North Korea Is One Of The Most Isolated Countries In The World.
The Roughly 24 Million People Who Live In The Totalitarian State Have Minimal Interaction With The Outside World. Foreign Media Is Forbidden, Interaction With Tourists Is Strictly Controlled And The Internet Is Inaccessible To Almost Everyone. BBC Journalists Who Visited The Country In 2010 Found That University Students Had Never Heard Of Nelson Mandela. And The Outside World Often Has Little Idea What Is Going On In The Country — Its Leaders Have Been Able To “Disappear” From Public View For Weeks.
North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program And Horrific Human Rights Record Have Made The Country A Global Pariah, With International Sanctions Further Isolating The Nation’s Centralized, Socialist Economy. Pyongyang’s Economic Policies Have Been A Disaster, Further Exacerbating North Korea’s Poverty. Seen From Space, Pyongyang Disappears Into The Dark — A Stark Illustration Of The Nation’s Chronic Underdevelopment Compared To The Rest Of The Region.
The Story Of How The Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea Became So Reclusive Is A Story Of Both Ancient Traditions And The Bloody Geopolitics Of The Modern Era.
The Origins Of The Hermit Kingdom
Korea Has Had A Long History Of Self-Isolation, Even Before The Korean Peninsula Was Divided Into Two Countries In The 20th Century. The Choson Dynasty, Which Ruled Korea From The 14th To Early 20th Century, Kept The Country Isolated From The Outside World, Both As A Way To Fend Off Foreign Invasions And Out Of A Belief In The Superiority Of Its Confucian Culture. Contacts With Foreigners And Foreign Travel Were Banned, And After A Series Of Invasions, The Choson Rulers Limited Interaction With Even Neighboring China And Japan.
This Self-Seclusion Was Not Unique In The Region — Japan And China Also Adopted Isolationist Policies During This Period — But Korea Held Out Longer.
Korea Was First Nicknamed The Hermit In The 19th Century By Western Powers Who Were Shunned By Korea As They Advanced Into Asia For Trade And Conquest. “Even When China And Japan Had Been Forced To Open Their Country To The Western Nations, Korea Was Virtually Unknown Abroad,”
Permanent War Footing
Korea Did Fall Into Foreign Hands In The 20th Century, And The Ensuing Wars Only Reinforced The North’s Isolation.
Japan Annexed Korea In 1910. When The Japanese Lost World War II, Korea Was Split Into American- And Soviet-Controlled Territories, An Arrangement That Was Intended To Be Temporary. But The U.S. And The Soviet Union Never Reached A Permanent Deal, And Two Separate Governments Emerged. Josef Stalin Installed Kim Il Sung As North Korea’s Leader — Kim Went On To Rule For Over 50 Years Before Being Replaced By His Son, Kim Jong Il, And Later His Grandson, Current Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
Amid Cold War Tensions And Territorial Disputes, North And South Korea Went To War In 1950, Backed By Their Respective Allies. The Korean War Was Devastating — American Bombing Raids Flattened Much Of North Korea, With Just One Building Left Standing In The Capital. The Armistice That Ended The Conflict Left The Two Nations Technically Still At War And In A Constant State Of Tension.
The North Felt Vulnerable And Surrounded, According To Charles Armstrong, The Director Of The Center For Korean Research At Columbia University. “North Korea Is A Society With A Permanent Siege Mentality. It Has Lived Under A Constant Threat Of War Since The 1950s,” Armstrong Writes.
As A Result, Kim Il Sung Developed A Theory Of Self-Reliance, Or Juche In Korean, That Remains The Country’s Official Ideology Today. He Laid Out Three Principles: Political Independence, Economic Self-Reliance And Military Autonomy. “This Political Stance Has Caused North Korea To Truly Become A Hermit Kingdom Because Of The Huge Stigma Juche Places Upon Cooperation With Outside Powers,” Writes Grace Lee For The Stanford Journal Of East Asian Affairs. Juche Was Also Used To Justify The Regime’s Continuing Isolation From Even Fellow Socialist States, As Well As The Personality Cult Of Its Leaders.
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