Among East Asian countries, North Korea can be said to be the most mysterious. When many people mention North Korea, they often think of closure, backwardness and famine. and many people even believe that the living standards of the North Korean people are similar to those of our country in the 1960s and 1970s. So is this really the case in the development of North Korea?
Korean streets
In fact, during the period when World War II just ended, North Korea's economic development speed was faster than that of China, Japan and South Korea, which are also East Asian countries.
But the good times did not last long. in the early 1950s , the capitalist camp led by the United States provoked the Korean War in East Asia , and the United States pushed the front to the Yalu River , threatening China's territorial security. Chinese People's Volunteer Army sent troops to North Korea, and together with the Korean People's Army led by Kim Il-sung, jointly resisted the invasion of " United Nations Army ". In this way, the good situation of North Korea's development was terminated.
Resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea
In the Korean War, our country paid a heavy price to achieve the great victory of resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea. The victory of this war greatly enhanced our country's international status.
After the war, the Soviet Union gradually increased its aid to China and successively built
Compared with China, the Soviet Union provided more aid projects to North Korea. An intuitive manifestation is that with the help of the Soviet Union, the North Korean economy returned to its pre-site level in less than three years. Entering the 1960s, North Korea's economy has maintained a growth rate of about 20%.
During Kim Il-sung's administration, the most important reform measure was to promote the "electrification" of rural . With the assistance of the Soviet Union, from to the mid-1970s, almost every household in North Korea could use electricity, and even the per capita annual electricity consumption reached 1,200 degrees . At that time, household appliances were very common in North Korean families, including the most common flashlights, to rice cookers, electric water heaters, etc.
In agricultural production, North Korea vigorously promoted the mechanization of agricultural farming, and agricultural planting, harvesting and other industries have basically achieved mechanization. People may think there is nothing outstanding about North Korea's development achievements in the Kim Il-sung era.
But you should know that according to the development standards of a well-off society announced by our country, the per capita electricity consumption in our country is
Park Chung-hee
In fact, in the last century, when Park Chung-hee had not yet implemented economic reforms in South Korea, a large number of Koreans took risks to smuggle to North Korea every year. Unlike the increasing number of "North Korean defectors" at this stage, this also reflects that in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea's economic development trend was better than South Korea.
In addition to these advances, in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea's industrial construction and urbanization development also reached a very high level. At that time, the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations gave North Korea a large number of Soviet aid projects.
takes this as an opportunity. North Korea not only established a complete industrial system, but also increased the level of urbanization to more than 70%. . Until 2020, the level of urbanization development in my country still hovered around 64%. Unlike North Korea's frequent famines now, North Korea's total grain production in 1984 had reached more than 10 million tons, and its per capita grain share was far greater than that of China at the same time.
The collapse of the Soviet Union
But the good days of North Korea's social and economic development came to an end in 1991 with the occurrence of a major event. The so-called "backing mountains will fall", on December 25, 1991 , the Soviet Union, one of the two superpowers in the world, announced its disintegration with the televised speech delivered by its leaders.The Soviet Union no longer exists, and the backing for North Korea's development has also disappeared. What impact did the collapse of the Soviet Union have on North Korea?
To understand these aspects, we must start from the end of World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union began to compete for hegemony. After the war, in order to show the superiority of its own system to the world, the United States began to implement " Marshall Plan " in Western European countries, and the former Soviet Union began to establish "Economic Mutual Aid Association" in Eastern European countries. Both economic development modes are composed of multiple political factors. The main purpose is to use oneself as the main body to achieve control over some small countries around, and based on this, build your own system of hegemony. Of course, the " Warsaw Pact " and " NATO " established by the former Soviet Union and the United States have increased the plunder of resources from other countries.
In the process of establishing the "Warcraft Pact" alliance, Khrushchev also tried to win over China's participation. But Chairman Mao, who was far-sighted, suddenly saw the Soviet Union's ambitions behind in the "Warcraft Agreement" organization of . But Kim Il-sung at that time obviously did not have Chairman Mao’s strategic vision.
Korean streets
In fact, North Korea joined this organization at that time and had its own small destination. For example, after joining the Warsaw Pact, North Korea can purchase oil produced by the former Soviet Union at the lowest price, but this severely relied on foreign economic development will increase the risk of its own social development.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea immediately encountered the oil crisis . Due to the shortage of oil resources, North Korea's industrial production was greatly hindered, and the industrial chain it originally built began to collapse.
And in 1994, with the death of North Korea's great leader Kim Il-sung, the development situation in North Korea became even worse. leaked and rained all night long. Then in
After Kim Il-sung's death, North Korea had less and less exchanges with the outside world, and the outside world also knew less and less about North Korea. So how is North Korea's current development? Let’s start with North Korea’s hard power.
Although overall, North Korea's economic development is relatively backward, it has always adhered to "military strategy" , and has always tilted the country's various resources towards military development. According to data released by the North Korean Ministry of Defense, North Korea's active troops reached 1.3 million, while North Korea's population is about 23 million. This means that 50 out of every 1,000 North Koreans choose to join the army.
At the same time, North Korea is also a nuclear-capable country. In addition to nuclear weapon , North Korea's conventional weapon is also very developed. In recent years, North Korea has continuously increased its development efforts in intercontinental missiles, medium-range submarine-launched missiles, long-range cruise missiles, and launching missiles, and successively launched the Mars 15-improved intercontinental ballistic missiles and the magic-revised Mars 15 missiles.
From these aspects, it can be seen that North Korea's military strength is still very strong, which is also an important reason why South Korea has not dared to respond directly to the military conflict with North Korea in recent years.
In addition to the military level, next, we will focus on the areas of North Korea's people's livelihood development. As we are exposed to more and more economic knowledge, we begin to form a fixed mindset, that is,: the lower the wages of , the lower the actual purchasing power and living standards will be.
Many people often use this solidified thinking to look at the development issues of North Korea. It is often seen from media reports that the monthly salary of North Koreans is only more than 200 yuan.
In fact, in actual life, ordinary North Korean people do not need to rely on wages to support themselves. At the institutional level, North Korea has always implemented the "ticket supply system" .Although North Korean workers and white-collar workers earn very little salary every month, the government will issue some tickets to the public every month. With these tickets, people can buy goods in the market at very low prices and even receive many free items.
In recent years, some Chinese people have gone to North Korea to travel every year. Judging from the information they reported after returning to China, the North Korean government divided shopping malls into three types, namely, supply points, stores, and foreign-related shopping malls.
Generally speaking, in order to ensure the supply of goods to the people of their own country, foreign tourists, even tour guides, cannot purchase goods in the first two places. Near residential areas, the government has established many commodity supply points and kiosks. These two places are state-owned, and residents can purchase goods with tickets here.
If people want to buy bulk commodities such as TVs, refrigerators and air conditioners, they need to book in large stores in advance. These places often post some product promotional advertisements for the public to choose.
In order to earn foreign exchange, the North Korean government established foreign-related shopping malls mainly including Friendship Shopping Mall, No. 1 Department Store , and large department store . Of course, because there are many imported goods here, the prices are more expensive, and local people rarely come here to purchase goods. And tourists from China are the main force in shopping in this place.
000 foreign-related goods pricing is also very interesting. People's Daily once published an article titled "Exposing the Real Income of the North Korean People". The article says that the goods in North Korean foreign-related stores are priced in euros, and converting them into RMB requires multiplying by 10 on this basis.
Because North Korean products are very distinctive, although these products are very expensive, Chinese tourists still come here to purchase a large number of cosmetics, ginseng local specialties, ethnic clothing, handicrafts, etc.
In addition to the lack of pressure on people's lives, during Kim Jong-un's era, the North Korean people gradually had three development benefits, namely, housing, schooling, and medical treatment for free.
Singing and dancing North Korean elderly
From this point of view, we can see that although the people's income is not high, the North Korean people's sense of happiness is still very high. In order to praise the leader Kim Jong-un, the North Korean people also specially compiled a song "The Song of Kim Jong-un" to praise the improvement of the lives of the North Korean people and the development of the country after Kim Jong-un took office. This song was adapted by the Mudanfeng Beauty Girls Band and quickly became popular all over the world.
After Kim Jong-un took office, he also began to implement housing system reform. On the one hand, all localities should focus on counting quality problems such as rain leakage in houses, and relevant departments should repair them regularly. On the other hand, if residents have housing needs, they can apply to the government. They only need to pay a small fee every month to obtain a house allocated by the government.
Kindergarten
In children's education, before the start of each semester, every child will receive new school uniforms, school bags, pencils and notebooks distributed by the school. will also provide children with free lunch in cities such as Pingling, middle schools and primary schools. At the same time, North Korea's education department also attaches great importance to cultivating students' interests and skills training. Every child will take free interest classes after school.
Compared with Chinese children, North Korean children's lives are very happy. Here, there are no large number of cram schools and homework that can never be finished. Due to its isolation from the outside world, North Korea's medical development level is relatively backward, but what makes North Korea special is that it has built a free medical system for all people. People who have headaches and fevers can often go directly to the hospital to see a doctor for free and get medicine for free.
North Korea's single planned economic system has caused the people to be lazy and slow-paced. In North Korea's national development mechanism, due to the large number of state-owned units and state-owned factories, many economic development plans and production indicators are planned in advance, but with the distribution mechanism, few products produced by North Korea are wasted or unsold.
Many Chinese tourists who have visited North Korea said that walking on the streets of North Korea’s cities, the door designs of many commodities are basically the same. But unlike Chinese stores and supermarkets, in North Korea, there are few tweeters that are used to promote.
The travel of North Korean people is also very single, most of which are mainly taking buses, from home to unit, and then from unit to home. It can be said that it is two points and one line.
Pingyang Kim Jong-sook Textile Factory
On the official website of the North Korean tourism department, it specifically introduced North Korea's old textile enterprise - Pingyang Kim Jong-sook Textile Factory . This textile factory is not only the most distinctive factory in North Korea, but also the factory in North Korea's largest production volume.
In the factory workshop, many encouraging banners are hung, and most of the workers have formed a fixed production habit, and they work very seriously every year to complete the production work. On the flat and rugged streets, people's lives are often mainly slow-paced, often in groups of three or five, taking a walk on the river in Datong , especially the young generation, who enjoy the soothing city time very much.
North Korea, this mysterious country, has a very high happiness index for people's lives.
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