Diners can pay through a mobile QR-code system.
Being impressed that they have almost 2 decades old technology is kind of telling of how bad it is. Smartphones today can be had as low as $50! Not really a sign of wealth or progress to have 20 year old technology that has now become dirt cheap.
I also bet the reason for the popularity of smartphones is that the infrastructure building a wireless network is way way cheaper today than to build an old fashioned wired phone network that everybody can access.
Last year, North Korea built 10,000 new homes in Pyongyang—more than either Los Angeles or Chicago.
Being impressed that the regime builds a crazy amount of housing in the capital city is probably based on ignorance.
For instance Romania did the same under Nicolae Ceaușescu, and then forced people to move to that.
This is probably simply prestige projects by the regime, to try to force a development that makes the country appear more modern, without having the actual economic development necessary for the change in infrastructure. At least that’s what it usually is when dictators make these kinds of projects. People are merely moved from poverty in one place to poverty in another place.
North Korea didn’t turn around its economy by itself. The Kim regime fortified its energy supply and access to construction materials by sending munitions and more than 15,000 troops to the Russian front lines in the Ukraine war.
And
Many of Kim’s army of cyber thieves live in China, where they can more freely connect to the internet and operate without fear of arrest by outside authorities.
So the 2 main sources of income for North Korea are based on crimes and one of them is even only temporary.
This is not a success story, as there is nothing sustainable in this so called impressive economic development.
Outside the capital city, North Korea remains poor, with nearly half of its 26 million residents malnourished,
That’s strange, if they can go to a diner, and use a smartphone to pay through a QR code system. /s
The truth is that North Korea remains extremely poor, but the regime continues with prestige projects that mostly benefit the rich in North Korea. And in North Korea rich apparently means being able to afford a smartphone, and being able to eat every day.
China is a major ally to North Korea, and obviously Russia is too. Why wouldn’t it be enough trade to have access to the biggest global market in the world (China), and the market with the most natural resources too (Russia).
North Korea has plenty access to trade, this is not like Cuba or even Iran. North Korea has constantly threatened surrounding countries including Japan. Cuba hasn’t and even Iran didn’t threaten their neighbors more than than they were threatened by their neighbors. Iran actually made an agreement with USA and EU. North Korea never wanted to even negotiate, except for easing the famine caused by extreme North Korean incompetence.
When you are starving in the province, it doesn’t help that prestige apartments are built in the city. We have seen other dictators do this too, and it does NOT improve living conditions, on the contrary it is spending resources in a way that doesn’t benefit either the people or the country. If you can’t afford food, chances are you can’t afford to rent an apartment in the city either.
No other country has had so consistently repeated famines as North Korea, just look at South Korea, and you can see how a better managed country with almost the exact same geographic conditions and trade opportunities can work. If you can’t see the difference in how badly North Korea is managed compared to every other country in the world, then you are blind to reality.
Are you insane or a child? How is Epstein in any way relevant to this?
First of all, the peace agreement was entered in 1953 after 3 years of war. Not so long after the communists took over in China in 1949. China has moved on and recovered after the WW2 occupation by Japan and the civil war after. North Korea has had 73 years to recover, but is arguably worse today than they were 73 years ago.
To continue to blame “the west” three quarters of a century after is insane, and a willful act of denying reality.
There is absolutely nothing good about North Korea, and the North Korean regime has no excuses for how bad it is.
The people however, are probably mostly innocent victims to circumstances that are very hard for them to change.
Why don’t you consider the plight of the malnourished and oppressed people of North Korea? Instead of defending a regime that is among the very worst and most cruel and brutal in the world?