ACADEMIC LECTURE BY PROFESSOR ANDREI LANKOV

North Korea is more than just “the last Stalinist state.” It’s a survival laboratory where a spontaneous market economy coexists with total state control. The old socialist system collapsed in the 1990sout of its ruins emerged a black market, which later became semi-legal, and now functions as an almost official system of internal capitalism. Why do the Kims tolerate this? How does this hybrid economy work? And why is “a step backward” sometimes part of the strategy? Andrei Lankov one of the world’s leading experts on North Korea, professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, author of numerous books and academic publications, and a regular commentator for Western media will explain how North Korea balances between chaos and control, how its economy really functions, and why things there are far more complex than they seem.