North Korea: An Island connected to Northern and disconnected to Southern
Sang Hyun Park
Texas Wesleyan University
North Korea: An Island connected to Northern and disconnected to Southern
Here is what North Korea has to offer for the rest of us. The official name of the country is The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK. Under the cease-fire agreement in 1953, after the Korean Civil War was officially over, the northern part of the Korean peninsula was governed by the Kim Il Sung regime. Having the Military Demarcation Line drawn by the 38th parallel, the Workers’ Party of Korea has reinforced its political monopoly. According to Naver Encyclopedia, Its ruling ideology is primarily based on Marxism-Leninism, succeeding proletarian class dominance. The Socialist regime adapts to the separation of the three powers: executive, legislature, and judicial outwardly, and yet Workers’ Party of Korea has the ultimate power subject to the entire land. The Current leader is Kim Jung Eun whose words are considered truth and way.
As of 2014, The North Korean total GDP slightly grew by 1.0 %. The GNI(Gross National Income) is $ 20 billion dollars approximately. The amount is only 2.3% of the Republic of Korea’s GNI. According to KOTRA, Korea Trade- Investment Promotion Agency, the North’s total trade value is of 7.61 billion US dollars of which the import occupied 4.45 billion and the export 3.16 billion. Since the import has surpassed the export, the deficit has increased by over 41% compared with 2013 figure. Electronics, machinery, plastics have led the outstanding import-driven trend in North Korea in 2014. Top export shares are minerals, such as coal, occupying the 37.2% of the exporting good category. Top importing goods are minerals (750 million USD, -4.7%), electronics (430million USD, 54.8%), boilers and other machineries (330 million USD, 3.3%), vehicles and components (230 million USD, -9.6%). The largest trade partner both on import and export is China (Kang).
North Korea has no official religion; the 3rd successor of the regime has predominantly manipulated the supremacy of the country by brainwashing the people to believe that Kim’s family can never fail. According to Naver Encyclopedia, The official language is Korean which has become too dissimilar to what the southern speaks over the past 70 years of partition.
The government controls all forms of media with the special department of censorship. The Workers’ Party of Korea distributes the sorted information to the public. No journalist is in existence in the country by the globally mutual agreement on what journalism-friendly environment is. Media companies are Chosun Central Television, Rodong Herald, and Uriminzokkiri each of which represents the TV channel targeting the foreign audience, the domestic newspaper, and the internet based propaganda website respectively. The number of TV stations is four including Chosun Central TV, Mansudae TV, Educultural TV, and Gaeseong TV. Its radio stations consist of Chosun Central Broadcasting and Pyeungyang Broadcasting, of which operate eleven regional stations. The Workers’ Party of Korea committee in all the provinces publishes the regional dailies as well as three central dailies, Rodong Herald, Democratic Chosun, and Youth Avant-garde run their circulations. Licensing is ineffective since there is no way in for the new competitors. The censorship conducted by the dominant party exists for maintaining the Kim’s regime and the legal bases are upon the government’s constitution which serves the advantage of the party head not the people in general.
I picked Uriminzokkiri.com and KBS for the outlet comparison task. The main topic was Inter Korean Military Talk. Speaking of the tone used in the overall broadcasting, I can tell that the North medium has more outcome-driven writing style with their delegates’ names shown on the top compared with the South high ranking figures. KBS, however, touched the story behind the high ranking talk’s fruit, for instance, how China and the U.S. have impacted the two sides to peacefully amend the intensified situation. The third country’s media outlet I picked was NHK of Japan. NHK covered the inter-Korean talk in a rather objective manner while adequately expressing their concern and expectation as the neighboring country by having a South Korean professor who was the former president of the Korea Institute for National Unification. The main public relation method North Korea prefers is saber-rattling tactics as missile launching and guerrilla attacks. A fairly recent guerrilla attack was a wooden-box mine explosion having damaged two ROK petty officers in 2015. Besides the real world appealing measures, North has a cyber warrior unit operating 6,000 individuals. These soldiers work at their designated websites of South, posting onslaught replies beneath every article commenting how the Blue House, the Republic of Korea’s administration sector, deals with issues.
Lastly, the country’s public relation heavily focuses on the governing system’s supremacy over the southern region. The public relation has failed to fulfill the obscurantism since the epic trade with China has civilized many North Korean merchants. Advertising on goods and services has barely begun with the third generation leader, Kim Jung Eun, pushing soldiers to expedite his several achievements as Mashikyeong Ski Resort, Changgwang Department Store.
References
The Bank of Korea(2015). Gross Domestic Product Estimates for North Korea in 2014. Economic Statistics Dep. Retrieved from http://www.bok.or.kr/contents/total/eng/boardView.action?menuNaviId=634&boardBean.brdid=16312&boardBean.menuid=634
Kang, M.(2014). 2013 North Korea Trend on Foreign Trade Policy. Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency. Retrieved from http://www.globalwindow.org/gw/publishdata/GWPDIN020M.html?BBS_ID=30&MENU_CD=M10503&UPPER_MENU_CD=M10501&MENU_STEP=2&ARTICLE_ID=5018281
Novak, K.(2015). Firepower up close: Witnessing a South Korean military drill. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/28/asia/south-korea-military-drills-novak/index.html
Takao, Minori.(2015). Marathon Talk Results. Inside Asia. NHK WORLD News. Retrieved from http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/insideasia/20150827.html
Uriminzokkiri.com(2015). Inter-Korean High-ranking Emergency Contact Held. Retrieved from http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/index.php?ptype=english&no=11477
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