Author: Andrei Nikolaevich Lankov
China: An Unnoticed Giant
The relations between China and South Korea are bad. In March a poll indicated China overtook Japan as Korea’s most disliked foreign nation. The reason is simple: the South Korean […]
Fate of a fishmonger
Let’s introduce Ms. Yi (not her real name), one of many North Korean entrepreneurs and one of the pioneers of the country’s private economy. Ms. Yi and her husband began […]
Taste of strawberries
A new item in North Korean markets has recently become all the rage ― strawberries. The last two or three years have been marked by a proliferation of greenhouses, where […]
What if Kim Jong-un dies?
Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, was last seen in public with his wife on September 3 at a concert of his favorite girl group, the “Moranbong Ensemble.” […]
Lords of money, lords in offices
Most first-time Western visitors to Pyongyang tend to come back somewhat surprised. They had expected to see the very embodiment of a Stalinist hell. Well, you know the picture: soldiers […]
A bit of (realistic) pessimism
The election of Donald Trump who, in spite of his hard-living tendencies, has been talking about meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for hamburgers, led to an increase in talks […]
Kim Jong-un: his first five years
Next month it will be five years since the sudden death of Kim Jong-il led to the second dynastic transition in North Korean history. Kim Jong-un’s reign is approaching the […]
Troubles ahead?
A new U.S. President has been elected, and this time the world’s most powerful job went to, should we say, a rather unconventional person. Indeed, a former real estate tycoon […]
Bridge to nowhere?
The New Yalu Bridge separates the twin cities of Sinuiju and Dandong, lying opposite each other on the Chinese and North Korean sides of the Yalu River respectively. The very […]
Phone revolution
Foreign journalists love to take pictures of people on the streets of Pyongyang (preferably nice looking and smartly dressed women, of course) busily chatting over their mobile phones. Indeed, the […]