established fact.

Independent of that claim, however, a separate inference holds: North Korea's decision to deploy troops to Russia is structurally analogous to the effects that Park Chung-hee's deployment of troops to Vietnam produced for South Korea — dollar inflows, military modernization, and the building of military trust with an allied power. The factual question of whether Putin invoked Park Chung-hee by name should be analytically separated from the structural-pattern question of whether the deployment was undertaken in anticipation of economic compensation; the latter is the more robust of the two arguments.

VI. Synthesis and Conclusion

The three threads examined in this paper — the physical modernization of Pyongyang, the possibility of a transition toward a one-man-rule market-economy model, and the Trump administration's foreign-policy shift — are each independent variables, but given the coincidence of timing and the rational incentives of the actors involved, they may converge on a single political logic. That logic can be summarized as follows: Kim Jong-un is preemptively accumulating domestic achievements (Pyongyang's modernization) to strengthen his negotiating position ahead of an anticipated denuclearization negotiation phase; in this process he may draw on the externally proposed symbol of Singapore as an emotional reference point; and the actual institutional transition is likely to follow a path closer to Vietnam-style gradual economic opening than to the Singapore model proper.

This study has clear limitations. First, satellite lighting data demonstrates the existence of infrastructure investment but cannot directly prove its funding source or policy intent. Second, because direct access to Kim Jong-un's internal decision-making process is unavailable, the motivational analysis offered here is necessarily circumstantial. Third, certain arguments — such as the Putin–Park Chung-hee connection — rest on unverified popular claims and must be confined to hypothetical status. Nevertheless, the convergence hypothesis proposed here offers verifiable observational indicators for tracking North Korea's future policy trajectory: the timing of any resumed denuclearization talks, legislative activity related to special economic zones, and changes in the criteria for elite selection.

References

VOA Korean. (2023). “Pyongyang's Nights Somewhat Brighter Than Two Years Ago — The Rest of the Country Remains in Darkness.”

Liberty Korea Post. (2023). “North Korea's Changed Night Skyline: Kim Jong-un's Priority Development Projects Light Up.”

Tongil & Future. (2023). “Gradually Brightening but Still Dark: Pyongyang Has Visibly Brightened Under Kim Jong-un.”

Russia Beyond (Korean edition). (2013). “Putin and Park Chung-hee.”

Segye Ilbo. (2013). “[Editorial Column] Putin and Park Chung-hee.”

Kyunghyang Shinmun. (2012). “[Reporter's Column] Russia's Park Chung-hee.”

VOA Korea. (2026). “US Official: North Korean Denuclearization a Very High Priority for the Trump Administration.”

Financial News (Korea). (2026). “US Official: 'Awaiting Signals for Dialogue With North Korea; South Korea Still Has Work to Do on Corporate Discrimination.'”

Financial News (Korea). (2026). “Trump Administration: 'North Korean Denuclearization Remains Top Priority,' Hints at Possibility of Dialogue.”

Pressian (Kim Dong-yeop). (2026). “[Kim Dong-yeop's 'This Is Invisible'] After the Iran War, What Is North Korea Watching?”

VOA Korean. (2026). “Trump–Xi Summit (2026).”

Sejong Institute. (2025). 2026 Outlook for US Foreign Policy.

 

싱가포르로 가는 티켓

미국과 북한의 하노이 회담 무렵에는 김정은 위원장에게 심정적인 기대와 우려를 가지고 있었다. 젊어서 기대되고, 젊어서 걱정된다는 점이 있었다. 그 이전에 나의 청년기부터 한세대 앞선 사람들의 넓지 못하고 민첩하기만한 두뇌에 혐오감을 느낀 경험이 많아서 김정은 위원장이나 프랑스의 마크롱 대통령등 젊은 지도자들을 좀 더 순수한 모둠 속에 묶고 싶은 심정이었다.

 

하노이 회담이 실패하고 긴박한 북한의 경제상황을 타개하기 위해서 러시아의 푸틴 대통령은 북한에 2만톤의 식량원조를 약속했고, 중국의 시진핑 주석은 아주 많은 식량원조를 약속했다. 그리고 얼마 후에 한국의 어떤 집단이 북한과 중국의 사이를 이간질 시킨다고 김정은 위원장에게 비난을 받았다. 지금 회고해 보건데 그 집단은 아마 푸틴 대통령의 상남자 스타일의 지원 약속은 어느 정도 신뢰를 하고, 중국의 시진핑 주석의 약속은 한 번 되새겨 봐야 한다는 의미로 말하지 않았을까 하는 생각이 든다. - 북한의 그 비참했던 고난의 행군 시절에 중국이 조금만 식량 지원을 해 주었더라면 하는 아쉬움이 너무 많다.

 

몇 일동안 싱가포르에서 내 블러그 방문자가 무척 많아졌다. 싱가포르는 무조건 반갑다. 만화 주인공 심슨이 닭고기는 타진에 넣어 먹어도 맛있고, 튀겨 먹어도 맛있고, 어떤 식으로 요리해도 맛있다고 말한다. 역시 1인 집권체제 임에도 민주주의 강소국으로 성장한 싱가포르는 북한이 이상적인 국가로 신성 설계를 해도 좋고, 싱가포르에서 북미 협상을 해도 좋고, 싱가포르에서 내 블러그를 많이 들어와도 너무 좋다. 어려운 시절을 잘 극복한 선량한 독재자인 리콴유 총리는 존경 받아 마땅하다.

 

인공지능과 아주 많이 토론했는데, 나의 3자적 시각을 물고 늘어진다. 나는 목적있는 제 3자다. 싱가포르에서 내 블러그 방문자가 많다고 한들 다른 나라에서 그냥 아이피만 경유했을 가능성이 있다고 인공지능은 말한다. 그러나 어쨌든 싱가포르를 경유했으니 좋은거다. 정치적으로 성장하는 시민이나 지도자의 깨달음 중 하나는 국제 관계에서 끝까지 믿을만한 동맹은 없다는 것이다. 미워하기 보다는 내 갈길 가는 것이 옳다는 의미다.         

   

평양의 정치경제학: 거점개발, 싱가포르 모델, 그리고 미북협상의 구조적 조건

이형춘 · 독립 칼럼니스트

초록

2026년 상반기 위성사진 분석은 평양의 야간 조명이 김정은 집권 이후 지속적으로 확대되어 왔음을 보여준다. 본 논문은 이 현상을 박정희식 거점개발론의 틀로 재검토하고, 그 형태적 유사성과 기능적 차이가 함의하는 정치경제적 성격을 분석한다. 이어 북한이 일인집권을 유지하면서 경제적 번영을 추구하는 모델로서 싱가포르를 채택할 수 있는 구조적 조건을 검토하고, 베트남 도이머이 모델과의 비교를 통해 보다 현실적인 경로를 제시한다. 마지막으로 미국 트럼프 행정부의 대외정책 전환 — 이란전쟁의 잠정적 정리와 비핵화 의제의 재부상 — 이라는 외부 변수가 북한의 내부 변화 동기와 어떻게 상호작용하는지를 논의한다. 본 연구는 평양의 현대화, 체제 모델 전환, 외교 협상이라는 세 갈래가 단일한 정치적 논리 — 협상력 강화를 위한 내부 치적의 선제적 축적 — 로 수렴할 가능성을 제시한다.

주제어: 북한, 거점개발, 평양, 싱가포르 모델, 도이머이, 미북협상, 비핵화

I. 서론

필자는 약 25년간 북한 관련 비공식 채널을 통한 의견 교환에 참여해왔으며, 그 일관된 기조는 “핵무기는 유지하되 주민을 살리라”는 명제였다. 이 명제는 체제 안보와 인민의 후생을 양립 가능한 것으로 분리함으로써, 비핵화를 전제 조건으로 삼지 않는 점진적 변화의 논리적 공간을 마련하려는 시도였다. 본 논문은 이러한 장기적 관여의 맥락에서, 2026년 상반기에 관찰된 세 가지 현상 — 평양의 물리적 현대화, 일인집권형 시장경제 모델에 대한 외부의 설득 시도, 그리고 트럼프 행정부의 대외정책 전환 — 이 서로 독립적인 사건인지, 혹은 하나의 구조적 논리로 묶이는지를 검토한다.

II. 평양의 야간 조명 확대와 거점개발의 정치경제학

NASA 및 NOAA의 야간 위성사진과 이를 분석한 38 North, 스팀슨센터(Stimson Center)의 연구는 평양 및 그 인근 지역의 광량이 2014년 이후, 특히 2021년부터 가속적으로 확대되었음을 보여준다. 이러한 변화는 김정은이 지시한 2021~2026년 평양 5만 가구 아파트 건설 프로젝트와 시기적으로 일치하며, 광역이 대동강 중심부에서 룡성구역 등 북부 외곽으로 확장되는 양상을 보인다. 그러나 평양 외 지역 — 함흥, 원산, 안주, 개성 등 — 의 광량은 여전히 제한적이고 그 빛의 질(백색광 대 회색광)도 평양과 뚜렷이 구분된다.

이 현상을 1960~70년대 박정희 정권의 거점개발(growth-pole) 전략과 비교할 때, 형태적 유사성과 기능적 차이가 동시에 발견된다. 박정희식 거점(울산, 구미, 마산 등)은 수출 지향적 생산기지로서 외화 축적과 재투자의 순환 구조를 형성했다. 반면 평양의 조명 확대는 아파트·기념시설·외벽 조명 등 소비 및 전시 지향적 인프라에 집중되어 있으며, 외화를 벌어들이기보다는 제재 하에서 외화를 소진하는 방향으로 작동한다. 즉 두 거점 모두 자원의 공간적 집중이라는 형태를 공유하지만, 박정희의 거점은 대외 시장을 향했고 평양의 거점은 대내 엘리트의 충성 관리를 향한다는 점에서 기능적으로 반대 방향을 가리킨다.

III. 일인집권 체제의 시장경제 전환: 싱가포르 모델의 적용 가능성과 한계

일인집권을 유지하면서 경제적 번영을 달성한 사례로서 싱가포르는 권위주의 지도자에게 심리적으로 매력적인 참조점이 될 수 있다. 실제로 일부 비공식 외교 채널에서는 북한에 싱가포르형 발전국가 모델을 제시하고, 협상 장소로 싱가포르를 선택하도록 권고함으로써 김정은의 심리적 친화를 유도하려는 시도가 있었다. 그러나 싱가포르의 성공은 일인 혹은 일당 지배 자체에서 기인한 것이 아니라, 그 위에 결합된 세 가지 제도적 조건 — 예측가능한 법치, 충성도가 아닌 능력에 기반한 관료 선발, 지리적 위치(말라카 해협)를 중계무역·금융 허브로 자산화한 전략 — 에서 비롯되었다.

북한은 이 세 조건 모두에서 구조적으로 멀리 떨어져 있다. 첫째, 자의적 몰수와 숙청의 역사는 외국 자본이 요구하는 재산권 및 계약의 예측가능성을 제공하지 못한다. 둘째, 북한의 관료 선발은 정치적 출신성분(성분)을 절대적 기준으로 삼으며, 이를 능력주의로 전환하는 것은 기존 엘리트 카르텔의 이해관계를 직접적으로 위협하여 정권 안정성 자체에 대한 도전으로 작동할 수 있다. 셋째, 개방을 통한 지리적 자산화는 정보 유입을 동반하며, 이는 외부 세계와의 비교 차단에 의존하는 체제 정당성의 기반을 약화시킬 위험을 내포한다.

따라서 보다 현실적인 비교 대상은 싱가포르가 아니라 베트남의 도이머이(Đổi Mới) 모델이다. 도이머이는 “정치는 닫고 경제는 연다”는 원칙 아래 공산당의 권력 독점을 유지하면서 시장경제 요소를 점진적으로 도입한 사례로, 정치적 정당성과 경제적 개방을 분리한다는 점에서 북한의 구조적 제약과 더 잘 부합한다. 다만 “싱가포르”라는 명칭 자체는 — 정확한 제도적 모델로서가 아니라 — 김정은에게 정서적으로 받아들여질 수 있는 상징으로 기능하며, 추후 실제 개혁이 진행될 경우 그 정당화 서사로 활용될 가능성을 배제할 수 없다.

IV. 외부 변수: 트럼프 행정부의 대외정책 전환과 협상의 정치

2026년 6월 현재, 이란-미국 간 전쟁은 60일 휴전과 호르무즈 해협 재개를 골자로 한 양해각서로 일단 진정 국면에 들어섰으나, 핵 문제는 타결이 아니라 향후 기술협상으로 유보되었고 제재 완화 역시 조건부 약속에 머물러 있다. 워싱턴은 이를 외교적 성과로 제시하지만, 이란이 그 단계에 이르기까지 지도부 타격, 장기 폭격, 해상봉쇄, 경제적 압박이라는 비용을 치렀다는 점에서 “손실 없는 정리”라는 평가는 미국 중심적 시각의 산물일 수 있으며, 균형 잡힌 평가는 양측의 비용을 함께 고려해야 한다.

이와 동시에 미국 당국자들은 북한 비핵화를 정책 우선순위 중 매우 높은 위치에 다시 두고 논의하고 있다고 밝혔으며, 트럼프-시진핑 정상회담 후 발표된 팩트시트와 주요 7개국(G7) 정상회의 공동성명에도 비핵화에 대한 의지가 재확인되었다. 이는 트럼프 행정부가 이란 문제를 일정 수준에서 정리한 뒤 다음 외교적 의제로 북한을 겨냥하고 있다는 가설에 경험적 근거를 제공한다. 다만 전문가들은 북한의 태도를 고려할 때 향후 협상이 “쉽지 않은 줄다리기”가 될 것으로 전망하고 있다.

이러한 외부 환경의 변화는 김정은에게 특정한 전략적 동기를 부여한다. 협상 테이블에 앉기 전 내부적 치적 — 평양의 현대화, 주민 생활수준의 가시적 개선 — 을 축적함으로써 협상력을 강화하려는 동기가 평양 현대화 가속의 시점과 일치할 가능성이 있다. 이 경우 평양의 조명은 대외 협상용 카드와 대내 결속용 카드라는 이중 기능을 동시에 수행하는 것으로 해석할 수 있다.

V. 해석적 가설: 권위주의 지도자 간 모델 학습

푸틴이 박정희를 자신의 발전 모델로 명시적으로 언급했다는 주장은 한국 내에서 널리 유포되어 있으나, 그 1차 출처는 명확히 추적되지 않으며 학술적으로 검증된 사실로 다루기는 어렵다. 일부 러시아 측 분석은 오히려 양자의 차이 — 러시아는 형식적으로 다당제 민주주의를 유지하고 있다는 점 — 를 강조하며 단순한 동일시에 신중한 입장을 취한다. 따라서 이 연결은 확정된 사실이 아니라 “정치적으로 통용되는 통설”로서 다루어야 한다.

다만 이 통설과 무관하게, 북한의 러시아 파병이라는 결정 자체는 박정희 정권의 베트남전 파병이 가져온 결과 — 달러 수입, 군 현대화, 동맹국과의 군사적 신뢰 구축 — 와 구조적으로 유사한 효과를 기대할 만한 선택이었다는 추론은 별도로 성립한다. 즉 “푸틴이 박정희를 언급했는가”라는 사실 여부와, “파병이 경제적 보상을 기대한 행위였는가”라는 구조적 패턴 분석은 분리해서 다루어야 하며, 후자가 논증으로서 더 견고하다.

VI. 종합 논의 및 결론

본 논문에서 검토한 세 갈래 — 평양의 물리적 현대화, 일인집권형 시장경제 모델로의 전환 가능성, 그리고 트럼프 행정부의 대외정책 전환 — 는 각각 독립적인 변수이지만, 시점의 일치와 행위자의 합리적 동기를 고려할 때 하나의 정치적 논리로 수렴할 가능성이 있다. 그 논리는 다음과 같이 요약된다: 김정은은 다가올 비핵화 협상 국면에서 협상력을 강화하기 위해 내부적 치적(평양 현대화)을 선제적으로 축적하고 있으며, 이 과정에서 외부로부터 제시된 싱가포르라는 상징을 정서적 참조점으로 활용할 가능성이 있고, 실제 제도적 전환은 베트남식 점진적 경제개방에 더 가까운 경로를 따를 것으로 전망된다.

본 연구의 한계는 분명하다. 첫째, 위성 조명 데이터는 인프라 투자의 존재를 보여줄 뿐 그 자금 출처나 정책 의도를 직접 증명하지 못한다. 둘째, 김정은의 내부 의사결정 과정에 대한 직접적 접근이 불가능하므로, 본 논문이 제시하는 동기 분석은 정황적 추론의 성격을 갖는다. 셋째, 푸틴-박정희 연결과 같은 일부 논증은 검증되지 않은 통설에 의존하므로 가설적 지위로 한정해야 한다. 그럼에도 본 논문이 제시하는 세 갈래의 수렴 가설은 향후 북한의 정책 변화를 추적하는 데 있어 — 비핵화 협상 재개 시점, 경제특구 관련 입법, 엘리트 선발 기준의 변화 등 — 검증 가능한 관찰 지표를 제공한다는 점에서 의의를 갖는다.

참고문헌

VOA 한국어. (2023). “평양의 밤, 2년 전보다 다소 밝아져...나머지는 여전히 '암흑'”.

리버티코리아포스트. (2023). “달라진 북한 야경…'김정은의 우선 개발 프로젝트 밝아져'”.

통일과 미래. (2023). “조금씩 밝아지고 있지만 여전히 캄캄한 북녘: 김정은 집권 후 평양지역은 눈에 띄게 밝아져”.

Russia Beyond (한국어판). (2013). “푸틴과 박정희”.

세계일보. (2013). “[설왕설래] 푸틴과 박정희”.

경향신문. (2012). “[기자 칼럼] 러시아의 박정희”.

VOA 코리아. (2026). “'북한 비핵화, 트럼프 정부서 우선순위 매우 높아'”.

파이낸셜뉴스. (2026). “美당국자 '北대화신호 기다려…韓, 기업차별 할일 남아'”.

파이낸셜뉴스. (2026). “트럼프 행정부 '北비핵화 최우선'…대화 가능성도 시사”.

프레시안 (김동엽). (2026). “[김동엽의 '이게 안보여'] 이란 전쟁 이후, 조선은 무엇을 보고 있는가”.

VOA 한국어. (2026). “트럼프-시진핑 정상회담 (2026)”.

세종연구소. (2025). 「2026 미국 대외정세 전망」.

 

Homo swindler / Verification Exemption Confidence

When I was a young man, I voluntarily watched religious groups because I was curious about why people were convinced that ideologies and invisible things were not visible. When I saw a strange, if pure, human image there, I concluded that politics (ideology), religion, and fraud had something in common with imagination. Later, an ideological, religious, and even fraudulent president appeared and created a rich story for me.

 

Even after all these years, some politicians and everyday citizens seem to waste their abundant imagination. In reality, however, Korea's practical imagination is growing stronger and cutting-edge fields such as science and technology are developing, which are driving Korea's economic development.

 

I consistently knew that Korea has the most fraudulent crimes in the world, and I thought that politics, religion, and genuine fraud became the trinity and led the statistics. And I discussed it with AI, which refutes that fraudulent crimes are the most among 'crimes in Korea'. And it teaches me to avoid camp logic if my writing is going to be convincing. If artificial intelligence hadn't taught me, I would have defamed someone or a group. In any case, it is true that fraud is prevalent in Korea.

Verification-Exempt Conviction: A Hypothesis on Why Fraud Dominates a Society's Crime Profile

How legal knowledge, religious conviction, and ideological conviction combine into a rhetorical structure — and why empirical realism is the antidote

Lee Hyeong-chun

Abstract

This paper offers a fresh angle on a familiar fact: in South Korea, fraud accounts for the largest share of criminal offenses, more than any other crime category. The explanations usually given — a legal culture where filing a criminal complaint is unusually easy, or sentencing that grows lighter as the amount defrauded grows larger — explain why fraud shows up so heavily in the statistics, but not why the fraud actually works on people. This paper argues that when three resources — socio-technical literacy in law and tax code, religious conviction, and ideological conviction — combine within a single person or group, they produce a distinctive rhetorical mode that earns trust without ever submitting to verification. The paper names this verification-exempt conviction, lays out how it operates, proposes a line that separates it from ordinary belief, and recommends the late-Joseon Silhak principle of practical learning grounded in verified fact as a remedy.

Keywords: fraud, verification-exempt conviction, socio-technical literacy, religious conviction, ideological conviction, empirical realism

1. Introduction: what the statistics leave out

Fraud is the single most common crime in South Korea. Theft has declined over time; fraud has not — it has grown. Looking across all criminal offenses, fraud takes up a larger share than any other category. This has produced a familiar but sweeping claim: that Korea is somehow the world's leading nation for fraud. That international comparison rarely holds up — the sourcing is usually unclear or unverifiable. So let's stick to what's solid: within Korea's own crime statistics, fraud overwhelmingly outpaces every other offense. That much is simply true.

Why, though? The usual answer points to institutions. Filing a criminal complaint in Korea is far easier than in the US or Japan, where police are often reluctant to take on what amount to private debt disputes. In Korea, by contrast, criminal fraud charges absorb cases that elsewhere would stay in civil court. On top of that, sentencing has an odd shape: the larger the amount defrauded, the lighter the average sentence tends to be. All of this is true and all of it matters. But something is missing. A loophole existing is not the same as someone being able to walk through it and convince hundreds or thousands of people. Where does that persuasive power come from? That question rarely gets asked, let alone answered.

This paper is an attempt to answer it.

2. Where three resources meet

The starting point is this: Korean society holds an unusually rich supply of resources that sit close to fraud's territory. Three in particular stand out.

The first is socio-technical literacy — fluency in law, tax code, real estate registration. Nothing about this knowledge is inherently bad; it resolves disputes and makes transactions safer. The second is religious conviction, which in its ordinary form gives people meaning and comfort. The third is ideological conviction, which in its ordinary form organizes people for collective political action.

The trouble starts when all three combine within one person, or one group. The data bears this out: among professional categories, clergy show the largest volume of white-collar offenses — fraud, embezzlement, forgery — and within that category, fraud itself dominates. And among politicians with legal training, a subset — particularly those carrying strong religious or ideological conviction — tend to present unverified, declarative narratives wrapped in legal-sounding language. The point is not to call these people fraudsters. The point is that the structure of what they say resembles the structure fraud uses.

3. Naming verification-exempt conviction

What politicians, clergy, and fraudsters share is often described as “rich imagination.” That description misses the mark. A novelist also has rich imagination, but a novelist announces the fiction up front and asks nothing of the reader's trust. What politicians, clergy, and fraudsters do is different: they insist their claims are fact, truth, or guaranteed return — while quietly sidestepping any attempt to verify them.

Call this verification-exempt conviction. It operates through two mechanisms. The first is speaking with flat certainty about a future or a transcendent realm that cannot, by definition, be checked right now. The second is locating the listener's exact anxiety or want, and converting that conviction directly into trust. Put these two together, and you get speech that moves people without ever being tested.

4. Where the line actually falls

Here caution is needed. The line between ordinary belief and fraud-adjacent conviction is not sharp, because both run on verification-exempt conviction. A campaign promise and a religious teaching both, by nature, make claims about a future or a transcendent realm that cannot be checked on the spot. So “making unverifiable claims” alone cannot separate ordinary belief from fraud.

A different test is needed. Here is mine: ordinary belief does not block the attempt to verify it. A politician who speaks confidently about a policy's effects still accepts being judged at the next election. A cleric who speaks of divine will still accepts denominational oversight and theological debate. The drift toward fraud happens somewhere else — at the moment rhetoric like “doubting now is betrayal,” “this is revelation and cannot be proven,” or “miss this and the chance is gone forever” appears, structurally shutting down the very attempt to verify.

Read this way, proximity to fraud should not be judged by someone's political camp or profession, but by the structure of what they say. Speech that denies the listener time to doubt. Speech that frames doubt itself as betrayal. Speech that sanctifies its own claim, removing it from debate entirely. The moment any one of these three appears, conviction has left the territory of ordinary belief and entered fraud's grammar.

5. When elite rhetoric spreads through society

If this rhetoric stayed confined to individual deviance, it might not be a large problem. But when the people using it are legal, religious, and political elites, the picture changes. When someone in a position of social authority repeats rhetoric that forecloses verification, that rhetoric itself starts to look legitimate. Ordinary citizens learn, simply by watching, to accept unverified conviction without questioning it.

This, I think, is the cultural backdrop behind fraud's prevalence across the whole society. The institutional loopholes — easy complaint-filing, light sentencing — set the stage on which this rhetoric can perform freely. And elite verification-exempt conviction turns that performance into a template: this is apparently how one is allowed to speak. Stage and template together produce an environment where fraud does not shrink but grows.

6. Returning to empirical realism

So what is to be done? I don't think a new answer needs to be invented. The late-Joseon Silhak scholars already gave one: sasagusi (実事求是), practical learning grounded in verified fact — seeking what is right by grounding it in what is actually so. That principle was originally a method for individual scholarship, though. To use it as a remedy for a fraud-saturated society, one more step is needed: extending what was once a personal scholarly discipline into a civic habit — a habit, shared by the whole public, of verifying public speech.

Refusing to accept a politician's promise, a cleric's revelation, or an expert's legal argument on authority alone, and instead asking once more for fact and evidence — this is, I think, the most realistic response available in an age of verification-exempt conviction. Catching individual fraudsters one at a time is not enough. What needs to change is the structure itself: the one that lets conviction exempted from verification pass as authority.

7. Conclusion

The hypothesis offered here still needs refinement. In particular, how strongly the combination of legal knowledge, religious conviction, and ideological conviction actually correlates with fraud is something that calls for more rigorous statistical work. It is also worth remembering that this test should be applied evenly, regardless of political camp. Still, the central point of this paper stands: institutions explain why fraud shows up so heavily in the statistics, but the structure of rhetoric explains why fraud actually works on people. And the best tool for telling the two apart remains sasagusi — the habit of asking for the facts.

References

Kookmin Ilbo. (2022). “Clergy showed the highest rates of white-collar and violent crime.”

The Fact. (2023). “[Fact Check] Amid the jeonse fraud and stock manipulation turmoil — does Korea really rank first among OECD countries in fraud?”

Namu Wiki. “Fraud Republic” entry.

Korean Journal of Police Studies. “An Analysis of Religious Crime in Korea: Patterns and Psychology.”

Hankyung. (2024). “Fraud crime rate highest among those in their 20s, South Korea.”