Contact Admin. An independent kingdom for much of its long history, Korea was occupied by Japan beginning in following the Russo-Japanese War.
Five years later, Japan formally annexed the entire peninsula. The DPRK demonized the US as the ultimate threat to its social system through state-funded propaganda, and molded political, economic, and military policies around the core ideological objective of eventual unification of Korea under Pyongyang's control. KIM Jong Un was publicly unveiled as his father's successor in After decades of economic mismanagement and resource misallocation, the DPRK since the mids has faced chronic food shortages.
In recent years, the North's domestic agricultural production has increased, but still falls far short of producing sufficient food to provide for its entire population.
The DPRK began to ease restrictions to allow semi-private markets, starting in , but has made few other efforts to meet its goal of improving the overall standard of living. 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 , , , , and ; and massive conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international community and have limited the DPRK's international engagement, particularly economically.
In , KIM Jong Un declared the North's nuclear weapons development complete, announced economic development as a leading priority, and increased diplomatic engagement.
