Britannia Radio

newnations.com
Monthly reports on finance, business, trade,
economics, & political analysis


NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 17 AUGUST 2009

WHAT'S DRIVING PYONGYANG?

From the time that the west first became conscious of the Korean peninsula, it was known that the northern kingdom resisted any kind of foreign involvement and rejected change. It's secretiveness earned it the soubriquet of 'the hermit kingdom', which two centuries later we now effortlessly recognise as 'the hermit republic'.

Pyongyang its capital, was completely destroyed in the war of 1950-53. Not one building was left undamaged through years of unremitting aerial bombardment by the virtually unopposed USAF. It was completely rebuilt as a Potemkin city, looking from a distance like prosperous Singapore, but in reality almost unpopulated. All that concrete amounts to are skyscrapers, hotels and office blocks almost unoccupied, the streets and pavements virtually empty, the city streets devoid of traffic.

It is therefore 'par for the course' that mystification should be a core element in how life is lived and how decisions are arrived at.

North Korea must have the least well informed population on earth, so total is state control over all media, with no foreign broadcasts or print media available at all, no non-official contact with their diaspora, the internet available to a small number of approved users only-senior analysts and the like.

From the outside looking in, a key question that has exercised observers and commentators attempting to follow the story, is the bottom-line one of why?

What are they looking for, why do they behave as they do?
[Our NORTH KOREA reports, current and archival, have the facts]

Notwithstanding the Clinton visit in August, which ever-optimistic, we hope may lead on to better times, the essential facts remain the same.

The Special Report this month which was first published in the July 2009 issue of "The Oriental Economist" is an attempt to answer that fundamental question: "What's Driving Pyongyang?" which if it could be better understood, is a gateway to progress in future relations with the non-hermits of the world.

GO TO

What's Driving Pyongyang?

Also published on our blog: GEOPOLEMICS where readers comments are invited