North Korea, Changes and Continuities, 1900-2008
by Outlined here is an analysis as well as a discussion of the changes and the continuities, which have occurred within or otherwise affected North Korea since the turn of the 20th century.
The hard line Stalinist nature of the North Korean government has meant that it has a poor relationship with South Korea and the West, whilst its population lack the basic necessities in life. That poor relationship with the West as far as the North Korean regime was concerned justified its huge military budgets, and quests to become a nuclear power.
During the middle of the 1990s a series of poor harvests led to a widespread famine in rural areas of North Korea. The North Korean regime was slow to react to the famine, whilst it very reluctantly sought aid from South Korea and the United States to feed its own population. Since the early 1990s the North Korean regime has had a stop-go nuclear weapons programme. Whenever it has agreed to halt that programme it has sought food and fuel aid in return.
The North Korean regime arguably is highly responsible for the continuity of the country’s poverty. The unwillingness of the regime to reform the decrepit state owned economy, or to drastically reduce extremely high levels of expenditure on excessively large armed forces means that the standard of living in North Korea is amongst the lowest in the world. Kim Jong Il over the long-term is very unlikely to introduce the economic reforms or cuts in military expenditure that could help to raise living standards.
In purely economic terms the North Korean regime’s continued strained relations with the United States and South Korea in particular proves to be highly detrimental to the country as a whole. North Korea simply cannot afford to maintain its vast array of conventional armed forces let alone its on-off nuclear weapons programmes. Kim Jong Il remains as unwilling to reduce the size of North Korea’s armed forces as his father was, regarding a large army as the guarantee of his regime’s continued existence.
To conclude the main change between 1900 and 2008 was the partition of Korea, although it was originally a temporary measure taken at the end of 1945. The main continuities have been poverty and the Communist regime in North Korea.
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