PUBLICATIONS & REPORTS

Contents Introduction

North Korea is on the brink with both its leader Kim Jong-Il’s health deteriorating and its economic function faltering. Amid reports that China, North Korea’s chief ally, is preparing a contingency plan on the basis that isolated North may collapse, North Korea executed its senior economic technocrat Park Nam-Ki on March 12 over a botched currency re-denomination that fueled social tension. In addition there has been yet intense speculation about the North’s torpedo attack probability- as well as a host of internet conspiracy theories- to the mysterious explosion of the South’s navy 1,200-ton corvette Cheonan on March 26 near the disputed Yellow Sea border. A wild wind is beginning to swirl on the landscape possibly bringing forth either implosion or explosion. This paper looks into both possibility of a sudden “big bang in North Korea” and would-be policy options to be taken by Koreans amid conflicting stakes among neighboring nations.