North Korea

Overview of North Korea

• North Korea’s foreign policy on the nuclear issue co­incides in many respects with the country’s general foreign policy strategy, which is based on a “clearly realpolitik view of the world of states” and in which sovereignty and power are “the key categories in the cognitive perception and evaluation of international contexts”.30 In concrete terms, this is reflected in a dual strategy of autonomy-seeking and influence-maximising policies, which are understood as two forms of power politics.31 While an autonomy-seeking policy serves “to maintain or strengthen one’s own independence from other states”, or “to ward off new dependencies or to reduce existing dependencies on other states”, countries try to use a policy of influence to “steer certain interaction processes with other states a
• North Korean defectors[219] have provided detailed testimonies on the existence of the total control zones where abuses such as torture, starvation, rape, murder, medical experimentation, forced labor, and forced abortions have been reported.[205] On the basis of these abuses, as well as persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, forcible transfer of populations, enforced disappearance of persons and forced starvation, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry has accused North Korea of crimes against humanity.[220][221][222] The International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK) estimates that over 10,000 people die in North Korean prison camps every year.[223]
• North Korea has the structural profile of a relatively industrialized country[318] where nearly half of the Gross Domestic Product is generated by industry[319] and human development is at medium levels.[320] Purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is estimated at $40 billion,[11] with a very low per capita value of $1,800.[12] In 2012, Gross national income per capita was $1,523, compared to $28,430 in South Korea.[321] The North Korean won is the national currency, issued by the Central Bank of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.[322] The economy has been developing dramatically in recent years despite sanctions according to the Sejong Institute these changes have been “astonishing”.[323]
• North Korea shares the Korean language with South Korea, although some dialectal differences exist within both Koreas.[264] North Koreans refer to their Pyongyang dialect as munhwaŏ (“cultured language”) as opposed to the dialects of South Korea, especially the Seoul dialect or p’yojun’ŏ (“standard language”), which are viewed as decadent because of its use of loanwords from Chinese and European languages (particularly English).[292] Words of Chinese, Manchu or Western origin have been eliminated from munhwa along with the usage of Chinese hancha characters.[292] Written language uses only the chosŏn’gŭl (Hangul) phonetic alphabet, developed under Sejong the Great (1418–1450).[293]
• North Korea draws a direct line from this historical experience to the current clashes with the USA over its nuclear programme, which it has repeatedly called a “showdown” that will decide its sovereignty and independence.27 Since peace can never be guaranteed and war can only be prevented by deterrence, accord­ing to the DPRK military clout is the only option to secure these primary goals of the North Korean state.28 Locating the nuclear programme within this over­arching historical frame of reference defines the con­frontation with the United States to be the current chapter in Korea’s historical efforts to achieve in­dependence and sovereignty.
• North Korea is widely accused of having perhaps the worst human rights record in the world.[24] A 2014 UN inquiry into human rights in North Korea concluded that, “The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world”.[25] North Koreans have been referred to as “some of the world’s most brutalized people” by Human Rights Watch, because of the severe restrictions placed on their political and economic freedoms.[26][27] The North Korean population is strictly managed by the state and all aspects of daily life are subordinated to party and state planning.
• North Korea was thus the first state to be sanctioned by the UN for violating non-proliferation obligations.140 Resolution 1718, adopted in 2006 after the first nuclear weapons test under Chapter VII of the Charter, obliged Pyongyang to “abandon all […] existing weapons of mass destruc­tion and ballistic missile programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner”.141 The Security Coun­cil thus laid down a binding standard for all ne­gotiations with North Korea, which it had reaffirm­ed in nine further resolutions by late 2017.
• North Korea is the first country the IAEA was able to catch red-handed, during a significant attempt at deception, independently and without the help of intelligence services.134 Pyongyang only accept­ed the IAEA’s comprehensive safeguards, which are com­pulsory for non-nuclear weapons states that are mem­bers of the NPT, very late: in 1992.135 During the sub­sequent inspections, the IAEA discovered that Pyong­yang’s declaration was inconsistent and found in­dications that North Korea had secretly reprocessed plutonium.
• North Koreans who do attempt to leave the country illegally and are caught can face severe consequences including torture, forced labor, and life-imprisonment in a political prison camp.Those who are allowed to travel abroad – like diplomats, elite students, recruited workers, and athletes – are monitored closely and must attend special ideological debriefs once they return to North Korea.‍”Before we left North Korea, our team was warned not to be swayed by the capitalism we would see in the outside world.
• North Korea’s most famous restaurant, Okryu-gwan, located in Pyongyang, is known for its raengmyeon cold noodles.[435] Other dishes served there include gray mullet soup with boiled rice, beef rib soup, green bean pancake, sinsollo and dishes made from terrapin.[436][437] Okryu-gwan sends research teams into the countryside to collect data on Korean cuisine and introduce new recipes.[435] Some Asian cities host branches of the Pyongyang restaurant chain where waitresses perform music and dance.[438]

Size

It is viewed by the official North Korean line as an embodiment of Kim Il-sung’s wisdom, an expression of his leadership, and an idea which provides “a complete answer to any question that arises in the struggle for national liberation”.[128] Juche was pronounced in December 1955 in a speech called On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work in order to emphasize a Korea-centered revolution.[128] Its core tenets are economic self-sufficiency, military self-reliance and an independent foreign policy. The Juche ideology is the cornerstone of party works and government operations. The roots of Juche were made up of a complex mixture of factors, including the cult of personality centered on Kim Il-sung, the conflict with pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese dissenters, and Korea’s centuries-long struggle for independence.[129] Juche was introduced into the constitution in 1972.[130][131]

Population

Employment is managed by the party on the basis of political reliability, and travel is tightly controlled by the Ministry of People’s Security.[210]

Continent

In fact, they also have to tackle the military, economic and political threats posed by North Korea. It is therefore only superficially true to claim that Europe and Germany are uninvolved third parties in this conflict. Proliferation risks are a political challenge for the entire international community. The nuclear threat emanating from North Korea does not only apply to its neighbouring states and the American mainland. With the alleged testing of a hydrogen bomb on 3 September 2017 and three intercontinental missile tests in July and November of the same year, North Korea demonstrated the significant progress it has made in developing nuclear weapons and missile capabilities.

History of North Korea

• In 2001, the new George W.
• On 3 September 2017, North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test at Punggye-ri.
• On 9 September 2016, North Korea carried out its fifth nuclear test to coincide with the 68th anniversary of the founding of North Korea.
•  In the 1980s especially, North Korea acceded to a number of such agreements.
• In 1910, Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan.
• In 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (Korean: 조선민주주의인민공화국, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk; listen) as its new legal name.
• In 1948, North Korea attempted to make the script perfectly morphophonemic through the addition of new letters, and in 1953, Syngman Rhee in South Korea attempted to simplify the orthography by returning to the colonial orthography of 1921, but both reforms were abandoned after only a few years.[27]
• In 1954, the 1933 proposal was replaced by a new system (Korean: 조선어 철자법) by the North Korean government in which thirteen words were slightly modified.
• In 1959, North Korea and the Soviet Union signed an agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy that included a provision for Soviet help to establish a nuclear research complex in Yongbyon, North Pyongan Province.
• In 1959, relations with Japan had improved somewhat, and North Korea began allowing the repatriation of Japanese citizens in the country.
• In 1972, the two Koreas agreed in principle to achieve reunification through peaceful means and without foreign interference.[179] On 10 October 1980, then North Korean president Kim Il-sung proposed a federation between North and South Korea named the Democratic Federal Republic of Korea in which the respective political systems would initially remain.[180] However, relations remained cool well until the early 1990s, with a brief period in the early 1980s when North Korea offered to provide flood relief to its southern neighbor.[181] Although the offer was initially welcomed, talks over how to deliver the relief goods broke down and none of the promised aid ever crossed the border.[182] The two countries also organized a reunion of 92 separated families.[183]
• In 1979, the U.S.
• In 1983, 18 members of then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan’s entourage were killed during a visit to Burma.
• In 1984, North Korea donates 7,200 tons of rice, 550,000 yards of cloth and 759 cases of medicine to South Korea following a flood, coinciding with a peak in North Korean grain production at 10 million tons.
• In 1988, it acceded to the Geneva Protocol, which prohibits the use of asphyxiating, poisonous, and other gases in warfare.
• In 1989, the Central Bureau of Statistics released demographic data to the United Nations Population Fund in order to secure the UNFPA’s assistance in holding North Korea’s first nationwide census since the establishment of the state in 1948.
• In 1992, however, bilateral talks were broken off because North Korea officially denied the kidnapping of Japanese citizens.
• In 1992, the IAEA detected that North Korea had secretly attempted to reprocess plutonium.
• In 1993, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT, but suspended that withdrawal before it took effect.[18]
• In 1993, North Korea gave notice to withdraw from the NPT.
• In 1994, North Korea pledged, under the Agreed Framework with the United States, to freeze its plutonium programs and dismantle all its nuclear weapons programs in return for the normalization of diplomatic relations and several kinds of assistance, including resources for alternative energy supplies.[62]
• In 1994, the crisis was defused when the Clinton administration concluded the Agreed Framework with North Korea, a deal that halted a programme which might have produced by now enough plutonium for scores of nuclear bombs.
• In 1994, the North Koreans went so far as to call the Chinese “traitors to the socialist cause” until their own worsening situation and growing dependence on China made it prudent to tone down the rhetoric.
• In 1995, a Korean living in the US contacted us in the hopes of meeting his mother and younger siblings in North Korea.
• In 1995, food rations were cut off for more than nine months, even for workers in the munitions factories.
• In 1999, intelligence sources claim that North Korea had sold missile components to Iran.[226] Listed directors of Hap Heng include Kim Song in and Ko Myong Hun.[227] Ko Myong Hun is now a listed diplomat in Beijing[228] and may be involved in the work of KOMID.[229]
• In 2002 Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC) were abolished and along with them went all the different coloured currencies.
• In 2002, it eased some restrictions in order to allow semi-private markets and launched a series of economic reforms that it referred to as Economic Management Improvement Measures.
• In 2002, North Korea acknowledged the abduction of 13 Japanese citizens and sent five back to Japan, along with death certificates for the remaining eight and the purported remains of 1 of those 8.19 In 2004, the North Korean government returned the alleged remains of Megumi Yokota, a young woman who is often considered the face of the abductee issue.
• In 2003, North Korea again announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[18] In 2005, it admitted to having nuclear weapons but vowed to close the nuclear program.[25][26]
• In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).[9] Since 2006, the country has been conducting a series of six nuclear tests at increasing levels of expertise, prompting the imposition of sanctions.[10]
• In 2005, North Korea’s total range with its Nodong missiles was estimated as 900 km with a 1,000 kg payload.[181] That is enough to reach South Korea, and parts of Japan, Russia, and China.
• In 2006, the US Treasury Department appar­ently succeeded in identifying accounts of the North Korean leadership at a bank in Macau (Banco Delta Asia).
• In 2007, a Bush administration official assessed that, while there was still a “high confidence” that North Korea acquired materials that could be used in a “production-scale” uranium program, there is only a “mid-confidence” level such a production-scale uranium (rather than merely plutonium) program exists.[153][154]
• In 2007, reports from Washington suggested that the 2002 CIA reports stating that North Korea was developing an enriched uranium weapons program, which led to North Korea leaving the NPT, had overstated or misread the intelligence.[87][88][89][90] On the other hand, even apart from these press allegations, there remains some information in the public record indicating the existence of a uranium effort.
• In 2008 a South Korean tourist who strayed into a restricted military area was shot dead.
• In 2009, all inspectors were forced to leave the country.
• In 2009, North Korea responded by ending all of its previous agreements with the South.[187] It deployed additional ballistic missiles[188] and placed its military on full combat alert after South Korea, Japan and the United States threatened to intercept a Unha-2 space launch vehicle.[189] The next few years witnessed a string of hostilities, including the alleged North Korean involvement in the sinking of South Korean warship Cheonan,[88] mutual ending of diplomatic ties,[190] a North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island,[191] and growing international concern over North Korea’s nuclear program.[192]
• In 2010, the South Korean corvette Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo and the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong came under North Korean artillery fire.
• In 2011, before the rise of Kim Jong Un, 2,706 North Koreans arrived in South Korea; only 1,137 arrived in 2018 and only 771 between January and September 2019.  
• In 2011, North Korea announced Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-un, as its new leader.
• In 2011, the Libyan government of Muammar al-Gaddafi was overthrown in the Libyan Civil War with the assistance of a military intervention by NATO forces acting under the auspices of UN Security Council Resolution 1973.
• In 2012 the South Korean government assessed that North Korea could have between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, potentially one of the largest stockpiles on Earth.
• In 2012, a long-range rocket launch thwarted plans for the USA to send 240,000 tons of food aid in return for suspending nuclear weapons testing.
• In 2012, China gave 240,074 tons of rice, more than 80 times what Europe gave North Korea that same year.
• In 2013, cardiovascular disease as a single disease group was reported as the largest cause of death in North Korea.[274] The three major causes of death in North Korea are stroke, COPD and Ischaemic heart disease.[277] Non-communicable diseases risk factors in North Korea include high rates of urbanization, an aging society, and high rates of smoking and alcohol consumption amongst men.[274]
• In 2013, this lineage was made explicit when Clause 2 of Article 10 of the newly edited Ten Fundamental Principles of the Korean Workers’ Party stated that the party and revolution must be carried “eternally” by the “Mount Paektu Bloodline”.[140]
• In 2014, the People’s Republic reacted with comparatively constructive statements concerning the recommendations suggested in the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council, but without actually improving its human rights situation.
• In 2016 administrators of the now defunct criminal marketplace AlphaBay attempted to manipulate the price of Monero, encouraging mass buying of the currency.
• In 2016, North Korea tested over twenty ballistic missiles, three of which came down in waters belonging to Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
• In 2016, the last year for which estimates were available, North Korea spent an estimated $4 billion, or approximately 24% of it gross domestic product (GDP), on defense spending.
• In 2016, the State Affairs Commission (SAC) was established as the country’s top ruling organ, and Kim Jong-un was named its chairman.
• In 2017, China supported a number of UN sanctions, including (for the first time) the restriction of oil sup­plies to reduce North Korea’s oil imports by 30 per­cent.
• In 2017, close to 86% of the region’s exports from North Korea were directed to China. The country’s main exports are metallurgical products, minerals, manufactured products, textiles, and agricultural and fishery products.
• In 2017, eleven successful tests were conducted on missiles, five of which either struck Japanese waters or flew over Japanese terri­tory.114 In its 2017 Defence White Paper, Tokyo rated this development a “new threat level for the region and Japan”.115 In January 2018, Prime Minister Abe Shinzô declared that North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles represented a threat to his country that was unprecedented in its gravity and acuteness.116
• In 2017, for instance, China’s pri­mary concern was preventing war, after Trump stated that “all options are on the table” to the resolve the North Korean conflict, including military action.
• In 2017, Kim Jong-nam, the estranged elder half-brother of Kim Jong-un, was assassinated with VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia by suspected North Korean agents.[173]
• In 2017, North Korea conducted several tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles, two of which demonstrated the capability to potentially reach the continental United States.
• In 2017, North Korea successfully tested the Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15, its first ICBMs, which some experts believe gives North Korea the capability to deliver a nuclear payload anywhere in the United States.
• In 2017, North Korea test-launched two ICBMs, the second of which had sufficient range to reach the continental United States.[55] In September 2017, the country announced a further “perfect” hydrogen bomb test.
• In 2017, the country successfully tested three long-range missiles that could theoretically hit the US home­land.9 On this basis, Kim Jong Un announced in his New Year’s address on 1 January 2018 that he had achieved his goal of creating a nuclear deterrent against the USA.10 The USA, however, does not intend to accept such a capacity.
• In 2017, Washington also imposed secondary sanc­tions in connection with North Korea’s nuclear weap­ons and missile programmes (as previously in the case of Iran).
• In 2018, Presidents Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Donald Trump of the United States held a series of summits with Kim Jong-un which led to declarations in favor of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
• In 2018, unscheduled cargo plane flights were quickly spotted leaving Pyongyang bound for Vladivostok, Russia.
• In 2019 alone, after a year of silence brought on by the promise of post-Singapore concessions, North Korea launched 19 short-range ballistic missiles into South Korean and Japanese waters.
• In 2019 that figure stood at 1,047.
• In 2019, Kim Jong Un’s government continued to try to stop people from leaving North Korea without permission, by jamming Chinese mobile phone services at the border, targeting for arrest those communicating with people outside the country or trying to leave, and publicizing punishments imposed on persons caught escaping.
• In 2019, that figure stood at 1,047.
• In the 1960s until the 1980s, North Korea tried to incite revolution in the South and undertook numerous terrorist attacks.
• In the 1960s, DPRK first received shipments of short-range ballistic missiles from its main ally, the Soviet Union.
• In the 1970s, China and North Korea cooperated on defense, including on the development and production of ballistic missiles.
• In the 1990s, North Korea sold medium-sized nuclear capable missiles to Pakistan in a deal facilitated by China.[182]
• In the 1990s, the United States negotiated the Agreed Framework to freeze North Korea’s nuclear weapons program while pursuing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
• In the 1990s, North Korea acquired access to Pakistani centrifuge technology and designs from scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had directed the militarization of Pakistan’s nuclear program.
• In the 2000s, North Korea expanded its tactics for recovering its economy.
• On 2 October 2006, the North Korean foreign minister announced that his country was planning to conduct a nuclear test “in the future”, although it did not state when.[85] On Monday, 9 October 2006 at 01:35:28 (UTC) the United States Geological Survey detected a magnitude 4.3 seismic event 70 km (43 mi) north of Kimchaek, North Korea indicating a nuclear test.[86] The North Korean government announced shortly afterward that they had completed a successful underground test of a nuclear fission device.
• On 3 July 2017, North Korea tested the Hwasong-14 ballistic missile, which the United States later confirmed to be an ICBM.
• On 3 September 2017 North Korea conducted by far its largest nuclear test to date, at its Punggye-ri test site.
• On 4 July 2009, a botnet with around 20,000 bots paralysed the websites of government institutions in the US and South Korea.
• On 7 February 2016, North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket, supposedly to place a satellite into orbit.
• On 8 July 2020, the CNN reported that satellite imagery showed activity at a North Korean facility, which was suspected by researchers of being utilized for building nuclear warheads.
• On 9 March 2016, North Korea released photographs depicting Kim Jong Un examining what the DPRK claims is a miniaturized nuclear implosion device in front of several partially assembled KN-08 mod 1 and mod 2 missiles.