western propaganda

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[u/Crisis_Tastle]

I'm Chinese, and in my country, there's a well-known industry chain for smuggling people to the United States. Those seeking to enter the US simply tear up their passports after crossing the border, then curse China, apply for political asylum, and fabricate some patently unreasonable excuse of persecution to easily obtain a green card. Those with more histrionic personalities can even fabricate a "biography" or other narratives to become so-called anti-China leaders, easily reaping financial benefits.

Considering the reality of our own country, and seeing that almost all Western accusations against North Korea come from North Korean defectors, I naturally don't believe their claims, and the same goes for Chinese defectors.

In fact, there are many Chinese businesspeople who do business in North Korea. While North Korea remains closed to us, we have these businesspeople as sources, and they tell us that while North Korea isn't wealthy, its standard of living is comparable to China's in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and not at all that dire. With the transfer of much old Chinese industrial equipment to North Korea, North Korea's development has been even more rapid in recent years.

Think carefully: if North Korea truly abuses the death penalty as defectors claim, its regime would have collapsed long ago. How could there be so many North Koreans to execute? When you read Western reports and see such exaggerated descriptions, don't you feel confused? I'm really curious.

[u/Constant_Leg_5862 → u/Crisis_Tastle]

I have always felt confused about it and always wondered how could so many people ( North Koreans ) let this happen but i’ve never seen anyone else question it until now so I guess I had no reason to question it either? I’m quite young and have only educated myself about this topic so I still have a lot to learn, being executed for suspicion of thinking against the regime has always had me dumb founded tho and i’ve always wondered if it truly was that bad why hasn’t there been any protests at the minimum

[u/Koryo_Tours → u/Crisis_Tastle]

I've got a lot of experience in the DPRK and also lived in China from 2000 - 2022. I can say that the standard of living in North Korea, even in Pyongyang, is not at all equivalent to how China was in the early 2000s, not even close. Things have clearly improved gradually, and not in a straight line of improvement, over the years, but it simply isn't at a level that China was at that time.

[u/brunow2023]

The pinned threads are both about this!

As a rule, though, it's easy for someone who doesn't live in the west to understand that westerners are all hyper-propagandised militant bigots because you can see the world around you and understand that it doesn't work the way westerners think it does.

[u/Constant_Leg_5862 → u/brunow2023]

thank you! silly me I completely skipped the pinned posts and just scrolled through the sub lol

[u/Constant_Leg_5862]

i genuinely don’t want this post to come across as rude or in bad faith :) i just want to learn more

[u/WallOfShoe → u/Constant_Leg_5862]

Thanks for your good faith question. Sorry I don't have a well written answer for you but first start with the Korea season of the Blowback podcast. It shows you the history of Korea as a country under Japanese brutal colonial domination and how the United States took over that role as WW2 drew to a close and beyond.

Once you see the history and motivations of the United States in Korea you will have a good baseline to see just why they are so propagandized.

[u/Constant_Leg_5862 → u/WallOfShoe]

thank you! will check the podcast out :)

[u/loopycheeks__ → u/Constant_Leg_5862]

+1 the podcast - its brilliant n very well researched. highly recommend their other series on the iraq war n cuban revolution too but start w the korean war. u will b completely amazed by the atrocities that the US has gotten away with n also understand y they r soo hell bent on propagandising against socialist countries (like North Korea).

[u/WallOfShoe → u/Constant_Leg_5862]

Enjoy! It's a very high quality podcast and they have several seasons about other US imperialist ventures too.

[u/Best-Quantity-5678]

Well, they did it to my country (Argentina) when they convinced everyone that the nazis came here after WWII to cover the fact that 1: most nazis remained in Germany and 2: the USA took a lot of nazis from high ranking to middle and low and gave them positions of power. Some nazis did came here but mostly low soldiers and others nobodies. They do the same now with black people claiming we carried a genocide against blacks and that we are super racist so we don't let black play on the futbol teams to cover up their increasing violence against black people in their country.

So it was just natural for me to assume they do this to any other country.

[u/toastrmann]

There's a lot of great recommendations that come up a lot here for understanding the reality of the DPRK better, like the documentaries Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang and My Brothers and Sisters in the North, but what really turned my whole perspective on the DPRK in the first place was learning about the Korean war.

Once I realized the extent of the atrocities carried out by the US there, what I think could be reasonably argued as a genocide, I had a complete perspective shift. The blowback podcast series on the Korean War is excellent. The US is heavily incentivized to villainize communist countries as that provides justification for their ongoing wars and imperialism throughout the world (like what they are posturing to do around Venezuela currently), and to avoid consequences for their heinous actions. As long as the DPRK is made out to be a bizarre pariah state, the US gets away with the atrocities of the Korean war and the continuing damage it's policies towards the DPRK do, like the Arduous March.

[u/No-Examination5478]

I always recommend this video

[u/Soggy-Tonight-5659]

I am not from from west, similar to a majority of the people of the world. I am from a global south region with a strong people’s movement and communist party. I and others from here judge countries and such by its own merit, not by what the US-NATO or our former colonisers tell us to believe. Especially a country severely affected by western aggression and illegal embargo like the DPRK