서울: 북한 김정일 정권은 항상 외화에 허덕이는 곤란함을 겪어 온 세월이 오래다. 수백만명이 굶어 죽게한 북한의, 스탈린식 독제체제정권은 1990년대에 중국과 지금은 없어져 버린 쏘연뱡으로 부터 원조가 끊겨 거의 정권이 전복될 위기에 쳐해 왔었다. 그후로 핵무기폐기 및 감축회담을 미끼로, 국제적인 원조도 받고 했으나, 여전히 먹을 쌀은 물론, 연료와 의약품의 품절로 고통을 당해 왔었다. 지난 몇년 사이에 김정일 독재 정권은, 그동안 개발을 무시해 오던 지하자원 즉 석탄,미네랄 그리고 아시아에서 가장 저장량이 많은 여러 지하물질들을, 조용히 개발하기 시작했었다. 국제시장에서 미네랄 가격은 폭등하면서, 남한 정부의 고위관리와 중국의 지하자원개발 전문가와 또한 북한 연구가들의 설명에 의하면 한반도가 남과 북으로 갈린이후 50년간, 전혀 보지 못했던 일들이 상상할수 없는 빠른 속도로 외국회사들의 지하자원 개발이 이루어지고 있다 한다. 그들의 설명에 의하면, 김정일 정권은 세계 각나라의 회사들에 채광권을 넘겨줄 의향이 강하고, 또한 합작투자도 협상중인 것이 많다고 한다. "지금 북한은 그들에게 없는것을 확보하기 위해 그들이 보유하고 있는것들을 팔려고 애쓰고 있읍니다" 라고 중국 장천의 진린 대학에서 동부 아시아학을 연구하고 있는 수웬지 교수는 설명합니다. 또한 남한과 중국의 사업가들에 의하면 이러한 지하자원개발 사업은 북한 관료들의 부정부패와 엉뚱한 행동으로, 사업이 깨지거나 지연되고 있다고 한다. "북한은 깡패집단이나 다름없는 정권입니다"라고 북한운송시설 문제로, 지하자원 개발계약을 취소한바 있는 한 중국회사의 매니져 선디아오씨는 분개해 합니다. 그래도 지난 3년간의 실적을 보면, 석탄과 아연의 수출은 급상승 했다고 한다. 또한 남한에 아연 수출과 태국에 금 수출 또한 마찬가지로 급상승했다고 한다. 지난 5월에 처음으로 북한 정권은 남한 정부와 장기간 지하자원개발 사업을 추진하기로 합의 한바 있으며, 또다른 사업들이 협의중에 있다고, 남한정부 통일부의 한 관료가 설명했읍니다. 남,북 정부의 관료들이,3번의 아연광및 마그네싸이트광 탐사를 포함한, 7번의 접촉이 북쪽의 광산촌에서 이루어 졌다고 한다. "북한의 정권의 실세들은 이제야 달라를 벌어들이기 위해서는 지하자원개발이 필요함을 깊이 인식하고 있다"라고 익명을 요구한 남한 정부관료의 설명이다. 북한의 김정일은 지난 8월에 한 기계제작공장을 방문한 자리에서 " 우리는 지하자원 개발을 위해 체광에 쓰이는 기계류의 개발을 서두르지 않으면 안된다"라고 독려 했음을 중앙통신은 전했다. 이상은 오늘자 와싱턴 포스트의 머리기사 였읍니다. 더 자세한 기사는 아래 원문 참조하면 됩니다 Cash-Starved North Korea Trades on Its Mineral Riches By Blaine Harden and Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, February 24, 2008; Page A01 SEOUL -- North Korea's Kim Jong Il has a chronic cash-flow problem. In the 1990s, his Stalinist state nearly capsized -- and millions starved -- for want of subsidies from China and the defunct Soviet Union. Since then, despite arms dealing and the receipt of international aid in return for talking about abandoning nuclear weapons, North Korea has often gone without rice, fuel and medicine. In the past couple of years, though, Kim's government has quietly begun to milk a long-neglected cash cow: deposits of coal, minerals and precious metals that are among the largest in Asia. As mineral prices soar on world markets, foreign access to mines in the North is accelerating at a rate unseen in the more than five decades since the division of the Korean Peninsula, according to South Korean government officials, Chinese mining experts and scholars who study North Korea. They say that Kim's government is increasingly willing to lease mines to outside companies and to negotiate joint ventures with foreign governments. "North Korea is trading what she has for what she hasn't," said Xu Wenji, a professor of East Asian studies at Jilin University in Changchun, China. At the same time, mining operations have been delayed and derailed by erratic, maddening and corrupt behavior on the part of North Korean officials, according to businessmen in South Korea and China. "North Korea -- they are a country of scoundrels," said Sun Demao, a manager at Zhaoyuan Gold, a Chinese company that has canceled all its contracts with mines in the North because of chronic delivery troubles. Still, exports of North Korean coal and zinc to China have jumped sharply in the past three years, as have zinc exports to South Korea and gold exports to Thailand. For the first time, North Korea agreed last May to a long-term joint mining deal with the South Korean government, and more deals are in the works, said Jeong Dong-moon, director of the inter-Korean industrial team in the South's Ministry of Unification. Officials from the two countries met seven times last year, including three inspection trips to a large zinc- and magnesite-mining complex in the North. "The North Korean leadership now realizes that mining is a realistic tool for getting dollars," said a senior South Korean official who attended the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his job. "We could feel their passion. They were really into it." Kim Jong Il told machinery workers last August, "We have to improve mining machinery spectacularly in greater scale," according to the official Korean Central News Agency. For many years, Kim Il Sung (who died in 1994) and his son Kim Jong Il (now 66 and leader since his father's death) preached a defiant philosophy of self-reliance, emphasizing local production of goods using local raw materials. Selling unprocessed minerals was seen as a demeaning submission to colonialism. The system worked, after a fashion, throughout the Cold War, with the help of large subsidies from the Soviet Union and China. When those subsidies fizzled out, North Korea descended into heavily armed penury, where it remains. "North Koreans don't understand modern business because they have never done it," said Andrei Lankov, a professor who specializes in North Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul. That lack of understanding, he said, has stalled and scuttled several mining operations. More important are Kim's conflicted feelings about mining, said Lankov, a Russian who studied in the North and is a periodic visitor there. "He sees the money now," Lankov said. "But he believes that by reforming, he would be committing suicide. So he wants mining done under strict control of North Korean managers." The cash infusion the North could receive from large-scale industrial mining is potentially huge, especially for a country that had just $1.4 billion in exports in 2006, according to a CIA estimate. The estimated value of the country's reserves is more than $2 trillion, according to the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. There are large deposits of iron ore, zinc and uranium, as well as coal. The North also has the world's largest known deposit of magnesite, an essential part of lightweight metal used in cars, airplanes and electronic equipment. As North Korea's closest ally and principal benefactor, China has had better access to its mines than any other country. In exchange for mining rights, China has helped the North construct roads, repair ports and build a glass factory, while providing oil, equipment and food. But even as Chinese investment grew in 2007, exports of some minerals stalled -- as Chinese businessmen bickered with North Korean officials about how to run the mines, according to Xu at Jilin University. Late last year, in a somewhat alarmist report, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry warned that South Korea was dithering while China was locking up rights to North Korea's minerals. The report said that in 2006, China imported more than four times the amount of minerals from North Korea as the South did, as measured in dollars. The report struck a nerve because the South has virtually no mineral wealth of its own. "We really need iron ore and magnesite," said Jeong at the South's Ministry of Unification. "We import everything." South Korea is rushing to catch up. It has opened regular rail freight service to parts of the North. At a summit last year, the leaders of North and South Korea agreed to $11 billion in economic projects. Zinc exports from the North to the South doubled last year. An unanswered question for South Korea is whether the new government of president-elect Lee Myung-bak, who takes office next week, will make denuclearization or human rights a condition of its investment in the North's mines. "It is clear that somebody has to pay for the infrastructure that will open up the North," said a South Korean official. "It just hasn't been decided who will pay the most." Cha reported from Shanghai. Special correspondent Stella Kim contributed to this report.