North Korea—Profile | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

(2001 est. pop. 22 million). The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is located in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. It is bordered on the north by China and Russia, and below the thirty-eighth parallel by the Republic of Korea; east and west it borders the sea. Its total area, 120,540 square kilometers, accounts for 55 percent of the Korean Peninsula. It is slightly smaller than the state of Mississippi. Because 80 percent of the country is mountainous—in contrast to the south, the peninsula's agricultural center—the North Korean economy is primarily industrial, including manufacturing, mining, hydroelectric production, and metallurgy.

Its primary rivers, the Yalu and Tumen, are both located in the extreme north. P'yongyang, the capital city, is home to 10 percent of North Korea's population.

Since its inception in 1948 the DPRK has been governed by a socialist regime headed by the Kim family. Kim Il Sung (1912–1994), secretary general of the Korean Workers' Party (KWP), remained the country's only political leader until his death. By the 1980s, however, he had begun grooming the nation to accept his son as his successor, and within three years of his father's death Kim Jong Il (b. 1941) had succeeded in assuming the three important positions once held by the elder Kim: secretary general of the KWP, head of state, and commander of the armed forces.

University of Chicago professor Bruce Cumings describes the North Korean domestic political structure as "socialist corporatism," a system anchored by three pillars: hierarchy, organic connection (internal connection, the connection with Korean virtue), and family. The core political thought of this corporatism is juche, a concept that translates as "self-reliance." In the minds of the North Korean government, juche legitimizes the policies of the KWP, especially in relation to South Korea: whereas the latter lacks juche, and must rely on a foreign military to maintain its political position, North Korea, having liberated itself from foreign troops in 1958, sees itself as self-reliant, and thus the legitimate political power on the Korean Peninsula.

Within the framework of DPRK foreign relations, juche was first practiced to play the Soviet-Chinese rift to North Korea's political and economic advantage. The North Korean government skillfully avoided choosing sides in the conflict, instead securing economic and strategic assistance from both countries. More recently juche is apparent in the DPRK's efforts to secure nuclear and missile technology. This technology provides the DPRK with an energy supply, weapons for security, trade items for hard currency, and chips for bargaining.

Since its inception the North Korean economy has been driven by a series of long-term (fiveto ten-year)

plans. Until recently the system generally prohibited market-driven economic activity, save for allowing people to sell small amounts of produce from their private plots. Throughout this early period the North Korean government depended on Soviet, Chinese, and (to a much lesser extent) Eastern European assistance for its economic growth. The cheap oil provided by the Soviet Union, in particular, was essential for North Korean economic development. Economic assistance—much less than the United States provided South Korea—helped the DPRK outperform the Republic of Korea in economic production, at least through the early 1970s.

North Korea recovered from the destruction of the Korean War at a faster pace than did its southern neighbor; by the end of the 1950s it had surpassed the industrial and agricultural levels attained before the war. The first three-year plan started just before the Korean War ended; it was succeeded by a series of five-, seven-, and ten-year plans. In 1956 the government felt confident enough in the state's economic circumstances to initiate the cho'llima ("flying horse") movement, an effort designed to encourage North Korean workers to make the "superhuman effort" required to rebuild the country without relying on external assistance, according to Suh Dae-Sook (1988).

The fragility of this economic system became evident soon after the United States began to seek amicable relations with the Soviet Union and China. North Korea remained economically strong only as long as the socialist economic network offered preferential prices. The North Korean economy weakened even further in the 1980s when the Soviet Union and China began to demand hard currency in exchange for their products. The end of the Cold War improved relations between the two Communist giants and South Korea, effectively ending much of North Korean economic activity with its traditional allies. In the 1990s flooding exacerbated systemic problems of energy procurement and food distribution, leaving the country's economy in shambles and its people starving.

The DPRK has attempted to cure its economic deficiencies in a number of ways. Since the 1980s it has attempted to attract foreign currency through arms exports, in particular through missile sales to Middle Eastern states such as Syria and Iran. In 1991 it established a special economic zone in the northern area of Rajin-Songbong to encourage foreign investment. More recently the government has relaxed restrictions on private enterprise. Recent trips to China by Kim Jong Il have led some to speculate that the North Korean leader is considering adopting policies similar to those enacted by the Chinese to breathe fresh life into his country's ailing economy.

North Korea is populated by one of the most homogeneous peoples in the world, unified by language and neo-Confucian ideology, and fortified by what some have called a Kim cult, or Kim Il Sungism. Kim Il Sung's name is used for the national university, national museums, and other public institutions; his face appears throughout the country on murals and monuments. Important landmarks in the former North Korean leader's life, such as his place of birth, serve as the country's national shrines. The general's battles with the Japanese during the period of occupation are legendary; the stories are kept alive in North Korean music, poetry, and national histories.

The 1990s have seen the DPRK struggling to forge congenial relations with its traditional enemies while maintaining state sovereignty. Harsh economic times have forced the state to compromise its position by accepting aid from hostile states, including the Republic of Korea, the United States, and Japan. The development of nuclear and missile technology, while posing a threat to its neighbors, succeeded in bringing the United States to the negotiating table during the Clinton administration. The George W. Bush administration has been less willing to negotiate, however, insisting that North Korea demonstrate efforts to comply with U.S. demands for weapons reduction and verification before agreeing to discuss other issues, such as the DPRK's removal from terrorist lists and a bilateral treaty of normalization.

A trend toward improved relations with the Republic of Korea peaked in June 2000 at the summit held in P'yongyang between Kim Jong Il and South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung (b. 1925). Since then progress has stalled for a number of reasons, most importantly the Bush administration's hard-line position on negotiations, and Kim Jong Il's apparent reluctance to visit Seoul. Areas that have drawn the two sides to meet include the possibility of reuniting family members separated since the end of the Korean War, and the creation of transportation and communication links across the demilitarized zone.

Internationally, the DPRK has recently secured ties with many European Union states, as well as with countries in East Asia. Relations with Russia and China have strengthened as well, particularly in response to U.S. actions, such as the missile defense program, that allegedly threaten the interests of the three states. Attempts to initiate a DPRK-Japan dialogue have ended with little success, efforts bottlenecked by Japan's colonial legacy and Japan's disapproval of DPRK intrusions on its sovereignty that include the kidnapping of its citizens and a missile firing over its territory.

Mark E. Caprio

Cumings, Bruce. (1997) Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History. New York: Norton.

Mazarr, Michael J. (1995) North Korea and the Bomb: A Case Study in Nonproliferation. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Suh Dae-Sook. (1988) Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader. New York: Columbia University Press.

This complete North Korea—Profile contains 1,330 words. This article contains 1,499 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page).