North Korea General Discussion.

It's a selective interpretation of Korean history, which comes with subscribing to the KNCA and their affiliated propagandists (one of whom keeps getting linked to). I've had a bit of interest in Korean history and culture for a good long while. In this case when I say Korean, I do actually mean the whole place, North and South.

Interestingly, Korea shares some parallells with Ireland. Both being subject to invasion from local empires, both heavily impacted by the language & culture of those neighbours and ultimatly the modern Korean states find themselves partitioned North & South, much like Ireland. But the nature of that partition is where the comparison ends and it is also where we start to get this selective interpretation of history and the world as a whole.

The North had the ultimate misfortune to be occupied by the Soviets after being liberated from decades of Japanese rule. That's how we get to where we are now. The South didn't actually fair all that much better at the time, they were poor and in the early post-war decades after the Korean War, Seoul was under a military dicatatorship. But that changed over time, and now we have a prosporous South Korea who's democracy is so robost that a corrupt President's attempt to steal power was thwarted by the democratic process itself. For whatever ills South Korea have (and no country is perfect, S.Korea have problems) they do actually deserve the title of "Democratic People's Republic"

But speaking of Democratic People's Republics…and deserving that title…we come to North Korea. Very similar to East Germany in it's creation and operation, Pyongyang was both blessed by Moscow's sponsorship which helped them rebuild but at the same time somewhat cursed it. Add to this their failure to annex South Korea during the Korean War. The North Koreans and their supporters will do their level best to focus on how the US are imperialists and how the US have occupied the South, but there is no mention of how KPA troops streamed down the peninsula in an attempt to take all of Korea by force. They will do their best to not mention how they needed Stalin's permission to do this. They will try to not mention how the UN Counter-attack pushed them all the way to the Chinese border and almost certain defeat.

They are conspicuous in their silence in mentioning how they were essentially saved by the Chinese and that the remainder of the Korean War was mostly between the UN and Chinese PLA (or PVA…since they were pretending to be legionares), with some token KPA units helping out.

And so they exist at the pleasure of larger nations around them. This is what hurts the ego of the North Korean state. While their Southern neighbor moves on with life, the North clings onto the past while protesting like a spoilt child wanting sweets. "It isn't fair! The South are occupied by Imperalists!! We're big too!!! We are!". But their are not. Their Soviet sponsor is gone and now replaced by a Russia who operate on the rotten husk of what used to be there. The China that rescued them before is still there, but they merely tolorate them for now…not wanting to trigger a stream of refugees into their state.

So they cherry-pick history to pretend that everying is fine…when the healthier option would be to address what is wrong. It's almost like putting a new coat of paint on a sunken battleship and then pretend that the water-damage underneath it all isn't there.

Agreed. That boat is going to be stuck in drydock for the forseeable while they try to undo the water damage. Unless it sinks again or they scrap it there won't be much left to discuss.

If a mod is reading, might be an idea to close the thread. Right now it's just turning into a channel for North Korean propaganda and the various rebuttals from everyone else.

North Korea has been trying to get this kind of tourism going for a good while now. It's a handy way for them to get much needed hard cash into their coffers. They do still do the infamous micro-managed guided tours with government minders, but the finanical benefit of those is relativly limited. The bigger bucks comes from resort tourism like what they're trying at Wonsan.

Since the 90's there had been attempts to do this. The Kumgang resort was built in the late 90's just north of the DMZ. It was mostly frequented by South Korean tourists and got a fairly decent number of visitors…..up until a North Korean soldier shot one of the tourists. So understandibly, that channel for tourism went away and the South Koreans were given a stark reminder of how a resort setup can't paper over the totallitarian state that's hosting it.

Ever since, the North Koreans have had to content themselves with tourism from China and Russia. Russian in particular, since beyond North Korea their citizens are often restricted or just generally unwelcome in other parts of the world. So Russians wanting a sun holiday may end up going here.

The Achillies Heel to all of this is that Russian spending power for this kind of thing is finite. The longer the Ukraine War drags on, the fewer Russians will have the means for this kind of holiday (or any holiday). Chinese tourism might tide them over, but Chinese tourists can go anywhere, and may have better options that Costa Del Kim.

I was reading in that Wiki you linked that the latest plan is turn part of it into a casino. All I can think is, «Who is that for?» Regular North Koreans don’t have the means to gamble, which means this is likely also for the Chinese / Russians. This is kind of what Macao is for, so I’m not certain Pyongyang is going to become a Vegas for BRICS nations.

The Ryugyong is a colossal monument to hubris, and one of the best pieces of physical evidence to use when countering the nonsense narrative you’ll get from North Korean propaganda.

It was started in the 80s, when they still enjoyed the sponsorship of the Soviet Union. They wanted to one-up the South Koreans with the tallest hotel in the world, but they never calculated on the end of the support they enjoyed from Moscow. They only got as far as the concrete shell when the fall of the Soviets and the subsequent famine in North Korea stopped the project for the guts of 15 years. «Juche» or the notion of «Self-reliance» was very publicly shown to be nothing more than a buzz word with this unfinished hulk of a building dominating the skyline of their capital. The crane at the top stood rusting into the 2000s as a reminder of this failure.

In the end it was an Egyptian company who enclosed the building about 10 years ago and decked it with programmable LEDs. Now the building serves as a huge screen to show state messaging.

However this is likely still an empty shell. European agencies had checked the interior at one point and deemed a lot of it to be compromised. Leaving a building like this exposed to the elements (and North Korean winter) for so many years may have left at lot it beyond repair.

With the possible exception of some token installations, my guess is that this building will remain mostly a shell for the forseeable.

Russian ships don't sink….they get upgraded to submarines for enhanced glory.

Reminds me of this video. This YouTuber covers mostly war history and the Russian Navy, and is pretty funny. He released this video very shortly after the ship flung itself sideways into the water:

It was the Soviets who blocked free elections and a unified country.

The Soviets never entered below the 38th parallel and left the North in 1947. The US has at least 30,000 soldiers on Korean soil as of July 2025. Can you provide something to back this up?

You sound like you're defending a dictatorship?

I've been to Korea a few times myself, absolutely love the place and the people. But you'd want to have a bit of a screw loose to think what's going on up north is not a dictatorship oppressing people.

They can't even leave their country. How can you defend that?