Stephan M. Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Graduate School of International Relations and is the director of Korea-Pacific Program (KPP). He is the editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Haggard has written extensively on the political economy of North Korea with Marcus Noland, including Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform (2007) and Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea (2011). Haggard and Noland are co-author of the "North Korea: Witness to Transformation" blog at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Summary

How successful have the recent series of economic sanctions on North Korea, imposed by the UNSC, the US and the EU respectively, been in achieving their original goals? What implications will they have in the future? Stephan Haggard, Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at UC San Diego (UCSD), argues that even though the current sanctions regime stipulate measures obviously stronger than what was implemented by the sanctions in the past, whether the measures will have actual impact will be determined largely by China's cooperation in the enforcement and observance of the measures. Pointing out that China's usually participation in the UNSC resolution 2270 was in no small part motivated by the recent drive for industrial reform and economic development in the Northeast region as well as China's interest in preventing the escalation of the North Korean nuclear crisis, he advises that South Korea and the US should convince China that the ultimate goal of the sanctions will not destabilize the Korean peninsula as a consequence of inducing regime change or collapse. In addition, he suggests that a strict enforcement of the current sanctions might drive the North Korean economy, which has opened up rapidly in recent years, towards a sudden financial crisis, and concludes with a cautious prediction that economy collapse may precede regime collapse.

With Smart Q&A, East Asia Institute (EAI) seeks to offer timely and in-depth analysis on current issues by conducting video interviews with domestic and international experts. EAI takes no institutional position on what is said in the interviews and they are solely the position of the interviewees. This interview and the summary were prepared by Jiwon Ra.