Countries that Beat North Korea

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_main_battle_tanks_by_country the United States has more main battle tanks than North Korea.

So looking at the sourced Wiki page for "Corruptions Perceptions Index," it's basically a list of countries that are or were victimized by imperialism. Makes sense, since all but two of the surveyed "institutions" are western banks. "Why then, does this country I embargo and blockade simply not have a stable economy anyway?"

Here's an academic article about imperialism in Korea, written by a Korean-American scholar I happen to work with, if you're interested: https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/from-stolen-land-to-riches-us-neo-colonialism-in-south-korea

Please don't interpret this as the usual internet activity of saying, "unless you read this long article I win the conversation." I genuinely just want to provide some info.

Also, I chose this article because a peer-reviewed, published academic article passes the rightfully rigorous standards of this site.

I'm not sure where you're getting that it's a peer-reviewed article. Looking it up on Google, the only thing that comes up is the link you posted, and nothing from a peer-reviewed, academic journal. The lack of other authors was also suspicious to me. I looked Riley Bove up and they (not sure of their pronouns) were an undergraduate when they wrote this article. There's almost no way that academic journals would accept articles from undergrads without permission from a supervisor/PI. As for the website it was published on, it's a far cry from a journal. The "About Us" section calls the website "proletarian" and "socialist," so it clearly has a political agenda. Finally, there were facts in the article that seemed inaccurate. It claimed North Korea set up its government without foreign intervention, but the Wikipedia page says it was the Soviets who put Kim Il-Sung in power, and it's pretty well known that the USSR propped up the North Korean economy until the former collapsed.

Also, while I agree that imperialism is a major factor in global poverty, it has nothing to do with North Korea's poverty or corruption. A UN report, based on accounts of defectors, talks about how the reason North Koreans are so poor is because all the money gets funneled to the government and military. People can't survive without bribing state-appointed officials, who are often very rich. The only way you could tie this back to the US is if the US funds the N. Korean government, which it doesn't.

Meanwhile, even the article you linked professes that the US gave tons of aid to the South. Even if the US supported some pretty brutal dictators, it clearly had a positive effect on the S. Korean economy. Today, S. Korea is more democratic and prosperous than N. Korea by far, thanks in part to the US. Blaming America or European powers or even Japan for North Korea's woes really doesn't make sense.

It's a bit hypocritical for some of your ideology to be against free markets and then be upset when people don't trade with you

I don't get the recognised country one. How can Taiwan and China both be least recognised? Surely if most countries don't recognise Taiwan, they accept China.

I would love it if the world just stopped recognizing North Korea. They aren't running the place like a country and thus don't deserve to be treated like one.

It is. What a chad move from Bhutan

its a whole thing to do with china and taiwan paying island nations to recognize them and not the other and a lot of these island nations use it as a source of revenue

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland also has a cardinal direction in its name, right?

Fair enough

I'm confused by the border question. Surely Denmark-Germany or Qatar-Saudi Arabia have a smaller border?

It's probably referring to the 17km border with Russia, not the one dividing the Korean peninsula.

So why does the North Korean government state that they think that the happiest people in the World are the Chinese? (One presumes that that is the stated opinion of the government, not the people.)

South Korea apparently doesn't beat North Korea in anything...

Southernmost Korea

Honestly, that international border question needs some more clarificaiton. I was pretty confused.

Not really, it's pretty self explanatory. It's talking about the Russian border, rather than the Chinese or South Korean borders.

Got all except the last question..

Some I just guessed..

Kuwait isn’t bigger than North Korea in terms of land area…

Wow, North Korea is the #2 happiest country in the world according to Kim Jong-Un? If he says it, it must be true! All hail Kim Jong-Un!

Got confused on the question with the P city. I thought it was only countries whose largest city started with P so I guessed Czech Republic. I tend to forget about Paris for some reason and didn't think USA could be an answer.

Who doesnt recodnize China?

Countries who recognizes Taiwan instead

and Bhutan, who doesn't recognize either.

second last question should be updated since canada and denmark now share a landborder