The modern history of a divided Korea is blighted by unfortunate timing. Take the death in 1994 of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, which came just as there appeared to be a breakthrough in talks with the U.S. Or South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea, which was launched with an incoming U.S. administration moving in the opposite direction.

Will we have to add 2015 to the list of bad timing on the Korean peninsula?

Right now, it seems clear that North Korea is entering a phase of economic experimentation. The so-called “May 30th" measures of 2014, expanding on similar steps taken in 2012, marks the biggest shift away from state planning that the country has ever taken.

The details haven’t been publicly announced, but enough information has surfaced to know that some farmers will get to keep 60% of their produce and work teams will drop to family size.

Less clear is how factories are to be run, though we hear that state-owned companies are being given more autonomy. Factory bosses will decide their own inputs and outputs, as well as get some freedom in setting wages. This would take a whole slew of enterprises off the state planning system, so that while they remain state-owned, decisions would be driven by localized assessments of market needs.