Hi.
Good morning everybody.
I hope you can hear me today.
I've still got a bit of a cold.
I can't seem to shift it.
I'e had it for almost two months now.
Hopefully I'l get over it soon.
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Thank you.
All right.
Today, we're going to talk about North Korea.
Well, Korea and North Korea I suppose.
Let's look at the history first of all.
So, the North Korean, well, the Korean Peninsula.
Civilization ... evidence of civilization ... was ... has been found there, dating from
about ten thousand years ago.
So, people have been living in that area for about ten millennia.
Over time, those groups of people gradually grew together and formed larger and larger
groups, as they did in most countries, until we had three main kingdoms.
I'm not entirely sure if my pronunciation is right, but those three kingdoms were called
Baekje, Silla and Goguryeo.
Now, as again with most countries, those three kingdoms fought each other and each one was
in control for a short period of time before losing to another one.
But, over the years, gradually the Goguryeo Kingdom became the strongest.
In about 900AD it shortened its name to Goryeo, and ended up ruling pretty much the entire
Korean peninsula.
For a while, it did move up into the Chinese area, but because of the deserts and the mountains
it was too hard to rule, so they shrank back until pretty much the Korea we know today.
The English word Korea, of course, comes from Goryeo.
I believe it was brought back by Marco Polo, but I haven't researched that,
so don't hold me to that.
The Goryeo Kingdom became stronger.
A lot of things in Japan actually came across from Korea.
Buddhism in Japan came from Korea, of course.
Korea basically continued on its own, being influenced quite heavily by China, as most
countries in the area were, until a few things happened.
The two important things were the 1894 to 95 Sino Japanese war.
That, of course, was Japan versus China.
And then the 1904 Russo Japanese war, which, of course, was Japan against Russia.
In the Meiji era Japan modernized.
Japan rebuilt its army and became surprisingly powerful.
And, when these two wars happened, most countries didn't think Japan would stand a chance, but
Japan actually beat China and then beat Russia.
The two wars meant, when China was defeated they had to withdraw their support from Korea,
and when Russia was defeated as well, they had to withdraw their support from Korea,
which left Korea basically open.
And, in 1910, Japan annexed Korea.
This was technically with Korean support, but, of course, there was no support.
From 1910 until 1945, when Japan surrendered, Japan controlled Korea.
There were quite a few atrocities committed in Korea.
A lot of Korean people were killed during the war, of course, both soldiers and civilians.
Japan actually suppressed the Korean language.
They made Korean people learn Japanese.
They forced Korean people to have Japanese names, and a lot of things were done.
Anyway, that's not the point of this talk.
Surprisingly enough, many people don't know this but, when Hiroshima was bombed, the atomic
bombing of Hiroshima, a large number of the dead were actually Korean people.
They were Koreans that were conscripted to work in the Japanese factories and because
Hiroshima hadn't been bombed, it was a safe area, most of Japan's manufacturing was moved
to that area.
So, a large number of people that died there were actually Korean.
Anyway, 1945, Japan surrenders and of course, as you know, the Soviet Union takes control
of the north and America takes control of the South.
They divide this along the thirty eighth parallel,
which is the 38th degree of latitude around the world.
That's where they cut the north and south Koreas off.
We talked about the atomic bomb a little bit earlier, but one reason why the Soviet Union
didn't come into South Korea was because America had used this atomic bomb.
One of the main reasons for them to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not to end the war, but to
stop Russia from taking over that whole area.
And, yet again, that's a talk for another day.
So, when North and South Korea began it was relatively peaceful until the 28th of June
1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea.
Both Koreas, of course, laid claim to the other side, but when North Korea invaded South
Korea they were a communist country.
They had the support of Communist Russia ... the USSR: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,
and China.
And, of course, South Korea defended and they had the support of America.
The war lasted for about three years.
29th of July 1953 it finished.
But of course, as you probably know, it didn't actually finish.
There was a ceasefire, but the two Koreas are still at war today.
There was no declaration of peace, there was no ending to the war,
they just stopped shooting each other.
During that war it was pretty horrific.
About 900,000 soldiers died, most of those were on the North Korean side,
and about 2.5 million civilians were killed.
Again, most of those on the North Korean side.
Some estimates say that 20% of the North Korean population was actually killed in this war.
A side point to this was that America actually considered
using their atomic bombs during the war.
After the Second World War, they'd moved, I think, six atomic bombs into England, to
make most of Asia within reach.
So, they could have bombed the Koreas.
Of course, in 1949, the USSR had developed their own atomic bombs, so, if America had
bombed Korea, it could have meant the end of the world.
Who knows?
Anyway, so after the Korean War finished, the two Koreas became independent and they
continued their own ways.
North Korea was actually quite prosperous in the beginning.
They had the support of China, they had the support of Russia, a lot of investment, and
actually, until 1976, North Korea was more prosperous and was richer, it had a higher
G.D.P. per capita than South Korea.
But then, of course, a couple of things happened.
Chairman Mao died in China.
And Kim Il Sung, who was the head of North Korea, of course he didn't like that so he
... he didn't like the new China, so he broke ties with China and that lost a lot of investment.
And then, of course, the USSR collapsed in 1991.
And , again, that stopped all Russian investment.
So, until 1976 North Korea was very prosperous but then, after 1976 quite a few things happened,
and South Korea took off.
Right now, South Korea's per capita G.D.P. is 40 times higher than that of North Korea,
and we'll talk about that in a minute.
So, right now, North Korea and South Korea are divided along the thirty eighth parallel.
You can go to the border zone.
You can stand on one side.
You can actually go into a room and stand in a room where there's a table, and this
side of the table is South Korea, and that side of the table is North Korea.
And you can look into North Korea, and North Korea has built a city very close to the border
to show how prosperous North Korea is.
But, of course, if you look at the city with a telescope, you can see that it's actually
a fake city.
There's nobody living there, it's just a fake city.
And this is one of the things that we'll talk about with North Korea, possibly: How important
appearances are to them.
How they need to appear to be wealthy and prosperous and successful and powerful, when
in fact it's all for show, basically.
So, after the Korean War, Kim Il Sung takes control.
He was a war hero.
He fought the Japanese during the Second World War.
He was a war hero and he became president, basically.
He lived from 1912 until 1994 and his idea was that Korea should be ... North Korea sorry,
should be completely self-sufficient.
So, he withdrew as much as possible from China and from Russia.
He thought everything should be made, manufactured, grown, developed within North Korea.
As we can see that wasn't a very successful idea, but that was the beginning of the North
Korean philosophy.
He also created the cult of personality which his son, Kim Jong Il built on.
Kim Jong Il obviously took over when his father died in 1994.
Kim Jong Il was a very important figure in the development of North Korea.
He believed in military first.
He believed in military might and he directed most of North Korea's G.D.P., I think it's
about 25% of their G.D.P., towards the military.
North Korea has one of the largest standing armies in the world because pretty much everybody
is in the army.
He did that for a number of reasons.
One reason was to cement control over the country.
He wanted to stop coups, and if you can control the military you can generally control the country.
But, he also built on the god status, the cult of personality.
He spread many myths about himself.
You might have heard some of them.
He said that he was born on a mountain.
Well, you've heard many of the stories, I'm sure.
And, basically, setting himself up as a god.
He wants to be more than a person, he wants to be a god.
And, what he did is, he made his father the Eternal General ... sorry ... he made his
father the Eternal President, and when Kim Jong Il died he became the Eternal General Secretary.
But, more than that, to the people of North Korea they are gods.
There are statues and pictures of them everywhere.
If you see a statue of the founding fathers, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, you must stop,
you must bow, you must pay your respects.
If you take a photograph, the whole of the statue must be in the photograph.
You have to pay your respects.
And you can see this in pictures where people are meeting the Supreme Leader and they're
crying and they're screaming.
They're basically meeting their God, I should say.
So, during Kim Jong Il's reign, there were quite a few problems because he directed most
of the G.D.P. towards the military, the economy basically suffered.
In the 1990s there were severe floods, there were severe droughts and there are ... were
huge huge famines.
Millions of people actually starved to death.
In the end the U.N. had to send aid in to help.
Although a lot of that aid was stolen and redirected.
Anyway, 2011, Kim Jong Il died and he has been replaced by his son Kim Jong Un.
Kim Jong Un was Kim Jong Il's son from one of his four wives.
He had many wives.
Kim Jong Un became leader in 2011.
He is the Supreme Leader.
He cemented his control.
He was very young when he took power, he took control by executing a large number of opponents,
as you probably saw in the news.
Anyway, that brings us up to the modern day.
So, Kim Jong Un is building on the cult of personality.
He's building on the god status.
He travels around his country, travels around his factories ... Sorry ... And you probably
see him in pictures surrounded by his subordinates, surrounded by soldiers, and all of these subordinates
have a notebook in their hand.
This started with his father, but, basically, because Kim Jong Un is a god, everything he
says is important.
Everything he says is correct and important and must be written down.
So, all of his subordinates are there with notebooks writing down everything he says.
If you don't have a notebook of course, you're probably going to get punished.
So, everybody has a notebook.
Of course, if what he says is wrong, you don't write it down.
Anyway, that's why in all the pictures you see his subordinates carrying around notebooks.
Ok.
So, as you probably know, North Korea is a fairly corrupt regime.
Kim Jong UN has 17 mansions.
He has a yacht.
He has a ski resort.
He spends about $63,000 a year on brandy.
The average salary in North Korea is about $804 a year.
He spends over $100,000 a year on alcohol, on expensive alcohols.
In 2012, he spent about $645 million on luxury goods.
Since he took control, his weight has blossomed, bloomed, exploded.
He's now estimated to be about 130kg.
If you look at pictures of him in the beginning, he was never actually thin, but now he's huge
and he wears long coats to try and disguise that.
The North Korean economy is suffering, is collapsing.
If you look at a global map at night you can very clearly see Japan over here very brightly
lit, China up here brightly lit, South Korea brightly lit, North Korea completely dark.
Pyongyang, the capital is slightly bright, but the rest of North Korea is completely black.
Why?
Because there is no electricity.
People are starving.
The communist regime, they take food from the people.
There is famine.
There's drought.
The people are basically starving.
And while they're starving, Kim Jong Un gets fatter and fatter.
And there are sanctions.
Very strong sanctions have been placed upon North Korea recently because they won't give
up their nuclear weapons program.
So, at the expense of his people, Kim Jong Un is continuing in this stubborn attempt
to build nuclear weapons.
If he was going hungry with his people, if he was fighting with his people against the
oppressors, you could understand it, but he's obviously not.
He's doing this at the expense of his people.
He doesn't seem to care about his people.
So, what's going to happen to North Korea?
I have no idea, but it will probably collapse at some point.
However, China and North Korea want to prevent that as much as possible.
Recently, the strongest sanctions have been placed upon North Korea, but China is always
the one that wants to help North Korea.
Why is that?
Well basically, because America has military bases in South Korea and in Japan.
North Korea is a buffer zone between South Korea and China.
If Korea was to collapse ... North Korea was to collapse, and become one with South Korea,
then the U.S. military would be right on the border of China, and obviously China doesn't
want that.
So, China wants to prop up the North Korean regime as much as possible to try and stop
America coming close to them.
South Korea doesn't not want North Korea to collapse, but South Korea cannot afford North
Korea to collapse.
If you look at 1990, 1991, when East and West Germany combined ... unified, what happened
to begin with?
The poor East Germans flooded into rich West Germany and the West German economy collapsed
for a long time.
But, now, if you look at Europe, Germany, unified Germany, is one of the richest countries
in Europe.
Well that's because of course they have more people, they have more laborers, they have
more work, they have a lot of benefits.
South Korea and North Korea will not survive as easily as East Germany and West Germany did.
One reason for that is because the population of North Korea is higher than the population
of East Germany was.
Another reason is the mean income was higher.
East Germans had on average about $10,000 apiece.
North Koreans have about a $1,000 apiece.
So, when North and South Korea combine, the hit to South Korea is going to be enormous,
and their economy is going to collapse.
America will probably help and support them, Japan might, too, but it is going to be a
huge problem for their economy.
They will probably come through it, but it will take a long long time.
So, those are two reasons why China and South Korea don't want the North Korean regime to
collapse.
However, regime change is probably inevitable.
Something will have to happen.
I don't know what.
Anyway, that was quite interesting.
Thanks for watching.
If you have any topics you'd like me to talk about put them in the comments down there
somewhere.
If you want to subscribe, the button's about here.
Thank you.
Next week will be about the Wright brothers, I think.
Anyway, see you then.
Bye.
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