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Modern North Korea


Modern North Korea

With the nation in shambles after the war, Kim Il-Sung launched a campaign to unite the people by defaming the United States with Soviet support and purging the nation of dissidents and anyone thought to oppose him. He sided with China during the Sino-Soviet Split on Communist philosophy because he disliked Kruschev's reforms but began to praise the Soviet Union once again when China underwent its Cultural Revolution, straining relations with both neighbors. Consequently, he developed his own ideology, Juche (self-reliance), to create the sort of Communism he wanted for his nation. Throughout his life he added to and clarified the Juche ideology in order to justify his governing decisions. After Kim Sung-Il's death in 1994, his son Kim Jong-Il became the nation's leader and continues to rule to this day. The Korean War not only divided the people, but it also divided the labor force. When the peninsula was united, North Korea had most of the nation's industries while South Korea was the agricultural center. This divide allowed North Korea to initially bounce back faster than the South in the rebuilding process. The Soviet Union then funded agricultural efforts in the North, in accordance with the Communist model. This system began to unravel in the late 1970s and 1980s as the Soviet system began to falter. With the end of Soviet aid in 1991 there was no way to continue to support the agricultural systems need for fuel, fertilizer and equipment. After so many years of government mismanagement, and the bad timing of severe flooding, the North's agricultural system collapsed in the mid-1990s leading to widespread famine and death for countless North Koreans. The North finally allowed international relief agencies to assist and the worst aspects of the famine were contained. However the DPRK continues to rely heavily on international food aid to feed its population while at the same time continuing to expend resources on its "songun", or "military first" policy, which Kim Jong-Il uses in conjunction with his father's Juche ideology (which he now "interprets"). Today the DPRK maintains an army of about 1 million men, most stationed within a few miles of the DMZ which divides the two Koreas. North Korea's long-range missile development and research into nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and massive conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international community. In December 2002, Kim Jong-Il reneged on a 1994 "Agreed Framework" signed by his father which required the shut down of its nuclear reactors, expelling UN monitors and further raising fears that the nation would produce nuclear weapons. Missile testing was conducted in 1998, 2006, and most recently April 2009. In October 2006 North Korea announced that it had conducted its first nuclear test. These actions have led to UN and other international sanctions. Current negotiations, most notably the "Six-Party Talks" involving China, Russia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and the United States, are aimed at bringing about an end to the DPRK nuclear weapons program, in hopes that a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War may finally be agreed upon, paving the way for the opening of diplomatic ties between North Korea and the United States. Unfortunately, in March 2010, a South Korean ship was sunk near the 38th parallel, increasing tensions between North and South Korea. Although North Korea claims not to have attacked the ship, the blame has largely been placed on North Korea.

The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about North Korea


Where To Stay & Best Hotels in North Korea - updated Mar 2024

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North Korea Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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