North Korean Economy Watch

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
5/10/2007

Since the mid-1990s antique dealers in Seoul have uncovered a new source of quality items: North Korea. Indeed, around that time, antiques secretly excavated in North Korea began to arrive in Seoul in ever increasing quantities.

By the late 1980s, the antique trade in South Korea was going through hard times. Most of the important sources had been used up, and the state had established a fairly efficient control over excavations. Supply was shrinking, and prices kept growing. This was just when the antique items from North Korea hit the market.

This was a result of three important transformations. First, the famine and near collapse of the state bureaucracy in the North meant that many people were ready to do whatever it took to earn some money, and that officials, if given sufficient bribes, would not interfere much, if at all.

Second, the same combination of corruption and collapsing border controls essentially opened the Chinese border with North Korea.

Third, the adjacent areas of China became popular with Korean tourists who frequented the areas, and were on occasion ready to do some small and profitable, if illegal, business.

The major attractions are the Goryeo-era tombs which have been intensively excavated in the last decade (the major centers of the Goryeo Kingdom were located in what is now North Korea). These illegal diggings produced a flood of Goryeo items on the Seoul antique markets. Actually, the amount of antiques that have appeared makes archaeologists wonder about the scale of damage inflicted on the Goryeo sites in recent years. If rumors are to be believed, tomb raiding usually involves North Korean officials, people whose job would be to protect the historical site.

Apart from Goryeo “grave goods,’’ smuggled items include Buddhist images of all kinds, old books, furniture and stoneware. Some of these items originate from the Unified Silla Kingdom (7-10th century) while others are relatively new and can be dated to the early 20th century.

In most cases, the items are “mined’’ on the spot, but there have been a number of confirmed or nearly confirmed instances of books and other works which clearly have been stolen from museums and libraries in the North.

Then the items are transported to the border and smuggled into China. This might require bribing customs and immigration officials, but for a few hundred dollars one can purchase an uncontrolled passage (and, as a merchant told a South Korean journalist in an interview, well-paid custom officials can even help to move heavier items across the border).

The border city of Dandong plays the role of the major illegal market for the smuggled North Korean antique items. In China, some antiques go to the local buyers, but far more frequently the items are smuggled again, this time to Seoul, to appear in the antique shops in the Korean capital.

Some items are bought by rich collectors, while others end up in private museums. However, the Kookmin Ilbo journalists, who investigated the trade in 2005, discovered that museums are very secretive about such acquisitions, being uneasy about the legal implications of provenance, and the likely influence on relations between the two Koreas.

A major role in the business networks is done by two ethnic groups: the Joseonjok, or ethnic Koreans in China, and the hwagyo (huaqiao), the ethnic Chinese in Korea. Members of both groups have ample opportunities for legal cross-border travel, have money and connections, and are fluent in both languages.

They transport the booty, and also provide the North Korean diggers (not exactly experts in Goryeo celadon or early Joseon books) with instructions regarding the most preferable items at any given moment.

This is a risky business, and in the late 1990s the North Korean authorities attempted a number of crackdowns, with few high-level officials arrested for involvement in antique smuggling. However, people take risks.

A good piece of Goryeo-era ware would easily sell for tens of thousands of dollars in Seoul. Only a fraction of this money will go to the grave robbers, of course, with intermediaries and bribe-taking officials along the route pocketing the lion’s share of the profit.

Still, we can presume that a good piece would bring a successful digger a few hundred dollars. In a country where the average salary has fluctuated between one and five dollars a month, this is still a fortune, even for a minor official, and the more high-ranking policemen and security guys are making good living out of this.

It is somewhat difficult to judge these people too harshly, especially those who are driven to tomb raiding by the real threat of starvation, but there is no doubt that extensive and chaotic diggings are wiping out an important historical heritage. When archeologists arrive at the sites, sooner or later as they will, they will have to deal with the havoc produced by the illegal diggers, and many important traces of the past will be lost forever.

In tandem with the antiques, the forgery industry has also developed, with North Korean artisans learning the techniques used by South Korean experts. They know how to make a vase of a bottle from a few small pieces, how to imitate the old patterns on the ceramics, as well as many other tricks of an experienced forger. It seems that the North Korean forgers enjoy some competitive advantages over their South Korean colleagues. At any rate, the boom is not yet over.

Bloomberg
Bradley Martin
5/10/2007

Since 2002, North Korea has invited visitors every few years to a festival featuring 60,000 dancers, gymnasts, acrobats and musicians, along with card-flippers who create vast pictorial mosaics covering one entire side of the 150,000-seat May Day stadium in the capital, Pyongyang.

The previous performance, in 2005, included noisy and bloody tableaux of North Korean soldiers making mincemeat of enemy soldiers. Last week’s Arirang production — named for a famous Korean love song — was different. Battlefield carnage was replaced with scenes of people seeking higher living standards by rebuilding factories and growing crops.

While North Korea is hardly going pacifist seven months after testing an atomic device, the propaganda shift may signal a significant change in policy, according to expatriate businessmen living in the isolated country. Now that it is a nuclear power, North Korea appears to be directing more resources to improving an economy on its knees after decades of sanctions and isolation, they say.

Korean officials “are now confident they can defend their country,” said Felix Abt, the Swiss president of PyongSu Pharma Joint Venture Co. Ltd., which recently started manufacturing painkillers and antibiotics in Pyongyang. “Their next priority is economic development.”

Consumer Goods

The policy emphasizes light industry to produce consumer goods. It was formally expressed in a joint editorial that was run at the beginning of the year in three major newspapers published by the regime, Abt said.

Getting verifiable information about policies in North Korea is still almost impossible, especially on tightly organized trips for foreigners in which government guides keep visitors on a short leash.

And if the propaganda on display during one of these visits last week can be believed, the government continues to conceive any new economic policy along the lines of a traditional, planned economy, focused on state-owned enterprises where workers are inspired to redouble their efforts and produce miracles of socialist endeavor.

The Arirang show made this abundantly clear. In an act called “Power and Prosperity,” the audience was urged to emulate “youth shock brigade” members and other working people in North Pyongan Province who recently completed Thaechon Youth Power Station No. 4 in spite of catastrophic shortages of food, energy and most other materials that became evident in the early- to-mid-1990s.

`The Power’

The performance illustrated that North Korea needn’t depend on foreign donations, said Kim Song Ho, 32, one of the tour guides assigned to foreign visitors this month. “Our country has the power to live by ourselves,” said Kim, who worked for the World Food Program’s Pyongyang office until the government reintroduced rice rationing in 2005 and told foreign-aid organizations it could manage mainly on its own.

In Thaechon, Kim said, “workers constructed a power station despite the bad situation without any help. Now the slogan is, `We will work like Thaechon Power Station workers.’ We renovated factories, built new factories and now the economy is booming more and more.”

Evidence of such economic change wasn’t included on the tour Kim was guiding. Kim said he would happily show such sites to the foreign visitor another time.

Different Conditions

The development schemes aren’t directly modeled on those of China or Vietnam, locals stressed. “The conditions of the Chinese and Koreans are different,” said Kim Hyon Chol, the 32- year-old chief guide of the tour group. “The biggest difference is that our country is not united.”

The regime has kept its propaganda options open on its military direction.

Billboards in the capital city showed a U.S. and a Japanese soldier both skewered on the same bayonet. And while there was no sequence in the Arirang show celebrating the country’s nuclear explosion or missile tests, a military parade on April 25 to which foreign residents were invited showed off a missile said to be capable of hitting U.S. bases on Guam.

At the Demilitarized Zone, which has divided North from South Korea since the Korean War armistice agreement was signed in 1953, Korean People’s Army Captain Han Myong Gil was asked whether North Korea is safer since its nuclear test. He replied that U.S. and South Korean forces had held huge military exercises even as diplomats talked of trying to bring peace to the Korean peninsula.

`Hostile Attitude’

“The saying goes in Korea, `If there are many clouds, it will soon rain,”’ the 28-year-old career officer said. “We can’t feel safe until the U.S. gives up its hostile attitude.”

Han eventually responded to a question about what he thought of his government’s spending money on a huge military apparatus – – North Korea’s troop strength is the world’s fourth largest — while people don’t have enough food.

“We receive fright and oppression from the U.S., so I cannot hide that our living standard is not high,” Han said. “We were on an arduous march for a long time. Now we are very proud because we defended socialism with the military-first policy. A strong country can defend itself, but the weak will be beaten down.”

Office of Foreign Asset Control
(hat tip to Mr. Lukacs, with whom I visited Turkmenistan with Koryo Tours)

[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 31, Volume 2]
[Revised as of July 1, 2003]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 31CFR500.563]

[Page 543]
 
                  TITLE 31–MONEY AND FINANCE: TREASURY
 
 CHAPTER V–OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
 
PART 500–FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL REGULATIONS–Table of Contents
 
 Subpart E–Licenses, Authorizations and Statements of Licensing Policy
 
Sec. 500.563  Transactions incident to travel to and within North Korea.

    (a) All transactions of persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction, including travel service providers, ordinarily incident to travel to, from, and within North Korea and to maintenance within North Korea are authorized. This authorization extends to transactions with North Korean carriers and those involving group tours, payment of living expenses, the acquisition of goods in North Korea for personal use, and normal banking transactions involving currency drafts, charge, debit or credit cards, traveler’s checks, or other financial instruments negotiated incident to personal travel.
    (b) The purchase of merchandise in North Korea by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and importation as accompanied baggage, is limited to goods with a foreign market value not to exceed $100 per person for personal use only. Such merchandise may not be resold. This authorization may be used only once in every six consecutive months. As provided in Sec. 500.206 of this part, information and informational materials are exempt from this restriction.
    (c) This section does not authorize any debit to a blocked account.

[60 FR 8935, Feb. 16, 1995]

Yonhap
5/9/2007

Despite lingering tension over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, inter-Korean commercial trade surged 43 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period a year earlier, the Unification Ministry said Wednesday.

Commercial trade between the two Koreas increased to US$346.99 million in the January-April period, up from $243.36 a year ago, thanks to an influx of zinc bullion, sand, fishery items, shoes and clothing into a joint industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

The industrial complex is the crowning achievement of a landmark summit between the leaders of the two Koreas in 2000. South Korean businesses use cheap North Korean labor to produce goods in Kaesong where 21 South Korean factories employ about 11,160 North Korean workers.

“Non-commercial trade between the two sides dropped 24 percent during the same time span, so the total inter-Korean trade rose 25.5 percent to $411 million,” the ministry said in a statement.

In late March, South Korea started to send fertilizer aid and flood relief supplies to the North.

The shipment came weeks after the two sides agreed to resume humanitarian aid and family reunion events, just days after North Korea promised to take steps to shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually disable it in return for energy aid from South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

Shortly after the North conducted missile tests in July, the South suspended food and fertilizer aid along with its emergency aid to the impoverished North. In retaliation, the communist nation suspended inter-Korean talks, family reunions and the construction of a family reunion center.

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
5/9/2007
“If you have a second child, your rations become equivalent to a family of 4”…citizens respond apath 
 
North Korean authorities have been scrutinizing over the decreasing number of birthrates by young couples and as a result have proposed to increase the amount of rations to families having children.

If a couple gives birth to a second child in the district of Hamheung, South Hamkyung, the whole family will receive 6 months worth of distributions, a source informed. If a third child is born, the rations increase all the more.

After giving birth to a child in a hospital, a married woman from Hamheung can obtain a birth certificate, which is then submitted to the local district office, to receive distributions equivalent to a family of 4. These proposals resemble policies implemented by local district offices in South Korea.

Though Hamheung city has made efforts to increase the birthrate with distributions, the people’s response is all but cold, the source said. How many people would really have a second child just to scavenge off a few months worth of distributions.

One of the main reasons that the birthrate is decreasing in North Korea is due to the fact that women are avoiding giving birth, informed the source.

The source said, “Nowadays, North Korean women engage in businesses and are the breadwinners of the family. They are not satisfied with just having children and bringing them up” and added, “Everyone knows that it is hard enough to live and even harder if you have a lot of children.”

North Korea’s birthrate has continued to decline since the late 1990’s. The average birthrate in North Korea in 1993 was 2.1 births per family and in 2002, 2.04. Comparatively, in South Korea the birthrate per family in 1970 was 4.53 and 1.19 in 2003. Within a period of 33 years, the number of childbirths per family had reduced to 3.34 persons.

In an interview with the Jochongryeon last December, Kang Nam Il, head of the North Korea Population Research Center said, “The decrease of birthrates in our country (North Korea) is no different to that of other nations” and remarked, “Women want to have 2 children, though in the cities women have either 1 or 2 children.”

The source said, “There may be slight differences in each district. Nonetheless, most of the larger cities have adopted this proposal” and added, “This policy was implemented as North Korean authorities are finding it difficult to reach the quota for conscription and the number of students enrolling in schools.”

Daily NK
Kim Song A
5/9/2007

Photos of Kim Jong Il’s half-brother, Kim Pyong Il and the North Korean ambassador in Poland were recently made public.

Kim Pyong Il’s daughter, Eung Song and son, In Kang who have until now lived a sheltered and private life are also exposed in the photos. They are Kim Jong Il’s niece and nephew.

The photos were first released in March on Poland’s City of Narew homepage. The photos show Kim Pyong Il, his children and city officials making visitations to industrial sites, exhibitions, museums and participating recreational activities. In reference to the photos, it seems that these events took place on February 10.

Throughout the past, North Korea has maintained economic and cultural exchanges through the Korean Friendship Association with various countries in the East-European bloc. The events that took place on this day were organized by the association with North Koreans residing in Poland also participating in the occasion.

The homepage showed photos of Kim Il Pyong Il visiting NARMET Pty Ltd, his son, In Kang playing a game of table tennis and daughter Eun Song playing the piano.

Through the photos of Kim Pyong Il, you can see an exact resemblance of his father, though a “younger Kim Il Sung.” His two children are known to have completed a Masters degree in Poland and look healthy and well in appearance.

Kim Jong Il has one younger sister Kim Kyung Hee (married to Jang Sung Taek) as well as half-brothers (to different mothers) Kim Pyong Il, Kim Young Il (deceased 2000) and half-sister Kim Kyung Jin (51, married to Kim Kwang Sup, Ambassador to Austria). After being appointed as the successor in 1974, Kim Jong Il sent his brothers and sisters to work at alternative foreign departments so that they could not interfere with his power.

According to elite North Korean officials, there was a time where Kim Il Sung had considered appointing his succession to his three sons, “Jong Il, the Party, Pyong Il, the military and the government to Young Il.” However, after winning a power conflict with his uncle Kim Young Joo, Kim Jong Il ousted his uncle to Jagang province and sent his other siblings including Pyong Il to other departments where they could not come near of his power.

Kim Pyong Il was born on August 10 1954 and graduated from Kim Il Sung University with a major in economics. Following, he was appointed a high rank position and after passing the Kim Il Sung National War College, began working as a battalion commander at the guards headquarters. Once it was confirmed that Kim Jong Il would succeed his father, Kim Pyong Il left Pyongyang in 1979 to work at the North Korean Embassy in Yugoslavia. Around the same time, Kim Kyung Jin left with her husband for Czechoslovakia and Kim Young Il to East Germany.

In 1988, Kim Pyong Il was appointed Ambassador for Hungary but as soon as South Korea and Hungary developed amiable relations in December that year, he was re-appointed as the Ambassador to Bulgaria. Then in 1998, he became the official Ambassador to Poland where he has continued his services until now.

Kim Pyong Il’s wife is Kim Soon Geum. It is the first time that photos of their daughter Eun Song and son, In Kang, have been exposed to the public. When Kim Jong Il and his first wife Kim Young Sook had their first daughter, Kim Il Sung named the child “Sul Song.” When Kim Kyung Hee had her first daughter, she was named “Geum Song.” Similarly, it seems that Kim Il Sung named Kim Pyong Il’s first daughter, “Eun Song.” Kim Kyung Hee’s first daughter Jang Geum Song was known to have committed suicide last year in France as her parents opposed a marital proposal.

Of North Korea’s central committee under the Workers’ Party, the office 10 is known for regulating, controlling and being responsible for Kim Jong Il’s half-siblings.

Kim Pyong Il: North Korea’s Man in Poland
Daily NK
Nicolas Levi
5/17/2009

In February 2005, when I met Kim Pyong Il in Poland for the first time, he told me that he favored ameliorating the human consequences of the division of Korea.

Afterwards he started to talk to the other people present there in a room at the North Korean embassy; one of them later told me that Kim Pyong Il is usually very discrete, and is rarely present at receptions in other embassies in Warsaw. He generally only goes to the Chinese and Russian embassies, and sometimes to the Romanian and Algerian ones as well. North Korea was a model for both communist Romania under Ceaucescu and Algeria, that’s why the North Korean ambassador has special ties with those countries. In addition, Shaif Badr Abdullah Qaid, the last Yemeni ambassador in Warsaw studied in Pyongyang in the 70’s and became Kim’s good friend; their conversations dealt with life in North Korea, but never about the private life of half brother of Kim Jong Il.

In February 2006, I had occasion to talk with Kim Pyong Il again during a reception on Kim Jong Il’s birthday. During this meeting I saw a confident Kim Pyong Il, happy in Poland. However our conversation remained very diplomatic; Kim agreed that Korea should be reunified peacefully.

I never talked with Kim In Kang (26), Kim Pyong Il’s son, but I did have the chance to meet his daughter Kim Eung Song (28) some 10 times, both with her friends and face to face. She was a very open person. She was not only a nice girl; she also had impressive languages-skills (she is fluent in English, Polish, French and presumably Russian). She had a great social life in Poland with many friends. However, her father ordered her to return to Pyongyang in 2007, where she was supposed to marry the son of a North Korean General. She refused for a time, but finally went back to the North Korean capital.

Kim Sun Gum (56), the wife of Kim Pyong Il is a very discreet person, and rarely talks to others. Theirs was an arranged marriage. The wedding was personally organized by Kim Il Sung. It is said that she has a political background; her family apparently comes from the special services.

The last time I met Kim Pyong Il, in February 2009, I told him that I was preparing a doctoral thesis about his extended family (Kim Il Sung has two official wives: Kim Jong Suk, the mother of Kim Jong Il and Kim Sung Ae who is Kim Pyong Il’s mother). He reacted violently, telling me it was too dangerous.

That was my last contact with Kim Pyong Il; we haven’t met again since.

Kim Jong Il has a younger sister called Kim Kyung Hee (married to Jang Sung Taek) as well as half-brothers Kim Pyong Il (55) and Kim Yong Il (deceased in 2000), and half-sister Kim Kyung Jin (51), who is married to Kim Kwang Sop, Ambassador to Austria. After being appointed successor to his father in 1974, Kim Jong Il sent his half-brothers and sisters to work in overseas missions so that they could not interfere with his power. Kim Pyong Il started out in Yugoslavia, before moving to Hungary in 1988. However, he was swiftly relocated to Bulgaria as part of a protest over the opening of diplomatic relations between Hungary and South Korea. He then went on to work in Finland, but since January 1998 has resided in Warsaw.

Nicolas Levi is a Polish free publisher whose interests are mainly connected with the Korean Peninsula.

KCNA
5/8/2007

The national scientific and technological festival commemorating the 95th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung was held from May 3 to 7 at the Three-Revolution Exhibition. 

The 22nd festival of this kind took place in the forms of a symposium on latest scientific and technological achievements, a presentation of results of scientific researches, a presentation of achievements in technical innovation and a diagram show. 

Officials, scientists, technicians and working people across the country presented achievements, experiences and many scientific and technical data attained in the course of the massive technical innovation movement at local scientific and technological festivals. 

At least 570 items of data of scientific and technological results highly appreciated there were made public at 18 sections of the national festival. 

During the festival the participants introduced achievements in agriculture and light industry and valuable scientific and technological data helpful to revitalizing the national economy and lifting to a high level the technical engineering of such major fields as IT and nanotechnology, bioengineering and basic sciences and widely swapped experiences. 

Five persons carried away special prize and 53 top prize at the festival. 

The closing ceremony of the national festival took place on Monday. Present there were Choe Thae Bok, secretary of the C.C., Workers’ Party of Korea, Ro Tu Chol, vice-premier of the Cabinet, Pyon Yong Rip, president of the State Academy of Sciences, and others. 

The decision of the jury of the festival was made public at the closing ceremony and the festival cups, medals and diplomas were awarded to those highly appraised. And prize of scientific and technological merits went to seven officials who had given precious help to scientists and technicians and presented materials of new research results to the festival. 

A closing speech was made by Pak Yong Sin, secretary of the Central Committee of the Korean General Federation of Science and Technology.

Yonhap
5/8/2007

South Korea will provide some US$2 million worth of insecticide and equipment to North Korea to stem the spread of an infectious pine disease in the communist country, the Unification Ministry said Tuesday.

The South also agreed to send tree specialists to the North to make on-site inspections to assess the damage and share information needed to prevent the pine wilt disease, it said.

The agreement was made at the end of working-level talks held in the North Korean border city of Kaesong. The one-day meeting was held at the request of North Korea.

“The list of aid equipment and the schedule for the on-site visit will be decided in the form of the exchange of a document,” the ministry said in a statement.

The South Korean delegation was led by Oh Ki-pyo, chief of the team for forest blight prevention at the Korea Forest Service, while his counterpart was Chang Yong-chol, deputy director of the North’s forest service bureau.

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
5/8/2007

Looking after the army back-to back rapidly changing to a “hard-line attitude towards the U.S.?” 

While observing the economic facilities for a while, Kim Jong Il, who has put on the gesture of emphasizing “economics,” has recently come forward to look after the army once again.

Last 5th and 6th, North Korea’s Workers Party-sponsored Rodung Shinmun reported that Kim Jong Il visited the 967th and the 977th army one after another.

According to this source, Kim Jong Il relayed, “The fate of our military-first revolution as our great revolutionary inheritance and our socialist enterprise depends on the military power.” At the 977th army, he revealed, “I am pleased that the soldiers have an awakened mind and are responsibly carrying out inspections work.”

This year, Kim Jong Il’s army inspections include seven visits, including the recent ones: 593rd army (January 15th), 398th joint army (January 16th), 105th army (March 19th), 350th army (March 19th), and the 75th anniversary parade of the establishment of the People’s Army.

Last year, when nuclear experiments were enforced, 66 army inspections and army-related events were achieved while raising a confrontational front to the United States. Immediately after the nuclear tests, it spared 16 events in the economic areas of Wonsan Farm and South Hankyung Province Industry Scene while putting forth a confident image under “improvement of civilian lives.”

North Korean advertising media have cast their spotlight as if to show their interest in economic issues while relaying the news of Kim Jong Il’s inspections of Chungjin in North Hamkyung last February, the 4th Taechun power plant, and Jakangdo industry scene.

Further, the North Korean media, through sound arguments via Rodung Shinmum, maintained, “The days when our people can live well are not too far off.” Accordingly, Kim Jong Il’s back-to-back industry inspection walks were portrayed as intentions to renew the impoverished civilian lives in contrast with the past that stressed army inspections.

Advertising “improvement of civilian lives” but people do not believe

However, the grandiose promise of “improving civilian lives” did not show much difference after the economy-related facility visits. Therefore, looking after the army by Kim Jong Il, who does not have a vision or will regarding opening and reforms, may be an inevitable course of action.

Even after entering the spring poverty season last March to April and the busy faming season in May, not having any possibility of resolving the problem of provisions is one of the reasons why civilians are having a difficult time purely accepting Kim Jong Il’s walks related to the public welfare and the national advertisements.

Kim Jong Il’s back-to-back army visits seem to be a gesture to arouse distrust in the wilted popular sentiment by rotating the policy towards the U.S. to a hard-line one. By turning the blame on the U.S. for the BDA asset problem, he seems to be stepping up the solidarity of the army and civilian mind around anti-American sentiment. 

Korea Herald
5/8/2007
 
An online website named North Korea’s “juche” (self-reliance) ideology as the world’s 10th major religion, although some argue that it is more a philosophy than a religion, Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday.

Adherents.com, which collected information and statistics on more than 4,200 religions around the globe, cited Christianity as having the largest number of believers at 2.1 billion. Islam has 1.3 billion, followed by Buddhism claiming some 376 million believers, while another 100 million people share African traditional faith, according to the site.

Juche was said to have 19 million believers, which is the entire North Korean population.

Some 22 religions were listed to account for the beliefs of over 98 percent of the world’s population.

The website explains juche as the official philosophy promulgated by the North Korean government and education system, initially classified as the country’s form of Marxist communism.