Many countries include ‘Democratic’ or ‘People’s’ in their names, even though they are not democratic and do not serve their people. Examples: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Lao People’s Democratic Republic People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Democratic Republic of the Congo And German Democratic Republic (East Side) in 1949–1990. None of these states are democratic, power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling elite. Who are they fooling with these names?
I mean, I guess? I don’t know enough Mandarin to speak on that.
Look, I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m just answering your questions, and explaining to you what those institutions look like in China. You’re more than welcome to do your own research and come to your own conclusion, but I think you should go into it with a sense of curiosity about the world, rather than trying to get in sick dunks on the internet.
And look, I have my qualms about China’s system too. But they eliminated absolute poverty. Tf are you talking about?
I mean, the DPRK’s ongoing 20x10 regional development policy is using its new influx of Chinese and Russian capital to improve economic development and living standards outside of Pyongyang. So that’s certainly an improvement.
But that can only to so far when the Korean war never ended. If you actually care about the wellbeing of the Korean peninsula, you’d want the war to end, the US to leave and lift all sanctions, and for there to be an internationally mediated peace negotiation that would decide what peaceful future between North and South Korea might look like. Perhaps an EU style arrangement with open borders between the two countries, and shared economic interests, while each gets to retain their respective political and economic systems, as they see fit.
I’m an ardent socialist. I think the cult of personality around the Kim’s is weird and unhelpful. But my opinion is meaningless in the face of the material reasons why that personality cult exists, and the material solutions that need to be implemented in order to bring peace and prosperity to the Korean peninsula.
And I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned from my research on the subject. Not entirely a direct response to your comment, sure, but relevant enough that I felt like sharing, not just to you but other readers.
Or Kim could give up power and reform the government to a more western style of democracy. That would naturally end the war as well, and probably improve relations with South Korea considerably.
If pressure on North Korea is released, there’s no telling if the authoritarian government would change their ways at all. In fact that pressure might be necessary to push them to change.
Ah yes, just like all the other countries that democratically voted for their own people’s interests. Those were all totally left alone by the US.
You mean like America, which invaded and destroyed 80% of Korean infrastructure and killed over 3 million civilians? That kind of western democracy? You are the exact same type of chauvinist that caused the Korean war in the first place.
This misunderstands International Relations. You can’t negotiate a settlement like this by going to one of the parties and telling them to give up everything. That’s simply a non starter. Part of negotiating a peace like this, requires guarantees that each side will get to retain a degree of sovereignty in the peace (in this case, their political and economic systems), and that concessions made by either side will be beneficial for both parties in the long term (in my previous example, this might be something like giving up border controls between the two countries to facilitate trade, travel, etc, in a Shengen-style arrangement. Or unifying under a single currency).
Further, why would that “naturally end the war” South Korea isn’t at war with North Korea because the north is a dictatorship or something. South Korea has been a dictatorship for much of its post war history. Then continuation of the Korean war has more to do with US interests in the region, than anything else at this point. Eliminating the US presence is the keystone to any meaningful peace mediation.
That pressure has been on them for 76 years. It clearly isn’t going to change anything.
If they’re opened up to the world, they’re actually incentivized to engage on the global market. We have a very clear cut case study here:
If we compare the DPRK to Vietnam, the former is a country chopped in half, diplomaticlly isolated, sanctioned to hell and back, and locked in a forever war. Of course it looks the way that it does.
But compared to Vietnam, a country which was also chopped in half by the US, under similar circumstances and eventually unified, it didn’t develop the same kinds of power centralization as the DPRK. Vietnam today is a modern, cosmopolitan, Socialist country that’s highly integrated into the world system.