https://xcancel.com/Reuters/status/2054098106136813829
Cars in North Korea??? That’s not supposed to happen. It’s ruining our narratives about them having dead rats for dinner. 
DPRK citizens now have access to superior Chinese EVs that amerikkkans can’t have. 
Chinese car sellers: “I consent”
NK car buyers: “I consent”
Burger Eagle Freedom Institute brightest boy: “Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask?”
Damn that’s fucked, comrade Kim please unleash infinite trains upon Pyongyang
HAHA NORTH KOREANS CAN’T AFFORD CARS
…
HAHA THERE ARE TOO MANY CARS IN NORTH KOREA
dprk no cars? bad
dprk has cars? bad
I can’t believe they built all these big wide highways when they don’t have any cars to drive on them
I can’t believe they’re driving cars on these big wide highways, those don’t belong there
What do they mean “aren’t supposed to be there”?
The gist of the article is, the boom in vehicle ownership in North Korea is outpacing the infrastructure and systems to management it, e.g. traffic jams and parking spot scarcity.
There are some choice pure ideology moments in the article:
The boom follows changes to North Korean law that formalized private car ownership over the past two years, allowing licensed drivers to buy one vehicle per household through state-certified dealers. Owning a car is still mostly the preserve of the elite and the entrepreneurial class known as donju, analysts say.
Car ownership is simultaneously getting so pervasive that it’s causing backups and overflowing parking lots, but also it’s only the elite that can afford them (much like we were told it’s only the “elite” Chinese on Xiaohongshu).
Peter Ward, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute, a non-partisan think tank in Seoul, said North Korea’s automotive policy is part of a broader push to bring private economic activity under state control.
I’m sure the think tank in South Korea with a white dude on staff is very unbiased and neutral when it comes to North Korea.
20 years ago, a favorite trope of western media talking about the DPRK was how Pyongyang had all these big fancy clean boulevards and roadways with precise traffic control, but the streets were empty of cars. how silly!
it’s like those old stories about China’s ghost cities of infrastructure with no inhabitants being all fake and communism. now, of course, they’re full of people and well integrated into a regional development plan.
and, the cherry on top has got to be, as you point out, the article talking about car ownership being elite only, but the roads are full anyway because the dang proletariat are too numerous. don’t they realize they can’t have so many elites?! the word “elite” has lost all meaning in these communist countries!
no no, it makes sense. when the workers are in control, they are the elite. and they can all afford cars apparently. it’s only the poor aristocrats of north korea who cant.
my grandfather had an egg monopoly and a palace with many servants. and now i must walk the streets like a dust-covered peasant, where any one feels permitted by this authoritarian government to make eye contact with me.
I’m sure the think tank in South Korea with a white dude on staff is very unbiased and neutral when it comes to North Korea.
This think tank is particularly biased as it was created in response to the Rangoon incident. However, South Korea itself is not a unified monolith of support for western imperialism, and thinking so is also a byproduct of western chauvinism.
Actual leftist anti-imperialist parties in South Korea have historically had more representation and support than leftist parties a lot of western nations. And that is in spite of the government banning the most popular ones every 5-10 years.
Yep, the ROK is extremely divided due to the heightened contradictions from Statesian colonialism, an unfinished civil war, and the ramifications of turning the old colonial government into a new class of chaebol. Trade unionists in the ROK are far more militant than most western countries, and labor struggle is heightened just like pro-Japanese colonialism compradors are also high.
Yep. I always tell people that SK is like a western liberal democracy but if you put it in a pressure cooker. My parents generation basically speed ran the spectrum of highs and lows of what liberal democracy has to offer and arrived at late stage capitalism 20 years before America.
My optimism about the country compared to somewhere like America is that they have a lot more worker solidarity and aren’t afraid to throw a Molotov cocktail at cops. Plus they really don’t have the reflexive loyalty to the liberal idea of “freedoms” , they are working under their 6th Republic after all.
Yep, I agree! The political instability isn’t just because the state is especially repressive, it’s because there’s also a ton of struggle by the working classes against it. Then there’s the massive power of the chaebol and the nihilism brought on by declining birth rates and a feminist movement struggling within this highly misogynistic pressure cooker.
My hope is that the downfall of the US Empire pushes normalization with the DPRK and increased ties with the PRC, potentially even a socialist revolution.
Oh yeah, I’m aware of the history of anti-imperialist/leftist/pro-unification groups in South Korea. I’m also sure that Reuters would not turn to them to get a quote on the state of the peninsula.
That’s fair, I only commented because there is a prevalence of ignorance on this site about korea that can often compete with traditional reactionary western chauvinism.
I’ve personally been called a fascist just because my family is originally from Seoul, despite my mom having to flee her homeland because she was a socialist and participated in a student uprising in the 80s.
The western narrative of the Korean War basically erases the historic truth that NK invaded SK because the latter was massacring revolting leftist Koreans.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Imo while America holds the lion’s share, both western powers hold blame.
The jeju uprising had a lot less to do with socialism/communism and a lot more to do with Korean independence. After the Soviets and Americans decided to spit the country in half in a shared occupation, there was supposed to be a five year trusteeship until both countries left the peninsula.
Although there was supposed to be a 5 year waiting period the United states wanted to expedite the ending of the trusteeship, which the Soviet state was not in favor of and so they did not come to agreement . After that the US called led a UN resolution for a unified independence election led by the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea.
The Soviets fearing that they would lose influence in the North rejected the UNTCOK, and so the UNTCOK election only proceeded in the south. The people of Jeju so close to the colonizing force of Japan were more resistant to colonization and were rightly afraid that the UNTCOK would solidify the 38th parallel and rebeled.
In reality both sides could have made compromises throughout the process, but we’re both worried about losing influence over a strategic location. Imo it’s what happens when western nations believe they have a right to occupy foreign nations.
The big ommissions here are that the Soviets were not occupiers and were far less involved than the Statesians, and the Statesians had declared the People’s Republic of Korea illegal, and had set up an occupying government called USAMGIK, and then set up the ROK, leaving many of the compradors from the era of Japanese colonialism in power as the new stage and chaebol.
In the North, the democratic processes consolidated around the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, and the WPK in particular. The PRK was not dissolved in the north, and instead transitioned to the modern DPRK. The Soviets did not force the communists into power like the Statesians had forced the new capitalist government into power in the south.
There is only one road in North Korea and it is 10 feet long. Both members of the elite own a car and they force ten plebs each to push them on the dirt road in a circle, constantly stomping over the corpses of the traitors who didn’t get the right haircut.
LMAO, western cope will always be funny. IIRC the DPRK actually have at least one car factory and brand on one of their special regions bordering China, but I can’t find the ad they did for that. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
The one that I know if is Pyeonghwa Motors and it has its main factory in Nampo which is on the west coast, not near the border. It’s definitely not their only car factory either. There might be some on the border with China now, I don’t know either, but at the very least there’s also the older Sungri Motor Plant that has made vehicles for DPRK since like the 1950s, but it’s pretty much right in the center of the country.
@couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip, looks like your prediction was shit.
Thanks for the correction comrade. I wish I could find the ad I mentioned and the post where I saw that ad providing contxt, but I don’t even remeber on what platform it was on.
How did you correct him?
No-one’s going to correct you
lmao wrong
