February 27, 2015 • 55 mins
In an age of global connectivity, North Korea remains one of the most isolated -- and enigmatic -- countries on Earth. How much do we really know about it?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome to the show. My name is Matt and i'm Ben,
and today I think we should get started with a
(00:21):
little anecdote that Ben as sure, all right, So, once
upon a tide there was a man named Kinji Fujimoto.
Kiji was a chef. Kinji was a sushi chef to
be specific, and he was quite good at his job.
But he was also a member of the Union of
(00:44):
Sushi Chefs, and when he was young, adventurous man, they
made him a candidate for a mysterious job overseas. Now,
the rules of the union said that Kenji had to
accept this job before he knew exactly what the assignment was.
And that is how Kimji Fujimoto became the sushi chef
(01:07):
for Kim Jong Il, the leader at the time of
North Korea. Whoa oh, but wait, Kinji confirms so many
of the stories that we are going to talk about today,
especially regarding Kim Jong Il. Now, we don't want to
spoil the surprise, but we will say that he had
(01:28):
a seven hundred thousand dollar a year, Kanyak habit w
How do you consume that much? Kak? I you know what,
I don't know. I assume it wasn't all him for everybody,
but he's around. Yeah. This it's like ordering cheese dip
for the table, you know, at all times, Konyak. And
(01:50):
let that serve as an introduction, ladies and gentlemen, you're
in the right place, we hope. Here you are again
with Matt Ben super producer, Noel the Madman Brown and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today, Matt,
Finally we're exploring North Korea. That's right, we're getting deep
into the DPRK. I'm excited about this one, Ben. This
(02:12):
is fascinating from so many angles to me, at least personally,
and we certainly hope that you find it interesting as well. Uh,
let's get started with looking at some of the history
in how North Korea was first formed, because it's a
fairly recently formed country, right, Oh yeah, you only have
to go back to nineteen at the close or just
(02:33):
right at the close of World War Two, when Korea
the I guess the if you look at it as
a large state together of the peninsula. It was divided
up at the parallel by the United States and the
Soviet Union, two forces that were embattled UH in the
(02:55):
on the Korean Peninsula. And it's called, I said, the DPRK.
You might not know this, you might already know this,
but North Korea is officially called the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea, and it was officially established on the ninth
of September nineteen And as students of history know, during
(03:18):
World War Two, the ally parties were definitely not the
friendly parties. It was more of an enemy of my
enemy kind of deal. So there was already this tense
situation between UH, the United States and the USS are
about which competing ideology would would rule the world. UH,
(03:42):
unless if if you are familiar with one of one
of your favorite things met the Highgelian dialect, right then
then maybe that's a little bit of a false dichotomy.
But that's a different show. Here's the point. The point
is that tensions were high on the peninsula, and people
(04:03):
knew on both sides that this would be a flashpoint,
and it eventually escalated. It did just a few years later,
from forty to nineteen fifty. It escalated into the Korean War,
which lasted from nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty three. What
kind of war was this? Well, I guess it was
(04:25):
somewhat of a civil war between the two Korea's because
really there they would be one unified Korea, marginous population.
But we think, and I think history has shown that
it was much more of what we would call a
proxy war between these two opposing sides. Now we we
have a video on this, but for people who haven't
(04:47):
seen the video, what is a product to war? It's
when to let's say, superpowers have competing interests in one area,
and rather than sending their army at least as a
whole or their military as a whole to go fight there,
they will use let's say the indigenous people of that
(05:07):
area or groups that are closely related that you might
be able to exert some control over and have them
fight that battle, and then maybe you can sprinkle in
a little bit of a little bit of your military
height as well, so I can help them out. Similar
to what's going what's happened in Afghanistan in the nineteen eighties, right,
(05:28):
very similar, which you can you can see more about
or you see it alluded to in that show The Americans,
which if you enjoy espionage, we recommend. In fact, the
Korean War was the first armed conflict of the Cold War. Yeah,
scary stuff. But what happened when the fighting ended? Because
(05:48):
this is this is something that a lot of people
don't know. There's a very important point here. Well. One
of the biggest important points are the number of people killed.
Over a million bowl were killed during this conflict, not
just soldiers, civilians as well. This was so many civilians.
And one of the biggest facts that will lead into
(06:10):
reasoning behind a lot of the stuff we're gonna talk
about is that almost every single large, especially important building
in North Korea was completely destroyed, specifically by the U. S. Army,
right the U. S. Air Force. Uh, well, completely different,
(06:32):
Like the Army wasn't there, It's true. But yeah, so
at the close of this war, after this this massive
toll in terms of property and human life. Uh, the
sides of the conflict created an armistice. And this armistice
included a lot of things, but it was missing perhaps
(06:52):
the most important. So, so what kind of stuff did
this include? You're looking at a ceasefire, you're looking at
POWs prisoners of warror going back to their side um repatriation.
You're looking at the demilitarized zone the d m Z.
We'll talk about that a little later. You're also looking
at basically when the fighting ended. There was no official
(07:17):
final treaty that was signed, No no formal peace agreement
was ever agreed upon. Yes, and that is the most
important thing that was missing, Ladies and gentlemen. There is,
technically speaking, UH, the equivalent of a ceasefire for more
than fifty years between North Korea and South Korea, between
(07:41):
the DPRK and the r O k UH. The the
strange thing about this is that so much of what
would be a formal peace agreement depends upon the idea
of reunification of the peninsula, which is something else we
can talk about. But it's important to remember when you
(08:01):
when you read this bellicoast or warlike propaganda online. And
I do recommend you visit North Korea's official news site
if you're a fan of this sort of thing the
way that I am. Um, what you have to remember
is that this is the same level of wartime propaganda
that you would see in the United States in World
(08:21):
War Two. You know, what I mean by war bonds
or the Nazis will get you kind of stuff. Um,
So it's not it's not as crazy as it might
sound from the outside. And for the interim for a
little while after the formation here, uh, there were tough times.
But DPRK at times was more successful in some ways
(08:44):
than South Korea, the Republic of Korea, and it was
all under its leader who built a cult of personality. Yes,
a cult of personality is very important in this story
as well. Um, should we go into a little bit
about just the the view top down view of North
(09:05):
Korea again looking at maybe population sure North Korea today,
So the population is estimated at twenty four million, nine million, Yeah,
a little under twenty five million. You'll see estimates fluctuate. Yeah,
and it's that's you know, a lot of people, especially
if you think that the entire area is listed as
(09:29):
forty six thousand, five d and twenty eight square miles,
which is about the size of Pennsylvania. Right. Yeah, And
just for comparison, South Korea is has a population of
around forty eight million. I want to say so, Uh,
North Korea is the less populous of the two. Um,
but of the let's go ahead and say of the
(09:51):
twenty four to million people living in North Korea. Uh, there,
there's a certain population that we actually want to talk
about in highlight in today's show, and that is the
that is the group of an estimated two hundred thousand
people as as we record this, that are in labor camps. Yes,
(10:16):
quanly so is what this system of camps is called?
Could you tell us a little more about it? Well,
it's it's really interesting stuff you get into. You get
placed in one of these and a couple of different ways.
Usually has to do with whether or not you are
seen as loyal to the party. Um, but maybe not
(10:38):
just you. It might be that your grandfather wasn't loyal
to the party, or maybe even your grand daughter or
grandson isn't loyal to the party, and you might find
yourself in one of these labor camps. So you've got
it's this really interesting thing that you're you go over
really well in the video that's that came out this
week about five things they don't want you to or
(11:02):
five things you might not know about North Korea. If
you haven't seen it, check it out. Um. The reasons
is so interesting to me is that I've never heard
of this before. I've never heard of this happening. And
you had mentioned to me earlier that their Confucianism might
play a part in the reasoning behind this process. Yes, Uh,
Confucianism does play a part to some degree. What what
(11:27):
we're talking about here is the idea of intergenerational punishment.
So this could mean that you are in a labor
camp not only for a crime that you yourself did
not commit, but maybe a crime that you are not
aware of one of your relatives committing. And a crime
here is not necessarily you know, crime like beauty is
(11:49):
in the eye of the beholder, right, or in the
eye of the judicial system. Right. So what we find
here is that there are three generations of punishment. Collective
pun Wishman is practiced unto three generations, which sounds almost biblical.
Yet Uh, so you're to take um to dovetail off
your early example, Matt. This means that maybe your grandfather
(12:14):
UM committed a crime or was against party ideology, and
you came from good family. Family is very very important
in this society. This means that Um, your parents and
you are going to feel the consequences of that. This
can be something where you're just in a slightly lower
(12:35):
class for a while. Or this could be something where
you are born in a labor camp with no idea,
not even of the world outside of North Korea, but
no idea of the world outside the labor camp or
understanding of why you are there in the beginning. Uh,
it is just a tortuous, horrible Um, it's it's an atrocity. Yeah,
(12:59):
and exactly. And from what I've gathered, you will live
your entire life there and possibly even have to have children,
and then they live their entire lives there, and and
that's it. Then then you're done. Now it's important to
say that to give a picture of these labor camps,
A lot of this is very hard manual labor, of course. Um.
(13:24):
Children to write, children to Punishments are harsh. Food is
very scarce. And when I say harsh punishments, I mean
up to and including arbitrary torture. Um. This this is
a family show, so we won't go too much into this,
but there are instances you know, of beating to death,
(13:47):
of forced abortions, exposure to the elements, um, being forced
to eat feces, and uh, the list goes on. So
what what we're saying here is that there is a
segment of this population that, due to collective punishment, exists
(14:10):
under under these terrible circumstances. Uh. And it makes you wonder,
which is a question we'll get at later towards the
end of this. It makes you wonder how much of
this is propaganda from defectors, because again, it's hard to
learn about a lot of this stuff, and a lot
(14:31):
of it comes as anecdotal evidence from people who perhaps escaped, right,
and we see satellite imagery, but it's not as if,
you know, Advice did a documentary on North Korea, but
it's not as if they made it to a labor
camp that was, although they did make it to that
place in Russia. So before we get sidelined too much here,
(14:52):
one of the questions would be, well, why is this
government being supported? Right? Sure, because historic it was supported.
It's primary benefactor was the U. S. S R. But
that no longer exists. That's a problem, and relationships with
Russia have have cooled a lot. So who is the
main benefactor of North Korea now? Well, currently it's China,
(15:17):
but it's not exactly an ideal partnership. So like their
Facebook status would be its complications. That's exactly right. Another
thing to note here is that the DPRK does have
some sort of nuclear weaponry. Uh. They've got I think
an estimated to warheads maybe, um, but there's really no
(15:41):
reliable delivery system like intercontinental ballistic missiles that are just
ready to go, and especially if you've only got two warheads.
I mean, it would be a short lived big bang
attack kind of. But there. Yeah, but there. It is
still dangerous, right, and they're working on, um, having this
ballistic capability and actively working toward nuclear weaponry as opposed
(16:09):
to a country like Iran, which according to numerous intelligence
agencies recently isn't exactly but coming out of Africa? What
where did it come out of South Africa? Yeah? It
came out of these Uh ladies, gentlemen, Matt and I
are talking about some recent leaks before we went to
air this week from the South African intelligence agencies that
(16:31):
revealed so much stuff. Let's just talk about it real quick.
Let's just launch your list of stuff. Well, okay, UM,
A lot of it that I read specifically had to
do with Iran. Um and just the lines that we've
been getting from certain countries, including our own, just that
(16:51):
are complete, Yes, right, especially the Prime Minister of Israel,
Benjamin net and Yahoo uh saying that, you know, it's
something we've talked about before. Iran is always in some
weird according to its opponents, Iran is always in some
weird alice in wonderland state. You know, UH bombs yesterday,
(17:12):
bombs tomorrow, but never ever bombs today, and they're always
a year away or ten, like five years away or whatever.
And it turns out that the that Massad, the Israeli
equivalent of the c I A I guess, said that, Uh,
Iran's definitely is not doing it. And yeah, it just
has down. We're not worried and this, I mean, it's
(17:35):
kind of messed up, but I would definitely trust the
Massad's word, uh if it's if it is in this
context in something that is being leaked. Yeah. We also
found some other stuff there. Let's see UH Korean stuff
specifically like South Korea targeting the president of green Peace
(17:56):
piece officials for monitoring and am I sick, which is
UH the UK Intelligence agency attempting to UH create to
get a spy in North Korea. I thought that was great. Yeah,
that's that's a tough order, man, it's a tall order.
And that's because, um, we can recap some of our
(18:17):
earlier stuff here. That's because North Korea is very much
a closed society. It's a homogeneous, largely homogeneous society. Um.
Because North Korea has a class system, which we'll talk
about in a little bit more detail. But if we're
talking about this, let's go ahead and start at the
very top of the social hierarchy of the DPRK and
(18:40):
that is the Kim dynasty. That's right. You gotta start
with the o G Kim Il sun uh, the father
of Kim Jong il, and then in turn the grandfather
of Kim Jong own, the current leader. Yes, Kim Il
sung is the is a godlike tiger. Uh. Kim Il
(19:01):
sung is the internal leader of North Korea, which means
that technically speaking, he is considered still the leader of
North Korea despite his death. There's your three generational rule there. Ah. Yes,
and it's interesting that you say that. Well, we'll see
how that shakes out later. Yes, Kim Il sung is
(19:24):
referred to as the Great Leader, the country's eternal president.
His birthday as a holiday, it's called the Day of
the Sun. Uh. He ruled North Korea for forty six
years from until he passed away in nineteen ninety four. UM.
(19:45):
During the time leading up to his passing away, his
son Kim Jong Il, who most of us will probably
remember better, uh, he took leadership and it was during
his rule that the country encountered some of those very
tense diff cold times, including the famine known as the
Arduous March, and nuclear standoffs. But we have a new
(20:10):
leader now, and that is one of his sons, right yeah,
Kim John n. He was selected by Kim John Hill
over his other two brothers. Y's I mean, hey, props man,
right yeah. He he is interesting because he has a UM.
He has a European schooling, so he is someone who
(20:33):
has been raised outside of the country and I believe
he went to school in Switzerland. Now, he is not
necessarily the he he is not necessarily the air apparent
in the way you would think these things would normally go.
He's not the eldest son. No, there there were issues,
(20:55):
let's say, with two of the other candidates that would
have been for him, right, yeah, So there are two
other candidates. There was Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong chul. Uh,
and I'm mispronouncing. I apologize. I don't speak Korean very well.
But the the brothers were the brothers who didn't make it. Um,
(21:18):
we're passed over because one of them was caught trying
to go to uh Tokyo Disneyland in two thousand one,
and there was a huge embarrassment. One of the others
was seen as effeminate by their father. Uh. So here
we are with Kim Jong un as the leader of
(21:41):
the DPRK, or at least the face of it. And
and that's that's the important thing, right, despite the appearance
of an absolute monarchy, right, Uh, the private version seems
a little bit different. There are a lot of high
ranking senior officials that um date back or did date
back all the way to the days of Kimmel song
(22:01):
and seniority being so important in this society. Their words
carry weight. Oh yeah, And it's I feel like the
system is kind of similar to the high advisors that
let's say the president listens to on a daily basis
to make high level decisions, even if they're repeatedly wrong.
Oh yeah, but it's you know, you have you kind
(22:23):
of have to go with a person that probably knows best, right, Yeah. Uh.
And another another weird thing here. Uh. So, the stated
aim of North Korea is reunification. It's something that both
Koreas want in principle, right, and uh, the problem there
is that the the problem there is that the there's
(22:47):
just a battle of population that occurs because both both
want the peninsula reunified in some manner or way, because
there were families that were split apart by the division,
this thirty parallel division. Um. But you know, both countries
want to be in the driver's seat, right. And then
(23:08):
when you look at the population, you you mentioned that
the Republic of Korea has almost twice as many almost
twice as many people. Um. So it would seem as
though if you were just looking from that aspect alone,
they would kind of absorb North Korea, or at least
that's the way it seems. And I'm pretty certain North
(23:29):
Korea wouldn't want that, right. Uh. We we are gonna
look at some of the questions about that too towards
towards the ends here. Now that you watched the interview,
right I did. Yeah, I watched the interview too. It
wasn't it wasn't my favorite thing. I felt like, you know,
what's what's the point where, uh, satire just becomes kind
(23:51):
of racism. Yeah, but I'm a big fan of Seth
Rogan and James Franco. I think they're funny guys. Um,
the guy who played Kim jongun is a really funny dude. Uh.
But you know, you have to wonder how much of
that is again like propaganda. But there was a great
(24:11):
point in interview where they say that there is a
false impression that this nation strives to give visitors and
the outside world. Oh yeah that I'm thinking of the
scene in particular where James Franco's character goes and finds
that little food store and it's just all fake food. Um,
(24:32):
it's all props, essentially set ups for him and other
outsiders to think that there's plentiful food in the area. Yeah.
There's a great reddit a m a from a North
from a photographer who was traveling to North Korea pretty
often until he started being refused entry for taking photos
you shouldn't take. And he said that there are a
(24:57):
few there's like two supermarkets and killing young. There's some them,
but the only people who can really shop at those
are the elite. Um. We know that there is propaganda
at work in North Korea, and you know it's it's
its own industry as well, So it's difficult to understand
how much of what the government says is true, how
(25:18):
to parse the truth between the statements. But there's another point.
This makes us think of, well, yeah, it's not just
propaganda coming out of North Korea about how great it is.
There's also a ton of propaganda aimed at you about
how bad North Korea is and all these terrible things
and how everyone there is starving. Although there is some
(25:41):
truth to it, a lot of this stuff are just
exaggerations to kind of shape your view of the country
as a whole. Right, there's a lot of an echo
chamber going on. Uh. And nowhere was this more apparent
than uh in the recent interview related news story froth Korea. Right, yeah,
(26:05):
it was. It was absolutely North Korea doing these cyber
attacks against Sony. We're not saying it wasn't, but we
are saying, uh, that's a heck of a leap to make.
And there were credible, very credible people saying that it
absolutely wasn't North Korea. So you know, you just I
just have to open open your third high. Maybe I
(26:25):
don't know. I can't. I don't know how you figure
out what's true or not these days. So we do
know that with that being said, with that wheelbarrow salt
poured onto the idea of all these stories you hear
from North Korea and about North Korea, we do know
that some of the crazier stories are true because, as
we said at the top, we have our friend Kenji
(26:46):
Fujimoto who was able to confirm some and then we
have some some good firsthand reports here. So what's what's
one crazy story? All right? Well, you are going to
have to elaborate on this one for me. But I
remember hearing a story about a rabbit breeding program that
didn't go very well, or they're very it's a very
(27:06):
large species of rabbit that I guess North Korea wanted
to have a small population of them in order to
breed them. Yes, yeah, it's true. So in In I
guess two thousand seven or so, twelve giant rabbits were
delivered to North Korea. Uh. The breeder who sent them
(27:28):
UH found he thought they were going to be used
to make a rabbit farm. Uh, but he suspected that
they were eaten by the top officials UM. Berlin's North
Korean embassy denied the allegations, but you can read some
more about this in spiegel Um, the online the German
uh journalism. This is an article by David Crossland and
(27:54):
these rabbits guys are so big, their biggest dogs to
make about eight kilos of of me. Absolutely, yeah, that's huge.
But it may have been. I was thinking about this.
It may have been despite the food shortage that they
tried the rabbits, because you should try before you like
do this whole thing. You don't want to start a
rabbit industry if nobody wants them. Nobody wants them. But
(28:16):
maybe they ate them and they didn't taste good. That's
that's another I could see that. I could see that, um.
But there are other crazy stories as well. Another story
is that there is a difference in size between North
and South Korean nationals, and it's thought to be due
to to maulnutrition that North Koreans were subjected to. Yeah,
(28:39):
you hear this a lot from especially from Americans. So
former presidential candidate John McCain talked about it in a
two thousand and eight debate. Christopher Hitchens talked about it
in an article and slate. Uh, but some actual research
instead of just read came from guy named Professor Daniel
(29:03):
Schweckendik from a university and soul. He said that on average,
North Korean men are about one and a half to
three inches shorter than men in South Korea. And the
interesting thing is that due to the homogeneous nature of
the population, like genetically right, we know that this doesn't
(29:23):
come from a large variation or diversity in the gene pool.
It comes from environmental factors like nutrition. But that brings
us to something else, all right, Matt, this is one
of the craziest stories. Uh. Starvation, yes, been. Starvation and
(29:43):
food insecurity in general is a huge issue in North Korea. Um,
it's a life threatening issue that I mean, this is
one of the big worries in your life if you're
a North Korean. And like, we can look at one
of these things like during the famine of nine nineties,
that's the thing you mentioned earlier, the arduous march somewhere,
(30:06):
and there's a huge, huge variance and number here, but
somewhere between two hundred and forty thousand and three point
five million North Koreans died of starvation or some form
of hunger related issue. Right, Yeah, so maybe not just
starvation directly, but something exacerbated by starvation. Uh. This Yeah,
(30:26):
this number is uh, it's a huge number. It's a
huge variance. As we said. But first, in a country
that does keep adequate records or does allow people in
more easily the you still have a variance. You still
have a variance because it's difficult to say the exact
(30:47):
cause of death, right. But then in countries, but in
the case of North Korea, this is even more difficult
because there are very few official numbers kept in that's
been the case for fifty years. This leads us to
something darker though, Yep, cannibalism. So there is confirmation of
(31:10):
let's say, isolated cases of why and you know, there
are also a lot of rumors about cannibalism, right, So
some of these isolated cases would be stuff like a
grandfather digging up his children's graves after they passed away
and eating them, yeah, because he had to the idea.
But there are also these rumors of large scale cannibalism
(31:33):
that took place during certain times in North Korea. Um,
but really, we we don't know we can't prove it, right,
because these statements come down often through defectors, right through
the eye of defectors, and uh, I'd like to take
just a moment to trace the path the defector goes to.
So if you if you make it to South Korea
(31:57):
from North Korea, then you are going to be accepted
into South Korean society. They have subsidies set up, they
have some orientation UH programs, right, and that's very important
because there are a lot of things that are going
to be so unfamiliar. But to get to South Korea
is the difficult part. It's sort of like how um
(32:19):
in the United States. If you are from Cuba and
you manage to make it to the mainlands, right, then
you are allowed to stay. But uh, you have to
make it through that ninety miles of water first and
if you get caught before then you're fair game and
people will turn you back. So if you leave North Korea,
(32:41):
you UM. And typically what we see are often with
the assistance of Christian groups or bribing guards, people go
over to China, they go over to the border and
cross the river. The the entrance straight into South Korea
via the d m Z is just not going to
have up and it's it's um, it's far too armed
(33:04):
to the teeth on both sides. But if you go
to China and China finds you, you will be deported
back to North Korea where you will almost certainly be
sent to a labor camp m. And if you leave
and it's proven that you have left, then it could
also potentially punish three generations of your family. So of
(33:28):
the people who travel, many travel you know, directly to
China and UH. Of the women who travel there are
traffic UH or enforced marriages, and the people who do
make it. China considers these people economic migrants, not refugees.
(33:49):
The legal distinction sounds um, you know, it sounds like
semantics to us, but it's a lot people's lives hinge
on this, and the mission is to make it to
an embassy where they're safe. You can go onto YouTube
right now, UH and just search for North Korean refugees,
China and embassy, and you will see heartbreaking footage of
(34:14):
groups of people making it. Chinese guards outside, not getting
all of them, but stopping some, and that's where it ends.
The embassy cannot do anything for you if you are
right outside the door. So when these when these people, um,
when these the factors passed through if they make it
(34:36):
via you know, like Thailand, China, Mongolia, and in China again,
a lot of the assistants and Christian groups if they
make it there, they often talk about their experiences in UH,
North Korea. And we have to have some deal of
skepticism because it's true that a lot of people are
saying the same thing. But UH, what is the evidence
(35:01):
other than that hearsay? Is it possible that um, you know,
factions of the South Korean government or even the US
government are encouraging this kind of like encouraging a rhetoric
of some sort. Or is this just the truth of
these people participating in starvation cannibalism. Ah, that is a
(35:26):
heavy one, Ben, Yeah, sorry, that was a monologue. It's
all good, Okay. I have a question that maybe our
listeners would like to ask you. How how did you
learn so much about this subject? Oh? I don't I
don't know. I appreciate the flattery, but uh, I don't
know very much about North Koreo all compared to a
(35:48):
lot of people. This is just something that UH has
has fascinated me for a long time. You know, my
background is in international affairs, and always seemed any I
can full of questions to me, imply, questions, why aren't
world powers doing more or to to help if this,
(36:10):
if this is such an important thing, and um, how
did this unique government begin? You know? Oh yeah, sure,
well it seems like you're absolutely right. It seems like
one of those things that once you learn about it,
that why if anybody knows about it, why isn't there
more being done to change the situation? Now? What what
(36:31):
about the what about the next thing here? This is
a weird sort What about the crime? Oh little crime,
little crime action. I don't know if any of you
are watching better call Saul, but you probably should be.
If you are not. Uh, North Korea turns out is
(36:52):
pretty good at making meth, at least certain factions, certain
groups are really good at it. Um they yeah, yeah,
they officially deny it. However, during the nineties of government
had this unit called Office thirty nine, and it was
tasks to raise hard currency for Kim Jong ill and
(37:14):
they produced not just meth but also opium, that thing
that we've talked about pretty extensively on this show. And again,
these are two things that seem to be able to
if you were able to produce them, generate a large
flow of cash. And what's what's also interesting here is,
(37:34):
despite these official denials, in two thousand ten, I believe uh,
South Korea's Donga Ilbo claimed that Chinese police had seized
sixty million dollars worth of drugs made by the DPRK.
She's so, maybe this idea of not making meth is
a myth which brings us to myths about North Korea. Uh,
(37:58):
you've got you've got a big one for us, right, Matt. Well,
the first thing that you might not know is that
the citizen re as a whole, or least large chunks
of the citizen re in the DPRK are not as
uninformed as some people would want you to think. Uh,
there are there's a whole black market of phones and
other telecommunic telecommunication devices, internet connections, um, all kinds of
(38:23):
smuggled media gets in South Korean soap operas are pretty popular.
Well that's good. Well, the the interesting thing here is,
you know, people are so often taught, or were historically
taught in North Korea that they were living in the
best possible situation in the world. And that people in
(38:44):
South Korea didn't have food or shoes or places to sleep.
And now this is this has become apparent. That's not true.
Another myth um, Well, I think it is a myth,
and I know some people might not agree here. Another
myth is that North Korea itself is a communist country,
(39:05):
that the DPRK is a communist country. Well, I think
I thought it was. Well so did I'm at for
for a long time. This brings us to a book,
quite a good book, a controversial book called The Cleanest
Race or How North Korean See Themselves and Why It Matters.
It's by an author named Brian Reynold Myers, and in
(39:26):
this book, Myers contends that far from being a communist
state the way that the West would understand it or
the way that a communist would understand it UH, the
North Korean UH society is much more nationalistic and based
on this idea of racial purity, the concept being that
(39:47):
the people of this country are so pure and virtuous
that they must be protected from the barbaric outside world
by this this carrying omnipotent benefact Or is it bad
that I'm seeing parallels there between being protected by protected
from terrorism and American exceptionalism. I don't know, that's a
(40:11):
very interesting parallel to draw. Maybe listeners, let us know
what you think with that parallel there, because I'm sorry,
this is the most Hey, this is the most interesting
parallel in this show. Now it beats the parallels. But
so we talked a little bit about, Um, you know this, Okay,
If this communism stuff is a myth, right, if in
(40:33):
practice there aren't wild inequalities in North Korean society, Uh,
then why what what system in place does this? It's
the song system and I may be pronouncing that incorrectly,
but it's the caste system that exists in North Korea, yep.
And they're they're like three grades, right, yeah, three tiers.
(40:55):
You've got the loyal, which is also called core or
I think it's called core, but loyal, the loyal Core.
Then you've also got wavering, which are people that are
kind of your ifs, your maybe's, you're these people are
on a list, but they're not necessarily danger yet. Then
you've got your hostiles. Ah, yes, this is this system
(41:20):
is based upon the position of one's family pre liberation
of the peninsula. So the hostile and wavering class makes
up about seventy two percent of the population, and there
are gradients. Uh this, um, I think more than thirty
kind of gradients. One thing we should point out here
(41:43):
is that this most definitely affects your chances at everything
the town in which you are assigned to live, right,
the job you are allowed to have, how far you
are allowed to advance at school. Because if you are
UM in the wrong class, no matter how well, if
you're the hostile class, you probably don't get to go
to school. You're in a labor camp somewhere. But if
(42:04):
you were in a wavering class, no matter how you study,
you will not get the academic accolades that the that
the top tier classes get. Another myth about North Korea
that it is a failed state. It is not. Actually
things are better, at least a lot better than they
(42:24):
were in the nineties for sure. That's when you had
the starvation. Um just it wasn't looking good around that time.
So things are improving, and there are a lot of
things that are improving, right. Uh, yeah, there are. In
terms of access to food, things are improving. There was
a huge reevaluation of the Okay, this is this kind
(42:49):
of complex, but there was this huge reevaluation, reevaluation of
the currency when the black market became too successful and
people relying less on the Him dynasty. Uh So people
lost their savings totally and have been recovering from that.
But the the black or gray market has to be
(43:09):
permitted to a certain amount to a certain amount. So
that might be one reason why people say it's a
failed state. But a failed state is something like Somalia
when when the president that the U n recognizes barely
controls part of the capital, you know what I mean.
So the government in North Korea definitely still is in
(43:32):
control of the country, and that might be That might
be a good thing. As we'll see, it's also not
as isolated as you might believe. We've got a great
quote here from the Atlantic that will just read a
little part of the United States may have very little
to do with the North North Korea, but that does
not apply to the rest of the world. Did you
(43:52):
know that North Korea sends hundreds of students overseas for
educational and business training. Thousands of North Korean's work in China,
in Mongolia, where they produce goods for popular British clothing brands.
In Kuwait where they work on construction projects, and in
Russia where they labor in logging camps. He also says
that there's a North Korean construction company that's working completing
(44:14):
a museum near Cambodia's famed Ankoor temples, which is a
whole another awesome place. Yeah, there's also a I T
sector that is becoming an outsourcing destination. Uh, they've got
pretty advanced animation industry. So this this is all to
say that this is not really a This is not
(44:38):
someplace that is completely cut off from the world, which
is something that people are often taught in the United States.
And this, all these myths is just the tip of
the iceberg. So Matt, let's get to the good stuff.
Are there any conspiracies about North Korea? Oh? Yes, Ben,
there are a lot of conspiracies that deal with the
dprk UH. One of the big ones is that inside
(45:03):
the country in North Korea, Americans are blamed for everything.
Oh so, like a power failure, Oh yeah, power failure.
You spilled your t Americans, It was the Americans. Obama.
I think it would be really funny if there were
just the whole families in North Korea that just scream
(45:24):
Obama the way certain people in South too when anything happens, Well,
certain people across the world. Okay, sure, saying that out
of personal experience. Okay, I'm but I'm sure there are
German officials who say Obama. I know there's at least
one guy in Russia who's probably saying that a lot. Sure, yeah,
(45:46):
I think we know who. But the um, but where
does this where does this idea come from? This idea that, uh,
the US forces are continually oppressing uh, North Korea. Well,
we do know that a lot of it is based
on the factual events of the Korean War. Um, when
the Americans were doing a lot of uh, I mean,
(46:08):
it was total warfare, so a lot of civilian soldiers
died and the country was raised, the buildings were knocked down.
And not only that, the sanctions that are placed on
North Korea. Yeah, but those sanctions primarily just affect the elite.
It's not as if UM, people in rural farming or
mining towns are saying, oh man, we can't get cigars anymore.
(46:33):
Then the elite are people too, and and there you
know cigars. You're right, I am being I'm I'm being
rude to the elite. Uh So there's this other there's
this other theory here um that if you believe in
New World order theories, you may also believe in this
that like Libya and Iran, North Korea is on the
(46:54):
global um let's call it the stuff list because it
refuses to play games with the It refuses to play
ball rather with the global financial regime. I M F.
Wild Bank, Goldman Sachs. I don't know, man, This this
one feels very real to me. That's so called nonaligned countries.
(47:15):
There's another, there's another one that comes from a guy
you might remember from earlier episodes we had, Yeah, Benjamin Fulford.
We we mentioned him, I think when we were what
was that we were doing the Dragon Family episode. We
looked at his research a lot. Uh. He believes that
DPRK and Japan are working closely together, and he's basing
(47:36):
this on Kim John UN's Japanese mother. That's you know,
that's kind of a big deal. And also the large
population in North Korean descendants who reside in Japan. Yeah,
Benjamin Fulford, you can you can check out his some
of his work online if you like. I would say that, uh,
(48:00):
I would say that while the stories are interesting, they
are allegations. Yes, they are not proven facts, which is
somethings check out. But the Dragon Family episode that we
did is just fascinating. Um. That's the one about the
huge amounts of it wasn't money, it was bonds, yeah,
(48:20):
certificates yeah, and uh and there's some interesting there. They're
interesting is a word that I'm overusing this podcast. So
I would say that there's some um tantalizing stuff to
go along with that. Around the same time of two
Japanese nationals caught uh smuggling a large amount of bills
(48:42):
and a train supposed hidden treasure or recover treasure in
the Philippines. Uh. Dating back to World Wars. The Dragon
Family is this sort of um asiatic ruling force similar
to the Western concept of the illuminati. And this is
about his thing is about these two groups in conflict. Um.
(49:05):
But do check it out if you get a chance.
Another big conspiracy. North Korea as a world ending threat, Uh,
not as much as a way in the way that
you think. Now. North Korea is most dangerous to South
Korea because it is so close to the capital city
Soul also has a million strong army. It would be
able to do some devastating, horrible damage to South Korea,
(49:27):
but it would by no means when the war. It
doesn't have the firepower to UM. It is not a
world threat other than the idea that destabilization UM or
an attack on the Greek could set off a domino
effect of some sort. And we said earlier that there
are an estimated to nuclear warheads inside the country in
(49:50):
North Korea, So I guess they are considered a nuclear
power because they have these two. It's the threat is
much smaller than a lot of places, though you can't
underestimate a nuke no matter what the size. It also
doesn't have a lot of missiles. You you were telling
me about the newest missile. I don't know how to
say that, uh to yeah you n h ah. This
(50:13):
technically is not a missile. It's a space launch vehicle.
I hope you guys can my air quotes around that. Uh.
And it did put a satellite in orbit. Uh. Currently,
the US sources estimate that North Korea has deployed around
six hundred SCUDG missile variants, two hundred Rodong missiles of
(50:35):
shewer than fifty Musadan or Taipo dong Um, but South
Korean sources estimate even fewers, so this varies. So here's
the big question that we have today, what is the
future of North Korea? Can we can we see anything
like what is the outcome? Here? Well to answer that,
(50:56):
we'd also be answering this another question, which Well will
answer in full in an upcoming episode two. Uh. The
future of North Korea is difficult to determine because it
is caught between global powers the United States, China, Japan, Russia.
(51:16):
To a lesser degree, a lot of misinformation and disinformation
is spread about the country, and its inner politics are
incredibly secretive. But those human rights abuses are real to
some degree. Oh absolutely. And if you know, if we're
still going to know about freedom and human rights in America,
(51:37):
then why the heck haven't we done anything about this?
We are the largest superpower and military might in the world. Furthermore,
if China has such influence over DPRK, then why hasn't
it done more to improve the the economic situation, if
not the human rights situation. Well, there's a simple answer.
(52:00):
There's not a compelling reason to change the status quo
right now in that region. Absolutely imagine if imagine, if
you can, the situation when the wall fell in between
East Germany and West Germany. This would be that in
a much larger circumstance, a massive flood of refugees would
(52:22):
uh would move into South Korea and China immediately in
excess of twenty million people. UH. And and who knows
which way the power shifts if that wall comes down.
Is it the Republic of Korea or the Democratic Republic
of Korea who gains control? Right? Yeah, so does the
does the current create collapse or does it become something
(52:44):
that gives the United States more influence or is it
something that gives China an edge? And you have to
think that some kind of sudden military intervention would would
pretty much it would certainly result in the deaths of
million on the r OK side, just because the DPRK
is so ready to attack. They've been planning for some
(53:06):
kind of invasion or aggression for years, decades, and listeners,
the cynics among us would say that uh in invasion
or liberation has not occurred yet because the DPRK doesn't
have a valuable resource like oil or something. That's why
it's not officially a Protectorate of China yet, but it
(53:29):
does have mineral resources metal resources. We'll see how that goes.
We also know that a CIA style people's revolution or
regime change at China's doorstep would be an act of
clear war, and that's probably one of the reasons it
hasn't happened yet. Uh, they're spies from China active in
(53:50):
North Korea, and their North Korean spies in China and
South Korea. But for now, there's not a compelling reason
for the countries involved to change the status quo immediately,
maybe slowly over time, but not immediately. So what do
you guys think about all this stuff? What's your opinion?
We I don't know. This is one of those subjects
(54:13):
that racks my brain because it's very tough to digest
all of these things, like the human rights abuses that
we talked about, and also the rock and hard place
between changing something and then not making things worse from
a global perspective. We'd love to hear what you think,
so right to us. Go to Twitter, We're at conspiracy
Stuff there. Find us on Facebook We're conspiracy Stuff there.
(54:37):
You can also go to our YouTube page comment on
our videos and sorry to interrupt, nice T shirt. What
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T shirt styles coming out, and if you want to
(54:57):
give us a suggestion for another episode, we would love
to hear or from. If you don't want to do
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we have an email address you can nail us directly.
We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. From
more on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot
(55:19):
com slash conspiracy Stuff. You can also get in touch
on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome to the show. My name is Matt and i'm Ben,
and today I think we should get started with a
(00:21):
little anecdote that Ben as sure, all right, So, once
upon a tide there was a man named Kinji Fujimoto.
Kiji was a chef. Kinji was a sushi chef to
be specific, and he was quite good at his job.
But he was also a member of the Union of
(00:44):
Sushi Chefs, and when he was young, adventurous man, they
made him a candidate for a mysterious job overseas. Now,
the rules of the union said that Kenji had to
accept this job before he knew exactly what the assignment was.
And that is how Kimji Fujimoto became the sushi chef
(01:07):
for Kim Jong Il, the leader at the time of
North Korea. Whoa oh, but wait, Kinji confirms so many
of the stories that we are going to talk about today,
especially regarding Kim Jong Il. Now, we don't want to
spoil the surprise, but we will say that he had
(01:28):
a seven hundred thousand dollar a year, Kanyak habit w
How do you consume that much? Kak? I you know what,
I don't know. I assume it wasn't all him for everybody,
but he's around. Yeah. This it's like ordering cheese dip
for the table, you know, at all times, Konyak. And
(01:50):
let that serve as an introduction, ladies and gentlemen, you're
in the right place, we hope. Here you are again
with Matt Ben super producer, Noel the Madman Brown and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today, Matt,
Finally we're exploring North Korea. That's right, we're getting deep
into the DPRK. I'm excited about this one, Ben. This
(02:12):
is fascinating from so many angles to me, at least personally,
and we certainly hope that you find it interesting as well. Uh,
let's get started with looking at some of the history
in how North Korea was first formed, because it's a
fairly recently formed country, right, Oh yeah, you only have
to go back to nineteen at the close or just
(02:33):
right at the close of World War Two, when Korea
the I guess the if you look at it as
a large state together of the peninsula. It was divided
up at the parallel by the United States and the
Soviet Union, two forces that were embattled UH in the
(02:55):
on the Korean Peninsula. And it's called, I said, the DPRK.
You might not know this, you might already know this,
but North Korea is officially called the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea, and it was officially established on the ninth
of September nineteen And as students of history know, during
(03:18):
World War Two, the ally parties were definitely not the
friendly parties. It was more of an enemy of my
enemy kind of deal. So there was already this tense
situation between UH, the United States and the USS are
about which competing ideology would would rule the world. UH,
(03:42):
unless if if you are familiar with one of one
of your favorite things met the Highgelian dialect, right then
then maybe that's a little bit of a false dichotomy.
But that's a different show. Here's the point. The point
is that tensions were high on the peninsula, and people
(04:03):
knew on both sides that this would be a flashpoint,
and it eventually escalated. It did just a few years later,
from forty to nineteen fifty. It escalated into the Korean War,
which lasted from nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty three. What
kind of war was this? Well, I guess it was
(04:25):
somewhat of a civil war between the two Korea's because
really there they would be one unified Korea, marginous population.
But we think, and I think history has shown that
it was much more of what we would call a
proxy war between these two opposing sides. Now we we
have a video on this, but for people who haven't
(04:47):
seen the video, what is a product to war? It's
when to let's say, superpowers have competing interests in one area,
and rather than sending their army at least as a
whole or their military as a whole to go fight there,
they will use let's say the indigenous people of that
(05:07):
area or groups that are closely related that you might
be able to exert some control over and have them
fight that battle, and then maybe you can sprinkle in
a little bit of a little bit of your military
height as well, so I can help them out. Similar
to what's going what's happened in Afghanistan in the nineteen eighties, right,
(05:28):
very similar, which you can you can see more about
or you see it alluded to in that show The Americans,
which if you enjoy espionage, we recommend. In fact, the
Korean War was the first armed conflict of the Cold War. Yeah,
scary stuff. But what happened when the fighting ended? Because
(05:48):
this is this is something that a lot of people
don't know. There's a very important point here. Well. One
of the biggest important points are the number of people killed.
Over a million bowl were killed during this conflict, not
just soldiers, civilians as well. This was so many civilians.
And one of the biggest facts that will lead into
(06:10):
reasoning behind a lot of the stuff we're gonna talk
about is that almost every single large, especially important building
in North Korea was completely destroyed, specifically by the U. S. Army,
right the U. S. Air Force. Uh, well, completely different,
(06:32):
Like the Army wasn't there, It's true. But yeah, so
at the close of this war, after this this massive
toll in terms of property and human life. Uh, the
sides of the conflict created an armistice. And this armistice
included a lot of things, but it was missing perhaps
(06:52):
the most important. So, so what kind of stuff did
this include? You're looking at a ceasefire, you're looking at
POWs prisoners of warror going back to their side um repatriation.
You're looking at the demilitarized zone the d m Z.
We'll talk about that a little later. You're also looking
at basically when the fighting ended. There was no official
(07:17):
final treaty that was signed, No no formal peace agreement
was ever agreed upon. Yes, and that is the most
important thing that was missing, Ladies and gentlemen. There is,
technically speaking, UH, the equivalent of a ceasefire for more
than fifty years between North Korea and South Korea, between
(07:41):
the DPRK and the r O k UH. The the
strange thing about this is that so much of what
would be a formal peace agreement depends upon the idea
of reunification of the peninsula, which is something else we
can talk about. But it's important to remember when you
(08:01):
when you read this bellicoast or warlike propaganda online. And
I do recommend you visit North Korea's official news site
if you're a fan of this sort of thing the
way that I am. Um, what you have to remember
is that this is the same level of wartime propaganda
that you would see in the United States in World
(08:21):
War Two. You know, what I mean by war bonds
or the Nazis will get you kind of stuff. Um,
So it's not it's not as crazy as it might
sound from the outside. And for the interim for a
little while after the formation here, uh, there were tough times.
But DPRK at times was more successful in some ways
(08:44):
than South Korea, the Republic of Korea, and it was
all under its leader who built a cult of personality. Yes,
a cult of personality is very important in this story
as well. Um, should we go into a little bit
about just the the view top down view of North
(09:05):
Korea again looking at maybe population sure North Korea today,
So the population is estimated at twenty four million, nine million, Yeah,
a little under twenty five million. You'll see estimates fluctuate. Yeah,
and it's that's you know, a lot of people, especially
if you think that the entire area is listed as
(09:29):
forty six thousand, five d and twenty eight square miles,
which is about the size of Pennsylvania. Right. Yeah, And
just for comparison, South Korea is has a population of
around forty eight million. I want to say so, Uh,
North Korea is the less populous of the two. Um,
but of the let's go ahead and say of the
(09:51):
twenty four to million people living in North Korea. Uh, there,
there's a certain population that we actually want to talk
about in highlight in today's show, and that is the
that is the group of an estimated two hundred thousand
people as as we record this, that are in labor camps. Yes,
(10:16):
quanly so is what this system of camps is called?
Could you tell us a little more about it? Well,
it's it's really interesting stuff you get into. You get
placed in one of these and a couple of different ways.
Usually has to do with whether or not you are
seen as loyal to the party. Um, but maybe not
(10:38):
just you. It might be that your grandfather wasn't loyal
to the party, or maybe even your grand daughter or
grandson isn't loyal to the party, and you might find
yourself in one of these labor camps. So you've got
it's this really interesting thing that you're you go over
really well in the video that's that came out this
week about five things they don't want you to or
(11:02):
five things you might not know about North Korea. If
you haven't seen it, check it out. Um. The reasons
is so interesting to me is that I've never heard
of this before. I've never heard of this happening. And
you had mentioned to me earlier that their Confucianism might
play a part in the reasoning behind this process. Yes, Uh,
Confucianism does play a part to some degree. What what
(11:27):
we're talking about here is the idea of intergenerational punishment.
So this could mean that you are in a labor
camp not only for a crime that you yourself did
not commit, but maybe a crime that you are not
aware of one of your relatives committing. And a crime
here is not necessarily you know, crime like beauty is
(11:49):
in the eye of the beholder, right, or in the
eye of the judicial system. Right. So what we find
here is that there are three generations of punishment. Collective
pun Wishman is practiced unto three generations, which sounds almost biblical.
Yet Uh, so you're to take um to dovetail off
your early example, Matt. This means that maybe your grandfather
(12:14):
UM committed a crime or was against party ideology, and
you came from good family. Family is very very important
in this society. This means that Um, your parents and
you are going to feel the consequences of that. This
can be something where you're just in a slightly lower
(12:35):
class for a while. Or this could be something where
you are born in a labor camp with no idea,
not even of the world outside of North Korea, but
no idea of the world outside the labor camp or
understanding of why you are there in the beginning. Uh,
it is just a tortuous, horrible Um, it's it's an atrocity. Yeah,
(12:59):
and exactly. And from what I've gathered, you will live
your entire life there and possibly even have to have children,
and then they live their entire lives there, and and
that's it. Then then you're done. Now it's important to
say that to give a picture of these labor camps,
A lot of this is very hard manual labor, of course. Um.
(13:24):
Children to write, children to Punishments are harsh. Food is
very scarce. And when I say harsh punishments, I mean
up to and including arbitrary torture. Um. This this is
a family show, so we won't go too much into this,
but there are instances you know, of beating to death,
(13:47):
of forced abortions, exposure to the elements, um, being forced
to eat feces, and uh, the list goes on. So
what what we're saying here is that there is a
segment of this population that, due to collective punishment, exists
(14:10):
under under these terrible circumstances. Uh. And it makes you wonder,
which is a question we'll get at later towards the
end of this. It makes you wonder how much of
this is propaganda from defectors, because again, it's hard to
learn about a lot of this stuff, and a lot
(14:31):
of it comes as anecdotal evidence from people who perhaps escaped, right,
and we see satellite imagery, but it's not as if,
you know, Advice did a documentary on North Korea, but
it's not as if they made it to a labor
camp that was, although they did make it to that
place in Russia. So before we get sidelined too much here,
(14:52):
one of the questions would be, well, why is this
government being supported? Right? Sure, because historic it was supported.
It's primary benefactor was the U. S. S R. But
that no longer exists. That's a problem, and relationships with
Russia have have cooled a lot. So who is the
main benefactor of North Korea now? Well, currently it's China,
(15:17):
but it's not exactly an ideal partnership. So like their
Facebook status would be its complications. That's exactly right. Another
thing to note here is that the DPRK does have
some sort of nuclear weaponry. Uh. They've got I think
an estimated to warheads maybe, um, but there's really no
(15:41):
reliable delivery system like intercontinental ballistic missiles that are just
ready to go, and especially if you've only got two warheads.
I mean, it would be a short lived big bang
attack kind of. But there. Yeah, but there. It is
still dangerous, right, and they're working on, um, having this
ballistic capability and actively working toward nuclear weaponry as opposed
(16:09):
to a country like Iran, which according to numerous intelligence
agencies recently isn't exactly but coming out of Africa? What
where did it come out of South Africa? Yeah? It
came out of these Uh ladies, gentlemen, Matt and I
are talking about some recent leaks before we went to
air this week from the South African intelligence agencies that
(16:31):
revealed so much stuff. Let's just talk about it real quick.
Let's just launch your list of stuff. Well, okay, UM,
A lot of it that I read specifically had to
do with Iran. Um and just the lines that we've
been getting from certain countries, including our own, just that
(16:51):
are complete, Yes, right, especially the Prime Minister of Israel,
Benjamin net and Yahoo uh saying that, you know, it's
something we've talked about before. Iran is always in some
weird according to its opponents, Iran is always in some
weird alice in wonderland state. You know, UH bombs yesterday,
(17:12):
bombs tomorrow, but never ever bombs today, and they're always
a year away or ten, like five years away or whatever.
And it turns out that the that Massad, the Israeli
equivalent of the c I A I guess, said that, Uh,
Iran's definitely is not doing it. And yeah, it just
has down. We're not worried and this, I mean, it's
(17:35):
kind of messed up, but I would definitely trust the
Massad's word, uh if it's if it is in this
context in something that is being leaked. Yeah. We also
found some other stuff there. Let's see UH Korean stuff
specifically like South Korea targeting the president of green Peace
(17:56):
piece officials for monitoring and am I sick, which is
UH the UK Intelligence agency attempting to UH create to
get a spy in North Korea. I thought that was great. Yeah,
that's that's a tough order, man, it's a tall order.
And that's because, um, we can recap some of our
(18:17):
earlier stuff here. That's because North Korea is very much
a closed society. It's a homogeneous, largely homogeneous society. Um.
Because North Korea has a class system, which we'll talk
about in a little bit more detail. But if we're
talking about this, let's go ahead and start at the
very top of the social hierarchy of the DPRK and
(18:40):
that is the Kim dynasty. That's right. You gotta start
with the o G Kim Il sun uh, the father
of Kim Jong il, and then in turn the grandfather
of Kim Jong own, the current leader. Yes, Kim Il
sung is the is a godlike tiger. Uh. Kim Il
(19:01):
sung is the internal leader of North Korea, which means
that technically speaking, he is considered still the leader of
North Korea despite his death. There's your three generational rule there. Ah. Yes,
and it's interesting that you say that. Well, we'll see
how that shakes out later. Yes, Kim Il sung is
(19:24):
referred to as the Great Leader, the country's eternal president.
His birthday as a holiday, it's called the Day of
the Sun. Uh. He ruled North Korea for forty six
years from until he passed away in nineteen ninety four. UM.
(19:45):
During the time leading up to his passing away, his
son Kim Jong Il, who most of us will probably
remember better, uh, he took leadership and it was during
his rule that the country encountered some of those very
tense diff cold times, including the famine known as the
Arduous March, and nuclear standoffs. But we have a new
(20:10):
leader now, and that is one of his sons, right yeah,
Kim John n. He was selected by Kim John Hill
over his other two brothers. Y's I mean, hey, props man,
right yeah. He he is interesting because he has a UM.
He has a European schooling, so he is someone who
(20:33):
has been raised outside of the country and I believe
he went to school in Switzerland. Now, he is not
necessarily the he he is not necessarily the air apparent
in the way you would think these things would normally go.
He's not the eldest son. No, there there were issues,
(20:55):
let's say, with two of the other candidates that would
have been for him, right, yeah, So there are two
other candidates. There was Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong chul. Uh,
and I'm mispronouncing. I apologize. I don't speak Korean very well.
But the the brothers were the brothers who didn't make it. Um,
(21:18):
we're passed over because one of them was caught trying
to go to uh Tokyo Disneyland in two thousand one,
and there was a huge embarrassment. One of the others
was seen as effeminate by their father. Uh. So here
we are with Kim Jong un as the leader of
(21:41):
the DPRK, or at least the face of it. And
and that's that's the important thing, right, despite the appearance
of an absolute monarchy, right, Uh, the private version seems
a little bit different. There are a lot of high
ranking senior officials that um date back or did date
back all the way to the days of Kimmel song
(22:01):
and seniority being so important in this society. Their words
carry weight. Oh yeah, And it's I feel like the
system is kind of similar to the high advisors that
let's say the president listens to on a daily basis
to make high level decisions, even if they're repeatedly wrong.
Oh yeah, but it's you know, you have you kind
(22:23):
of have to go with a person that probably knows best, right, Yeah. Uh.
And another another weird thing here. Uh. So, the stated
aim of North Korea is reunification. It's something that both
Koreas want in principle, right, and uh, the problem there
is that the the problem there is that the there's
(22:47):
just a battle of population that occurs because both both
want the peninsula reunified in some manner or way, because
there were families that were split apart by the division,
this thirty parallel division. Um. But you know, both countries
want to be in the driver's seat, right. And then
(23:08):
when you look at the population, you you mentioned that
the Republic of Korea has almost twice as many almost
twice as many people. Um. So it would seem as
though if you were just looking from that aspect alone,
they would kind of absorb North Korea, or at least
that's the way it seems. And I'm pretty certain North
(23:29):
Korea wouldn't want that, right. Uh. We we are gonna
look at some of the questions about that too towards
towards the ends here. Now that you watched the interview,
right I did. Yeah, I watched the interview too. It
wasn't it wasn't my favorite thing. I felt like, you know,
what's what's the point where, uh, satire just becomes kind
(23:51):
of racism. Yeah, but I'm a big fan of Seth
Rogan and James Franco. I think they're funny guys. Um,
the guy who played Kim jongun is a really funny dude. Uh.
But you know, you have to wonder how much of
that is again like propaganda. But there was a great
(24:11):
point in interview where they say that there is a
false impression that this nation strives to give visitors and
the outside world. Oh yeah that I'm thinking of the
scene in particular where James Franco's character goes and finds
that little food store and it's just all fake food. Um,
(24:32):
it's all props, essentially set ups for him and other
outsiders to think that there's plentiful food in the area. Yeah.
There's a great reddit a m a from a North
from a photographer who was traveling to North Korea pretty
often until he started being refused entry for taking photos
you shouldn't take. And he said that there are a
(24:57):
few there's like two supermarkets and killing young. There's some them,
but the only people who can really shop at those
are the elite. Um. We know that there is propaganda
at work in North Korea, and you know it's it's
its own industry as well, So it's difficult to understand
how much of what the government says is true, how
(25:18):
to parse the truth between the statements. But there's another point.
This makes us think of, well, yeah, it's not just
propaganda coming out of North Korea about how great it is.
There's also a ton of propaganda aimed at you about
how bad North Korea is and all these terrible things
and how everyone there is starving. Although there is some
(25:41):
truth to it, a lot of this stuff are just
exaggerations to kind of shape your view of the country
as a whole. Right, there's a lot of an echo
chamber going on. Uh. And nowhere was this more apparent
than uh in the recent interview related news story froth Korea. Right, yeah,
(26:05):
it was. It was absolutely North Korea doing these cyber
attacks against Sony. We're not saying it wasn't, but we
are saying, uh, that's a heck of a leap to make.
And there were credible, very credible people saying that it
absolutely wasn't North Korea. So you know, you just I
just have to open open your third high. Maybe I
(26:25):
don't know. I can't. I don't know how you figure
out what's true or not these days. So we do
know that with that being said, with that wheelbarrow salt
poured onto the idea of all these stories you hear
from North Korea and about North Korea, we do know
that some of the crazier stories are true because, as
we said at the top, we have our friend Kenji
(26:46):
Fujimoto who was able to confirm some and then we
have some some good firsthand reports here. So what's what's
one crazy story? All right? Well, you are going to
have to elaborate on this one for me. But I
remember hearing a story about a rabbit breeding program that
didn't go very well, or they're very it's a very
(27:06):
large species of rabbit that I guess North Korea wanted
to have a small population of them in order to
breed them. Yes, yeah, it's true. So in In I
guess two thousand seven or so, twelve giant rabbits were
delivered to North Korea. Uh. The breeder who sent them
(27:28):
UH found he thought they were going to be used
to make a rabbit farm. Uh, but he suspected that
they were eaten by the top officials UM. Berlin's North
Korean embassy denied the allegations, but you can read some
more about this in spiegel Um, the online the German
uh journalism. This is an article by David Crossland and
(27:54):
these rabbits guys are so big, their biggest dogs to
make about eight kilos of of me. Absolutely, yeah, that's huge.
But it may have been. I was thinking about this.
It may have been despite the food shortage that they
tried the rabbits, because you should try before you like
do this whole thing. You don't want to start a
rabbit industry if nobody wants them. Nobody wants them. But
(28:16):
maybe they ate them and they didn't taste good. That's
that's another I could see that. I could see that, um.
But there are other crazy stories as well. Another story
is that there is a difference in size between North
and South Korean nationals, and it's thought to be due
to to maulnutrition that North Koreans were subjected to. Yeah,
(28:39):
you hear this a lot from especially from Americans. So
former presidential candidate John McCain talked about it in a
two thousand and eight debate. Christopher Hitchens talked about it
in an article and slate. Uh, but some actual research
instead of just read came from guy named Professor Daniel
(29:03):
Schweckendik from a university and soul. He said that on average,
North Korean men are about one and a half to
three inches shorter than men in South Korea. And the
interesting thing is that due to the homogeneous nature of
the population, like genetically right, we know that this doesn't
(29:23):
come from a large variation or diversity in the gene pool.
It comes from environmental factors like nutrition. But that brings
us to something else, all right, Matt, this is one
of the craziest stories. Uh. Starvation, yes, been. Starvation and
(29:43):
food insecurity in general is a huge issue in North Korea. Um,
it's a life threatening issue that I mean, this is
one of the big worries in your life if you're
a North Korean. And like, we can look at one
of these things like during the famine of nine nineties,
that's the thing you mentioned earlier, the arduous march somewhere,
(30:06):
and there's a huge, huge variance and number here, but
somewhere between two hundred and forty thousand and three point
five million North Koreans died of starvation or some form
of hunger related issue. Right, Yeah, so maybe not just
starvation directly, but something exacerbated by starvation. Uh. This Yeah,
(30:26):
this number is uh, it's a huge number. It's a
huge variance. As we said. But first, in a country
that does keep adequate records or does allow people in
more easily the you still have a variance. You still
have a variance because it's difficult to say the exact
(30:47):
cause of death, right. But then in countries, but in
the case of North Korea, this is even more difficult
because there are very few official numbers kept in that's
been the case for fifty years. This leads us to
something darker though, Yep, cannibalism. So there is confirmation of
(31:10):
let's say, isolated cases of why and you know, there
are also a lot of rumors about cannibalism, right, So
some of these isolated cases would be stuff like a
grandfather digging up his children's graves after they passed away
and eating them, yeah, because he had to the idea.
But there are also these rumors of large scale cannibalism
(31:33):
that took place during certain times in North Korea. Um,
but really, we we don't know we can't prove it, right,
because these statements come down often through defectors, right through
the eye of defectors, and uh, I'd like to take
just a moment to trace the path the defector goes to.
So if you if you make it to South Korea
(31:57):
from North Korea, then you are going to be accepted
into South Korean society. They have subsidies set up, they
have some orientation UH programs, right, and that's very important
because there are a lot of things that are going
to be so unfamiliar. But to get to South Korea
is the difficult part. It's sort of like how um
(32:19):
in the United States. If you are from Cuba and
you manage to make it to the mainlands, right, then
you are allowed to stay. But uh, you have to
make it through that ninety miles of water first and
if you get caught before then you're fair game and
people will turn you back. So if you leave North Korea,
(32:41):
you UM. And typically what we see are often with
the assistance of Christian groups or bribing guards, people go
over to China, they go over to the border and
cross the river. The the entrance straight into South Korea
via the d m Z is just not going to
have up and it's it's um, it's far too armed
(33:04):
to the teeth on both sides. But if you go
to China and China finds you, you will be deported
back to North Korea where you will almost certainly be
sent to a labor camp m. And if you leave
and it's proven that you have left, then it could
also potentially punish three generations of your family. So of
(33:28):
the people who travel, many travel you know, directly to
China and UH. Of the women who travel there are
traffic UH or enforced marriages, and the people who do
make it. China considers these people economic migrants, not refugees.
(33:49):
The legal distinction sounds um, you know, it sounds like
semantics to us, but it's a lot people's lives hinge
on this, and the mission is to make it to
an embassy where they're safe. You can go onto YouTube
right now, UH and just search for North Korean refugees,
China and embassy, and you will see heartbreaking footage of
(34:14):
groups of people making it. Chinese guards outside, not getting
all of them, but stopping some, and that's where it ends.
The embassy cannot do anything for you if you are
right outside the door. So when these when these people, um,
when these the factors passed through if they make it
(34:36):
via you know, like Thailand, China, Mongolia, and in China again,
a lot of the assistants and Christian groups if they
make it there, they often talk about their experiences in UH,
North Korea. And we have to have some deal of
skepticism because it's true that a lot of people are
saying the same thing. But UH, what is the evidence
(35:01):
other than that hearsay? Is it possible that um, you know,
factions of the South Korean government or even the US
government are encouraging this kind of like encouraging a rhetoric
of some sort. Or is this just the truth of
these people participating in starvation cannibalism. Ah, that is a
(35:26):
heavy one, Ben, Yeah, sorry, that was a monologue. It's
all good, Okay. I have a question that maybe our
listeners would like to ask you. How how did you
learn so much about this subject? Oh? I don't I
don't know. I appreciate the flattery, but uh, I don't
know very much about North Koreo all compared to a
(35:48):
lot of people. This is just something that UH has
has fascinated me for a long time. You know, my
background is in international affairs, and always seemed any I
can full of questions to me, imply, questions, why aren't
world powers doing more or to to help if this,
(36:10):
if this is such an important thing, and um, how
did this unique government begin? You know? Oh yeah, sure,
well it seems like you're absolutely right. It seems like
one of those things that once you learn about it,
that why if anybody knows about it, why isn't there
more being done to change the situation? Now? What what
(36:31):
about the what about the next thing here? This is
a weird sort What about the crime? Oh little crime,
little crime action. I don't know if any of you
are watching better call Saul, but you probably should be.
If you are not. Uh, North Korea turns out is
(36:52):
pretty good at making meth, at least certain factions, certain
groups are really good at it. Um they yeah, yeah,
they officially deny it. However, during the nineties of government
had this unit called Office thirty nine, and it was
tasks to raise hard currency for Kim Jong ill and
(37:14):
they produced not just meth but also opium, that thing
that we've talked about pretty extensively on this show. And again,
these are two things that seem to be able to
if you were able to produce them, generate a large
flow of cash. And what's what's also interesting here is,
(37:34):
despite these official denials, in two thousand ten, I believe uh,
South Korea's Donga Ilbo claimed that Chinese police had seized
sixty million dollars worth of drugs made by the DPRK.
She's so, maybe this idea of not making meth is
a myth which brings us to myths about North Korea. Uh,
(37:58):
you've got you've got a big one for us, right, Matt. Well,
the first thing that you might not know is that
the citizen re as a whole, or least large chunks
of the citizen re in the DPRK are not as
uninformed as some people would want you to think. Uh,
there are there's a whole black market of phones and
other telecommunic telecommunication devices, internet connections, um, all kinds of
(38:23):
smuggled media gets in South Korean soap operas are pretty popular.
Well that's good. Well, the the interesting thing here is,
you know, people are so often taught, or were historically
taught in North Korea that they were living in the
best possible situation in the world. And that people in
(38:44):
South Korea didn't have food or shoes or places to sleep.
And now this is this has become apparent. That's not true.
Another myth um, Well, I think it is a myth,
and I know some people might not agree here. Another
myth is that North Korea itself is a communist country,
(39:05):
that the DPRK is a communist country. Well, I think
I thought it was. Well so did I'm at for
for a long time. This brings us to a book,
quite a good book, a controversial book called The Cleanest
Race or How North Korean See Themselves and Why It Matters.
It's by an author named Brian Reynold Myers, and in
(39:26):
this book, Myers contends that far from being a communist
state the way that the West would understand it or
the way that a communist would understand it UH, the
North Korean UH society is much more nationalistic and based
on this idea of racial purity, the concept being that
(39:47):
the people of this country are so pure and virtuous
that they must be protected from the barbaric outside world
by this this carrying omnipotent benefact Or is it bad
that I'm seeing parallels there between being protected by protected
from terrorism and American exceptionalism. I don't know, that's a
(40:11):
very interesting parallel to draw. Maybe listeners, let us know
what you think with that parallel there, because I'm sorry,
this is the most Hey, this is the most interesting
parallel in this show. Now it beats the parallels. But
so we talked a little bit about, Um, you know this, Okay,
If this communism stuff is a myth, right, if in
(40:33):
practice there aren't wild inequalities in North Korean society, Uh,
then why what what system in place does this? It's
the song system and I may be pronouncing that incorrectly,
but it's the caste system that exists in North Korea, yep.
And they're they're like three grades, right, yeah, three tiers.
(40:55):
You've got the loyal, which is also called core or
I think it's called core, but loyal, the loyal Core.
Then you've also got wavering, which are people that are
kind of your ifs, your maybe's, you're these people are
on a list, but they're not necessarily danger yet. Then
you've got your hostiles. Ah, yes, this is this system
(41:20):
is based upon the position of one's family pre liberation
of the peninsula. So the hostile and wavering class makes
up about seventy two percent of the population, and there
are gradients. Uh this, um, I think more than thirty
kind of gradients. One thing we should point out here
(41:43):
is that this most definitely affects your chances at everything
the town in which you are assigned to live, right,
the job you are allowed to have, how far you
are allowed to advance at school. Because if you are
UM in the wrong class, no matter how well, if
you're the hostile class, you probably don't get to go
to school. You're in a labor camp somewhere. But if
(42:04):
you were in a wavering class, no matter how you study,
you will not get the academic accolades that the that
the top tier classes get. Another myth about North Korea
that it is a failed state. It is not. Actually
things are better, at least a lot better than they
(42:24):
were in the nineties for sure. That's when you had
the starvation. Um just it wasn't looking good around that time.
So things are improving, and there are a lot of
things that are improving, right. Uh, yeah, there are. In
terms of access to food, things are improving. There was
a huge reevaluation of the Okay, this is this kind
(42:49):
of complex, but there was this huge reevaluation, reevaluation of
the currency when the black market became too successful and
people relying less on the Him dynasty. Uh So people
lost their savings totally and have been recovering from that.
But the the black or gray market has to be
(43:09):
permitted to a certain amount to a certain amount. So
that might be one reason why people say it's a
failed state. But a failed state is something like Somalia
when when the president that the U n recognizes barely
controls part of the capital, you know what I mean.
So the government in North Korea definitely still is in
(43:32):
control of the country, and that might be That might
be a good thing. As we'll see, it's also not
as isolated as you might believe. We've got a great
quote here from the Atlantic that will just read a
little part of the United States may have very little
to do with the North North Korea, but that does
not apply to the rest of the world. Did you
(43:52):
know that North Korea sends hundreds of students overseas for
educational and business training. Thousands of North Korean's work in China,
in Mongolia, where they produce goods for popular British clothing brands.
In Kuwait where they work on construction projects, and in
Russia where they labor in logging camps. He also says
that there's a North Korean construction company that's working completing
(44:14):
a museum near Cambodia's famed Ankoor temples, which is a
whole another awesome place. Yeah, there's also a I T
sector that is becoming an outsourcing destination. Uh, they've got
pretty advanced animation industry. So this this is all to
say that this is not really a This is not
(44:38):
someplace that is completely cut off from the world, which
is something that people are often taught in the United States.
And this, all these myths is just the tip of
the iceberg. So Matt, let's get to the good stuff.
Are there any conspiracies about North Korea? Oh? Yes, Ben,
there are a lot of conspiracies that deal with the
dprk UH. One of the big ones is that inside
(45:03):
the country in North Korea, Americans are blamed for everything.
Oh so, like a power failure, Oh yeah, power failure.
You spilled your t Americans, It was the Americans. Obama.
I think it would be really funny if there were
just the whole families in North Korea that just scream
(45:24):
Obama the way certain people in South too when anything happens, Well,
certain people across the world. Okay, sure, saying that out
of personal experience. Okay, I'm but I'm sure there are
German officials who say Obama. I know there's at least
one guy in Russia who's probably saying that a lot. Sure, yeah,
(45:46):
I think we know who. But the um, but where
does this where does this idea come from? This idea that, uh,
the US forces are continually oppressing uh, North Korea. Well,
we do know that a lot of it is based
on the factual events of the Korean War. Um, when
the Americans were doing a lot of uh, I mean,
(46:08):
it was total warfare, so a lot of civilian soldiers
died and the country was raised, the buildings were knocked down.
And not only that, the sanctions that are placed on
North Korea. Yeah, but those sanctions primarily just affect the elite.
It's not as if UM, people in rural farming or
mining towns are saying, oh man, we can't get cigars anymore.
(46:33):
Then the elite are people too, and and there you
know cigars. You're right, I am being I'm I'm being
rude to the elite. Uh So there's this other there's
this other theory here um that if you believe in
New World order theories, you may also believe in this
that like Libya and Iran, North Korea is on the
(46:54):
global um let's call it the stuff list because it
refuses to play games with the It refuses to play
ball rather with the global financial regime. I M F.
Wild Bank, Goldman Sachs. I don't know, man, This this
one feels very real to me. That's so called nonaligned countries.
(47:15):
There's another, there's another one that comes from a guy
you might remember from earlier episodes we had, Yeah, Benjamin Fulford.
We we mentioned him, I think when we were what
was that we were doing the Dragon Family episode. We
looked at his research a lot. Uh. He believes that
DPRK and Japan are working closely together, and he's basing
(47:36):
this on Kim John UN's Japanese mother. That's you know,
that's kind of a big deal. And also the large
population in North Korean descendants who reside in Japan. Yeah,
Benjamin Fulford, you can you can check out his some
of his work online if you like. I would say that, uh,
(48:00):
I would say that while the stories are interesting, they
are allegations. Yes, they are not proven facts, which is
somethings check out. But the Dragon Family episode that we
did is just fascinating. Um. That's the one about the
huge amounts of it wasn't money, it was bonds, yeah,
(48:20):
certificates yeah, and uh and there's some interesting there. They're
interesting is a word that I'm overusing this podcast. So
I would say that there's some um tantalizing stuff to
go along with that. Around the same time of two
Japanese nationals caught uh smuggling a large amount of bills
(48:42):
and a train supposed hidden treasure or recover treasure in
the Philippines. Uh. Dating back to World Wars. The Dragon
Family is this sort of um asiatic ruling force similar
to the Western concept of the illuminati. And this is
about his thing is about these two groups in conflict. Um.
(49:05):
But do check it out if you get a chance.
Another big conspiracy. North Korea as a world ending threat, Uh,
not as much as a way in the way that
you think. Now. North Korea is most dangerous to South
Korea because it is so close to the capital city
Soul also has a million strong army. It would be
able to do some devastating, horrible damage to South Korea,
(49:27):
but it would by no means when the war. It
doesn't have the firepower to UM. It is not a
world threat other than the idea that destabilization UM or
an attack on the Greek could set off a domino
effect of some sort. And we said earlier that there
are an estimated to nuclear warheads inside the country in
(49:50):
North Korea, So I guess they are considered a nuclear
power because they have these two. It's the threat is
much smaller than a lot of places, though you can't
underestimate a nuke no matter what the size. It also
doesn't have a lot of missiles. You you were telling
me about the newest missile. I don't know how to
say that, uh to yeah you n h ah. This
(50:13):
technically is not a missile. It's a space launch vehicle.
I hope you guys can my air quotes around that. Uh.
And it did put a satellite in orbit. Uh. Currently,
the US sources estimate that North Korea has deployed around
six hundred SCUDG missile variants, two hundred Rodong missiles of
(50:35):
shewer than fifty Musadan or Taipo dong Um, but South
Korean sources estimate even fewers, so this varies. So here's
the big question that we have today, what is the
future of North Korea? Can we can we see anything
like what is the outcome? Here? Well to answer that,
(50:56):
we'd also be answering this another question, which Well will
answer in full in an upcoming episode two. Uh. The
future of North Korea is difficult to determine because it
is caught between global powers the United States, China, Japan, Russia.
(51:16):
To a lesser degree, a lot of misinformation and disinformation
is spread about the country, and its inner politics are
incredibly secretive. But those human rights abuses are real to
some degree. Oh absolutely. And if you know, if we're
still going to know about freedom and human rights in America,
(51:37):
then why the heck haven't we done anything about this?
We are the largest superpower and military might in the world. Furthermore,
if China has such influence over DPRK, then why hasn't
it done more to improve the the economic situation, if
not the human rights situation. Well, there's a simple answer.
(52:00):
There's not a compelling reason to change the status quo
right now in that region. Absolutely imagine if imagine, if
you can, the situation when the wall fell in between
East Germany and West Germany. This would be that in
a much larger circumstance, a massive flood of refugees would
(52:22):
uh would move into South Korea and China immediately in
excess of twenty million people. UH. And and who knows
which way the power shifts if that wall comes down.
Is it the Republic of Korea or the Democratic Republic
of Korea who gains control? Right? Yeah, so does the
does the current create collapse or does it become something
(52:44):
that gives the United States more influence or is it
something that gives China an edge? And you have to
think that some kind of sudden military intervention would would
pretty much it would certainly result in the deaths of
million on the r OK side, just because the DPRK
is so ready to attack. They've been planning for some
(53:06):
kind of invasion or aggression for years, decades, and listeners,
the cynics among us would say that uh in invasion
or liberation has not occurred yet because the DPRK doesn't
have a valuable resource like oil or something. That's why
it's not officially a Protectorate of China yet, but it
(53:29):
does have mineral resources metal resources. We'll see how that goes.
We also know that a CIA style people's revolution or
regime change at China's doorstep would be an act of
clear war, and that's probably one of the reasons it
hasn't happened yet. Uh, they're spies from China active in
(53:50):
North Korea, and their North Korean spies in China and
South Korea. But for now, there's not a compelling reason
for the countries involved to change the status quo immediately,
maybe slowly over time, but not immediately. So what do
you guys think about all this stuff? What's your opinion?
We I don't know. This is one of those subjects
(54:13):
that racks my brain because it's very tough to digest
all of these things, like the human rights abuses that
we talked about, and also the rock and hard place
between changing something and then not making things worse from
a global perspective. We'd love to hear what you think,
so right to us. Go to Twitter, We're at conspiracy
Stuff there. Find us on Facebook We're conspiracy Stuff there.
(54:37):
You can also go to our YouTube page comment on
our videos and sorry to interrupt, nice T shirt. What
are you talking about? That's wearing one of the stuff
they'll want you to know t shirts, which you can
also find online. Check us out. We've got some new
T shirt styles coming out, and if you want to
(54:57):
give us a suggestion for another episode, we would love
to hear or from. If you don't want to do
the social media thing, listen, I get it. That's why
we have an email address you can nail us directly.
We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. From
more on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot
(55:19):
com slash conspiracy Stuff. You can also get in touch
on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff
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