this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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What’s it truly like to live in communist north korea right now? I know that most of the buzz around how it’s a failed state and they’re starving the people are mostly propaganda, but it’s so hard to tell fact from fiction especially since there’s propaganda within the state as well.
Keep in mind that the DPRK had 20% of its people killed off in a matter of 3 years and much of its land destroyed.
So, while there have been a famine in recent memory (during the 1990s), this has been a result of the economic embargo and sanctions on the country.
I'm trying to be as honest as I can with you here.
Yeah that’s wild, i just listened to the Blowback podcast and during the korean war the US military ran out of north korean targets to bomb.
People keep referencing that north korea is a hermit kingdom and that it actively does not want to participate in the global economy and … that makes sense? I too would be paranoid and disinclined to negotiate with the outside world after having the outside world literally burn me into rubble.
Keep in mind that North Korea, or the DPRK, can't really trade except for with countries like China and the Russian Federation (and even then illegally while those two countries look the other way).
It's literally in an embargo that's been going on for decades now.
That too. Although, I wonder what the terms of the embargos are, and what north korea has to do on their side to appease the west and allow trade.
Oh why is this country so corrupt and backwards! Let’s put more sanctions in to restrict its trade and starve its citizens.
Western logic 😵💫
Cuba tried to ask for such terms and was told no terms would be offered.
Per Blowback, Che offered to the US, in exchange for lifting the blockade:
No exporting Revolution
No military alliance with the USSR
Cuba wouldn’t / couldn’t directly pay back the US for appropriated property, but were willing to reimburse the US over time through terms of trade
Really, the only non-negotiable was that Cuba was a communist country, and would have communist governance and a communist economy. JFK thought it was a sign of weakness on Cuba’s part and turned them down.
Yeah, there are virtually no terms (from what I've read), as the country's leadership is seen as undemocratic and dictatorial and, therefore, the United States and its allies dictate the terms (and DPRK has to follow them) while North Korea doesn't get a say. It is called a rogue state partly for that reason (as opposed to a country like Saudi Arabia, which has often been a staunch partner of the United States).
But we know that it has a functioning democracy at various levels; certainly no worse than most Western democracies.
Most of the recent-ish embargoes (last few decades) are most directly the US and friends punishing the DPRK's development of nuclear weaponry. This is plainly because the nuclear arms are one of the DPRK's strongest deterrents to US invasion, since it's not as though the DPRK wants to use those weapons or intends to except under the circumstances of being invaded by foreign powers.
There are a dozen of stories like this, because I feel like every president has tried to be the one to "fix" the North Korea situation.
Bill Clinton actually negotiated a standown of the DPRK's nuclear program during his presidency - in return, the US would fund and oversee the construction and operation of two large power plants in the country to make up for the loss of nuclear power.
When he brought the deal back to Congress, they refused to ratify it. You could build two power plants with spare change in Congresses couch cushions, and the US was running a surplus at the time thanks in part to Clinton gutting welfare, but they refused on the grounds that they didn't want to pay for it and after waiting six months the Kim Jong Il government realized it wasn't going to happen and started up their nuclear program again.
Imagine what else could have happened over the last thirty years if we had gotten the snowball rolling with this one deal cooperating with the DPRK.
If you're interested in what the UN sanctions resulting from their nuclear program are, they're here and they are very very broad.
They used to trade with other countries. They were unique in the communist world for how much they traded with capitalist countries. It's why they outperformed south Korea for so long. The embargo against them crashed their economy (along with the collapse of the USSR) which led to the crisis of the 90s until now