An Empirical Analysis on DPRK: Will Grain Yield Influence Foreign Policy Tendency?

Abstract

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the hub of Northeast Asia and its geopolitics is of great significance, whose foreign policy trend is not only related to the peace and stability of the region, but also one of the major variables affecting cooperation in Northeast Asia. According to the data on North Korea’s grain yield collected by the Korea National Statistical Office, supplemented by the data on international food aid to North Korea collected by the World Food Programme, and combined with the judgment of 10 experts from China, South Korea and the United States on the Hawk and Dove Index of North Korea’s foreign policy from 1990 to 2018, we use empirical mode decomposition wavelet transform data analysis and feature extraction methods to study the impact relationship, and OLS regression analysis to study the actual cycle of transformation. We found that: (1) North Korea’s grain output is an important indicator that affects its foreign policy tendency (hawks or doves). The hawk refers to those who take a tough attitude in policy and prefer rigid means such as containment, intimidation and conflicts; the dove refers to those who take mild attitude in policy, and prefer to adopt flexible means such as negotiation, cooperation, and coordination. When it comes to grain yield increase, North Korea’s foreign policy tends to be hawkish; when it comes to grain reduction, its dovish tendency will be on the rise. This is because food increase can alleviate grain shortage in North Korea and enhance its ability to adopt tough policies in its foreign policy. However, decreases in grain production will lead to adopt a more moderate policy and seek international cooperation and assistance to ease the internal pressure caused by grain shortage. (2) North Korea’s grain yield influencing its foreign policy (hawks or doves) has a lag phase of about 3 years. Such being the case, the accumulated grain during the production increase period has enhanced North Korea’s ability to cope with grain reduction in the short term. Secondly, the North Korean government blames the reduction on foreign sanctions, which will instead make the North Korean people more determined to resist external pressure. Therefore, we can use the changes in North Korea’s grain output to predict the direction of its foreign policy so as to more accurately judge the development of the Korean Peninsula and more effectively promote the process of peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia. We concluded that grain production will affect its policy sustainability in North Korea.