Juche: How North Korea Cornered Themselves
North Korea was founded on the Juche ideology created by former President Kim Il Sung. The Juche ideology essentially states that man has complete control over one’s life and the world around them, or in other words self-reliance. It is laid upon 3 principles: “political independence, economic self-reliance, and military autonomy.” However respectable this ideology may seem from the outside, it is also what caused North Korea’s downfall as a major power.
After adopting socialism in the mid-1940s, North Korea has been seen as an enemy by the United States. The States took an offensive stance against the North, and, in essence, American allies agreed with them. This is often called containment, which was a policy followed by the US in order to “contain” the spread of communism to other countries.
Since then, most of the world (which does not include communist countries like China, Russia, and Vietnam) have followed suit and supported decisions to lock North Korea out of the rest of the world as much as North Korea isolated themselves. Most notably, sanctions became increasingly harsher and is still a major controversial issue today.
However, the North has means to reject the outside. During the Korean War, in order to pressure North Korea to surrender, American planes dropped bombs and flattened North Korea’s land, which is often recalled by later generations of North Koreans who resent the States for it. Therefore, not only does their Juche ideology fuel their isolation, but their hatred to those who have been notably hostile towards them in the past gives them extra justification to remain a hermit kingdom.
Unfortunately, isolationism has proven difficult, as North Korea continues to suffer from political conflicts and economic inefficiencies left and right. Although North Korea solely had their own political views, this unique value has been considered evil in foreign eyes, ultimately causing North Korea to fall deeper into the hole of isolationism than can be considered normal.
Sydney P.