DPR Korea Today

-A Country of Miracles

 It is no exaggeration to say that the history of the development of modern Korea is the one of continued miracles.

 The Korean people built their army and country in a matter of three years after it was freed from Japan’s military occupation (1905-1945) and repelled the invasion (1950-1953) of the US-led allied imperialist forces. They rehabilitated the country on the debris in little more than three years although Americans asserted that Koreans would be unable to rise up again in a hundred years, and completed socialist industrialization in the short period of 14 years.

 Towards the late 20th century the allied imperialist forces intensified anti-socialist offensive in the wake of the collapse of socialism in several countries. Yet, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea held higher the banner of socialism and even built up the foundations for building a powerful socialist country.

 The Korean people did not work out such miracles in their past history alone.

 Over the last decade alone modern cultural and leisure facilities, medical service centres, new streets and other monumental structures sprang up across the country. Rapid progress was made also in building up national defence capabilities to create reliable security environment of the country, striking the world with admiration.

 As the Korean media says, the country is changing in its appearance yesterday and today, morning and evening. This is an extension of such miraculous development.

The Korean people have demonstrated the truth to the world that their socialist system, which puts them forward as the masters of society and its members remain faithful to their responsibility and role as such, will win victory after victory for ever, far from collapsing or vacillating even though the risky schemes of the hostile forces to stifle their country may reach the extreme and one generation is replaced by another.

 This year, too, the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government organized and promoted gigantic undertakings which would serve as a watershed in drastically advancing the cause of socialism.

 The WPK initiated the Regional Development 20×10 Policy aimed at building new modern regional-industry factories across the country within 10 years, in 20 counties each year, so as to improve the basic material and cultural living standards of the local population to a higher level, and attached paramount importance to its implementation. In August it indicated a new direction of building a public health facility, sci-tech dissemination base and grain management facility in every county and city in parallel with the construction of regional-industry factories to hasten the historic cause of regional rejuvenation.

Kim Jong Un, president of the State Affairs of the DPRK, visited relevant regions to acquaint himself with the promotion of the construction of regional-industry factories and take drastic measures to that end. In his important speech made on the founding anniversary of the DPRK in September he said the feasibility of the regional development policy would be proven with real changes in 10 years.

 The international community acknowledges that the Korean people would surely work out another unprecedented miracle by carrying out the policy under his leadership although hardships and trials might crop up in their way.

-Common Scene of Pyongyang

 Recent years have witnessed a ground-breaking ceremony of building 10 000 flats in the capital city of Pyongyang of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea every February. Ordinary working people have been provided with new houses free of charge in April.

 Now it has become a common scene of Pyongyang.

-Impressions of Visitors to Pyongyang

 Those who visit Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, for the first time are quite impressed by the reality of the country.

Surprise

 Visitors to Pyongyang are surprised to see the modern streets of the city on their way to lodgings and the bright faces of its citizens dressed in attractive clothes.  In 2018 the DPRK celebrated its 70th founding anniversary. Many foreign media people visited Pyongyang to give special coverage to the celebration events. Touring the city, they could not believe their eyes as the reality was quite different from what they had heard from the Western media which say that the city has no high-rise buildings but only low-storey flats, ugly-looking and cracked, and that people are poorly clothed and starving.  

While broadcasting live the Pyongyang citizens enjoying leisure time riding amusement facilities under dazzling lights of an amusement park, a CNN correspondent said:  Your eyes are not deceiving you. This is socialist north Korea.

 Considering this comment, it is natural that those who visit the city for the first time should be surprised to see the reality in the country.

Doubt

 The reality in the DPRK is hard to believe with the Western values as a yardstick. For example, if someone says that in the country flats worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes millions of dollars built at state expense are provided to ordinary citizens free of charge, the Westerners would not believe it. For them it is something beyond their wildest dreams. That’s why many of visitors to the country asked the local people how much are their houses and if it is true that they were provided with them free of charge.

They also find it difficult to believe that the state provides school uniforms, shoes, satchels and school things to all the students across the country and dairy products and other nutritious foodstuffs to children, all at its expense.

 But they end up realizing what they see are all true and represent the true features of the Korean-style socialist system.

Acceptance

 Visitors to Pyongyang cannot but accept the reality in the country despite themselves, seeing modern medical facilities including a children’s hospital which is provided with high-end equipment and a heliport, world-class water park and other cultural resorts and, furthermore, the country’s socialist system in which the people are the masters of everything and everything serves them. It is because all that they see are totally different from the Western propaganda.

 As a matter of fact, in the country many things are still in short supply and the people’s life is not so abundant. But what impresses the visitors deeply is the high level of development its people have achieved in the face of inhumane sanctions and blockade by the US-led hostile forces and the results of their honest labour and enterprising spirit with which to create a better tomorrow by their own efforts.