On Monday 8th of June the “Wall Street Journal “(WSJ) , a house of US imperialist high finance ran what was at first sight a very surprising article and even appears sympathetic to the DPRK(for example admitting that the DPRK is building more new homes than Los Angeles or Chicago ) but contains a sting in the tail and a lot of old anti-DPRJ propaganda tropes .
The co-author of the article Dasl Yoon a south Korean journalist who is based in Seoul . Ms Yoon actually interviewed me 2 years ago about my visit to the DPRK in April 2024 and I sent her pictures of my visit to the DPRK however my interview was never published and instead the WSJ article relied on accounts from a tour guide from capitalist commercial tour company and the usual so-called “north Korea experts “.
What the article does show is that the DPRK’s rapid economic development under self-reliance can no longer be ignored by any rational observer . However the authors of the article distort the DPRK’s economic success . The article ignores the real reasons for the DPRK’s economic success instead asserts “ Its economy is flourishing in ways not seen in years, aided by arms sales and troop deployments to Russia, supplies and financing from China, and the ability to flout international sanctions to import more energy, components and materials.” This is a gross and blatant distortion. The DPRK has an independent self-reliant economy . Foreign trade is only 4.8 per cent . From January 2020 to mid 2024 the DPRK’s border was closed . In 2023 trade with Russia was only worth $34.4 million . The DPRK’s trade with China remained under the 2019 figure.In fact as a 20 times visitor to the DPRK I can say that there actually less Chinese made goods around and more DPRK made goods around . As to troop deployment to Russia how could it benefit the DPRK economy or result in faster growth , it is a nonsensical assertion.
The article raises the old horse chestnut of sanctions breaking but this is another distortion which ignores the self-reliant economy of the DPRK . The DPRK does not need to break or evade sanctions because it can produce most of what it needs at home from a wrist watch to an ICBM . Streets like Hwasong street were built with Korean labour not Russian or Chinese workers and not with money from outside .
The upswing in construction work in the DPRK really began before the Ukraine war back in 2016-2017 and to some extent in 2012 when Changjon Street in Pyongyang was built . It was reported at the 9th plenum of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea that “ The 12 goals for the national economic development were all attained with 103 percent of grain production, 100 percent of electric power, coal and nitrogenous fertiliser, 102 percent of rolled steel, 131 percent of nonferrous metal, 109 percent of logs, 101 percent of cement and ordinary cloth, 105 percent of marine products, 106 percent of railway freight transport and 109 percent of houses under construction. And the overall economy witnessed clear production growth, including 220 percent of motor production, 208 percent of transformers, 121 percent of bearings, 140 percent of electric zinc, 121 percent of lead, 113 percent of paper, 110 percent of salt, 109 percent of cosmetics, 100 percent of flat glass and 104 percent of magnesia clinker, and plan discipline was established.”
Compared with the total growth of the economic sector in 2020, the previous year of the 8th Party Congress, the production of important indices largely went up in 2023 by raising the production of iron trioxide 3.5 times, pig iron 2.7 times, rolled steel 1.9 times, machine tools 5.1 times, cement 1.4 times and nitrogen fertiliser 1.3 times and the GDP grew up 1.4 time"
The article inaccurately portrays the pizza restaurant in Mirae Scientists Street as new but in fact I visited it in 2019 and it had actually been opened in 2017.
An old trope that Pyongyang is where “country’s elite live.” is repeated by the article . This is just complete rubbish .Many Pyongyang citizens are actually industrial workers , others are waitresses , shop assistants , drivers ,railway workers etc . In fact Pyongyang is a city of workers , a proletarian city. In fact probably one of the more working class cities I have actually been in.
The articles contains with a string of lies about the DPRK some of which are truly ludicrous . There is the usual rubbish about cyber-warfare and hacking which the DPRK has repeatedly denied . It is claimed half the population of the DPRK are “malnourished “ but does not offer any evidence and the rest of the article appears to contradict it . Similarly it is claimed that that the DPRK’s GDP is less than 1 per cent of the US’s but this figure is based on Western figures that grossly underestimate the DPRK’s GDP and ignore the purchasing power parity . In fact even back in the early 1980s the DPRK’s per capita GDP was over $1,200 .
Of course the usual clap trap about human rights is wheeled out with the glib blanket assertion “The country is one of the world’s worst violators of human rights,” .Has the DPRK tried to genocide a neighbouring country ? Is it bombing refugee camps ?
To conclude the “Wall Street Journal “ is just presenting old slanders against the DPRK in a new way .
( an expanded version of this article will appear in “People’s Korea Today “)
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman KFA UK
Chairman British Group For the Study of the Juche Idea
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