Word: kim
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...took us on a tour of the local hospital, a disturbing den of dank hallways and archaic equipment, and a department store offering a sparse selection of packaged food and clothing that looked like 1950s leftovers. After dark, students gathered at the foot of Sinuiju's giant statue of Kim Il Sung, the country's founding father, to finish their homework. With little electricity in the town, the spotlights pointed at the statue were one of the few sources of light. The North Koreans escorting us were so out of touch with the outside world that they showed us their...
North Korea's woes are a direct result of the regime's refusal to change its outdated economic system. Unlike China's leaders, who linked market-oriented reforms to the Communist Party's survival, Kim Jong Il and his cohorts see economic openness as a threat to their power and have in recent years intensified state control over the economy...
...market reform, including the proliferation of farmers' markets and the tilling of private plots. But in 2005, Pyongyang reversed course and began re-establishing the state's dominance over food distribution. Officials have even slapped new restrictions on the operation of marketplaces in recent years. (See pictures of Kim Jong...
...economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, believes that efforts to roll back reform have intensified in the past six months, symbolized by the return of mass-mobilization development strategies that echo the regime's policies of the 1950s. "The whole country and all the people," Kim Jong Il was quoted saying in a January editorial, "should launch a general offensive dynamically, sounding the advance for opening the gate to a great, prosperous and powerful nation...
Noland argues that this "almost back-to-the-future reversion of economic policy" stems from the same root cause as Pyongyang's recent belligerence: North Korean politics. North Korea watchers speculate that Kim Jong Il, who likely suffered a stroke last year, is maneuvering to install his son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor, and that Pyongyang's May nuclear test, recent war threats and anticipated long-range missile launch are all part of an effort to build support for the Kims, especially among the country's powerful military brass. Economic policy, Noland says, has become tied...