Hard Times in the North

Report: North Korea cuts state rations, forced to lift market restrictions after China fails to deliver on aid. Assuming this report is accurate, my guess is that those who suffer most from this will be the enlisted ranks in less-favored military units and lower-ranking state workers. Most people are already cut out of the ration system and dependent on the markets, and the regime always seems to find enough food for the Inner Party, the officers, the internal security services, and the special forces.

Meanwhile, conditions in the North sound atrocious, though it’s always hard to say if they’re unusually atrocious:

Chinese villagers along the northern border told the Herald of North Koreans plundering their livestock, tools and any other objects not nailed down. They told of women crossing the river to trade backpacks full of soy bean paste for luxuries like nail clippers, shoes and rice. Wilson Im survived his adolescent years in South Pyongan by scavenging aluminium pots, pans and cutlery, of which his bauxite-rich neighbourhood had relative plenty. He would pack them in his school bag, and stow away on south-bound trains to trade for rice on the flatter and more fertile fields closer to Pyongyang.

Lately the regime has been battling to reimpose its tight-fisted control by restricting street markets and launching a campaign against imported Chinese goods. It has slowed the refugee traffic to a trickle by increasing patrols.

Refugee activists in China told the Herald they had grown reluctant to help arrivals because they could no longer tell a genuine refugee from a North Korean secret agent who had starved themselves to infiltrate their networks. [Sydney Morning Herald]