International Community
The international repercussions of Kim Il Sung's rise to power were tremendous. They include the Korean War, North Korean alliances with other countries, UN sanctions, fear of danger in South Korea, the U.S., and other countries, and even the diffusion of the Juche Idea to other countries.
Alliances and Sanctions
Since the Korean War, most Western countries have had strained relationships with North Korea.
"The United States supports the peaceful reunification of Korea on terms acceptable to the Korean people and recognizes that the future of the Korean Peninsula is primarily a matter for them to decide. The United States believes that a constructive and serious dialogue between North and South Korea is necessary to resolve outstanding problems, including the North's attempts to develop a nuclear program and human rights abuses, and to encourage the North's integration with the rest of the international community." |
"The United States imposed a near total economic embargo on North Korea in 1950 when North Korea attacked the South. Over the following years, some U.S. sanctions were eased, but others were imposed. U.S. economic interaction with North Korea remains minimal."
- U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
"Most forms of U.S. economic assistance, other than purely humanitarian assistance, are prohibited. North Korea has at times experienced periods of famine, and the United States has provided food aid. The United States has also assisted U.S. NGOs in providing aid to fight the outbreak of infectious diseases and to improve the supply of electricity at provincial hospitals in North Korea."
- U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
"Since the end of the Korean War, the two Koreas have faced each other across the Demilitarized Zone ... engaged most of the time in unremitting, withering, unregenerate hostility, punctuated by occasional, brief thaws and increasing exchanges between P'yongyang and Seoul. Huge armies still are poised to fight at a moment's notice"
- Library of Congress Country Studies, 1993
Nuclear Weapons
The threat of the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea has been an important international issue for decades.
"A blunt and explicit threat on Thursday from North Korea that its weapons programs would “target” the United States, and that it would proceed with a third and “higher-level” nuclear test, poses a stark challenge to the Obama administration at a time when it hoped to focus its major diplomatic effort on restraining Iran’s less-advanced nuclear program." |
"In 1994, the United States and North Korea reached agreement on a roadmap for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In 2003, the United States proposed multilateral talks on the North Korean nuclear issue. ... Although North Korea has at times said it will take steps toward denuclearization, some of its subsequent actions, such as missile launches, have conflicted with those assertions. The United States has called on North Korea to take concrete, irreversible denuclearization steps toward fulfillment of the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks"
- U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
"The UN Security Council Presidential Statement adopted unanimously on April 16, 2012 strongly condemned North Korea's April 13 launch and expressed its determination to take action accordingly in the event of a further launch. We call on North Korea to comply fully with its obligations under all relevant UNSCRs."
- Victoria Nuland, Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
"After decades of economic mismanagement and resource misallocation, the DPRK since the mid-1990s has relied heavily on international aid to feed its population. North Korea's history of regional military provocations, proliferation of military-related items, long-range missile development, WMD programs including tests of nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009, and massive conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international community."
- CIA World Factbook
"In the early 1990s, there was growing international concern that North Korea was seeking to produce nuclear weapons. In 1991, despite North Korea's repeated denials of a nuclear weapons program, United States policy experts generally agreed that P'yongyang was engaged in a nuclear weapons program. The debate has centered on when, rather than whether, North Korea will have a nuclear capability. Estimates range from 1993 to several years later."
- Library of Congress country Studies, 1993
Human Rights
Human rights violations are rampant in North Korea, and talks have been underway for years about how to solve this.
"State security forces reportedly commit severe human rights abuses and subject political prisoners to brutality and torture. Elections are not free or fair; the judiciary is not independent; and citizens are denied freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association. In addition, the DPRK imposes severe restrictions on freedom of religion and freedom of movement. Finally, we hear continuing and widespread reports of severe punishment of repatriated asylum seekers and of trafficking of women and girls across the border into China." |
"My position exists because North Korea remains one of the worst human rights violators in the world. The Department of State assesses that the human rights situation in the DPRK remains deplorable."
- Robert R. King, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues
"Advancing human rights is a top U.S. priority in our North Korea policy and is among the primary factors that will determine if any long-term improvement between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will be possible."
- Robert R. King, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues
Fear in South Korea
After the split along the 38th parallel and the Korean War, there was a fear of North Korea in the South. These quotes from an interview with Su-Nam Kim Larsen, who lived in South Korea from 1966 to 1992, clearly portray the South Korean view of North Korea, whose politics could not be much more different.
"I just thought that [the North Koreans] were the bad people, bad and scary. The reason that I was thinking this, it was that in the Korean war, a lot of people got killed. If North Korea came over to South Korea to invade us or start a war, then I knew a lot of people would get killed, maybe me and my family, and that made me scared ... schools would periodically have drills that prepared us if it happened." |
"In Korea, whenever there is an unknown flight in the sky, alarms go off around the whole country saying that North Korea is attacking. Yeah so from Seoul, if there is attack, Seoul let's each city know that North Korea is attacking, and the whole country has sirens that go off to let people know that they're coming. It was some system in Korea. So anyway! this is a memory I can't ever forget. I was in middle school walking home by myself when the siren went off. The first thing, I got scared of course right away, and I thought "I might be separated from my family." I thought this because there was a popular TV show at that time that reunited families that were separated in the North and South Korea War. Since it happened so fast lots of families were separated. So I ran and ran to my home as fast I can, and my mom and my sister were there, and I was so happy that I was with them. After we stayed inside and worried, when we heard over radio that it was a false alarm, the airplane was something else, and it was fine."
- Su-Nam Kim Larsen
"When I was growing up, North Korea was sending lots of spies and stuff, and I remember the spies, what they do ... one of the thing I remember is that they go to mountains and stuff and they would spread pamphlets talking about how good North Korea is. Just hearing about those spies, if I see people who are different or something, I automatic think that, 'Oh, they’re spies from North Korea.'"
- Su-Nam Kim Larsen
International Influence of Juche
The idea of Juche has spread to other countries, which among them is France. There is a website describing the Parti Juche de France (PJF).