history of North Korea

The 1950s and ’60s

In the aftermath of the Korean War, Kim purged the so-called “domestic faction”—an indigenous communist group that had remained in Korea during the colonial period—amid much scapegoating for the disastrous war. After 1956, as the Sino-Soviet conflict intensified, Kim shifted his positions vis-à-vis Moscow and Beijing no fewer than three times: from pro-Soviet to neutral, to pro-Chinese, and finally to independent. During 1956–58, he carried out a purge against the pro-Chinese group known as the Yenan faction and eliminated a pro-Soviet faction from the KWP Central Committee.

More From Britannica

North Korea: History

In 1966, after a visit to P’yŏngyang by Soviet Premier Aleksey N. Kosygin, Kim announced what became known as the independent party line in North Korea, which stressed the principles of “complete equality, sovereignty, mutual respect, and noninterference among the communist and workers’ parties.” From this party line, KWP theoreticians developed four self-reliance (juche) principles: “autonomy in ideology, independence in politics, self-sufficiency in economy, and self-reliance in defense.”

In the late 1960s the regime implemented a program for strengthening the armed forces. As part of the effort to fortify the entire country, more military airfields were constructed and large underground aircraft hangars were built. In addition, a large standing army and a strong militia were maintained.

North Korea’s emphasis on strengthening its military forces proceeded hand in hand with its continued focus on the development of a self-reliant economy. With aid from the Soviet Union, China, and the countries of eastern Europe, North Korea implemented a series of economic development plans and made significant gains. But as external aid declined sharply—first from the Soviet Union beginning in the late 1950s and then from China at the start of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s—the seven-year plan of 1961–67 was seriously affected, as indicated by the extension of the plan for another three years.

From 1970 to the death of Kim Il-Sung

Domestic developments

Two subsequent plans, a six-year plan (1971–76, extended to 1977) and a seven-year plan (1978–84), also failed to achieve their stated goals. While the country’s economic growth was hampered by the decline in foreign aid and its heavy expenditures on defense, the continued priority assigned to heavy industry created a severe shortage of daily commodities and lowered living standards. Food shortages were aggravated, in part because of an almost threefold increase in population from 1953 to 1993.

Are you a student?

Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Subscribe

When the 1972 constitution was adopted, the premiership was changed to a presidency, which Kim Il-Sung assumed; Kim also retained his post as the chairman (renamed the secretary-general) of the KWP. In 1980 the KWP held its first party congress in a decade. During the proceedings, Kim revealed his dynastic ambition by appointing his son, Kim Jong Il, to three powerful party posts, thus making the younger Kim his heir apparent. The younger Kim consolidated his power and gradually assumed increasing control over the day-to-day administration of the government until his father’s death in July 1994.

Domestic priorities and international cooperation

Kim Il-Sung died on July 8, 1994, and his son Kim Jong Il succeeded him. However, he did not assume the posts of secretary-general of the KWP or president of North Korea. Instead, he consolidated his power over several years. In 1997 he officially became head of the KWP, and in 1998 the post of president was written out of North Korea’s constitution—Kim Il-Sung was given the posthumous title “eternal president”—and Kim Jong Il was reelected chairman of the National Defense Commission, which became the country’s highest office. (A further revision of the constitution in April 2009 added the title “supreme leader” to the description of Kim Jong Il’s position.) His regime adopted the basic guideline of “military first politics” (sŏngun chŏngch’i) to safeguard it from any unforeseen adverse impact resulting from such events as the collapse of the Soviet Union and eastern European communist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the persistent economic hardships at home.

The death of Kim Il-Sung had come at a critical time for North Korea. The country had been locked in a dispute over nuclear issues with the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had been denied access by the North Koreans to an experimental facility at Yŏngbyŏn, where it was suspected that North Korea was diverting plutonium to build nuclear weapons. In the summer of 1994 the North had been preoccupied with the transfer of power to Kim Jong Il; however, by October the United States and North Korea had signed a nuclear accord (the “Agreed Framework”). Under the terms of this agreement, the North renounced efforts to develop nuclear weapons and pledged to abide by the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Non-proliferation Treaty; NPT), in exchange for which the United States arranged for the financing and construction of two light-water reactors (LWRs) capable of producing electric power. The agreement restored hope for North-South reconciliation and a peaceful reunification of the divided peninsula.

The United States, South Korea, and Japan formed an international consortium known as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) for the construction of the LWRs in North Korea; South Korea was the main contractor. More than two dozen countries eventually signed onto the project, supplying material and financial help, and construction work progressed slowly but steadily for a time.

Nuclear ambitions

In late August 1998 North Korea fired a multistage, long-range missile eastward over Japanese airspace. This new missile capability caused shock worldwide and precipitated a major global controversy. In addition, suspected underground nuclear facilities were discovered near the sites whose activities were to have been frozen under the terms of the Agreed Framework.

It was reported in 2002 that North Korea was pursuing work toward producing highly enriched uranium, which could then be used to make nuclear weapons. In December of that year North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors from the facility at Yŏngbyŏn. In January 2003 North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and nuclear research operations openly resumed at Yŏngbyŏn. Multiparty talks were initiated to resolve the various nuclear issues and ultimately came to involve the United States, North and South Korea, Russia, China, and Japan. These Six-Party Talks, as they were termed, ended in 2004 without reaching a resolution. In 2005 North Korea claimed to have nuclear weapons capability, although it was unknown whether the claim was true. After having suspended the LWR project for several years, KEDO withdrew its workers from North Korea in January 2006, and in May the organization decided to terminate the project. In October a seismic event was detected at Kilju, North Hamgyŏng province, and North Korea announced that it had carried out an underground test of a nuclear weapon. The country conducted another, more powerful underground nuclear test in May 2009, again near Kilju.

Internal challenges and international relations

Throughout the 1990s North Korea suffered severe food shortages that caused widespread starvation. In efforts to help North Korea cope with this crisis, South Korea, Japan, the United States, and international relief agencies (including the UN World Food Programme), provided emergency food and medical assistance. The North Korean government’s response inside the country included officially promoting what it called the “arduous march” (also termed the “meal-skipping campaign”). Despite these measures, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died of starvation in the latter half of the 1990s, and a UN study found that life expectancy had decreased substantially and infant mortality had increased dramatically. The country’s economic situation began improving in the early 21st century, in part because of North Korea’s own efforts to accommodate certain aspects of market economics, including more open trading policies. In late 2009, however, the economy was thrown temporarily into chaos when a government currency-reform program reduced the won to 1 percent of its former value while limiting individuals to exchanging only a small amount of the old currency for the new. The revaluation—which was aimed in part at curbing private market activity—led to inflation, a food crisis, and public protests as many citizens saw their savings vanish. The government subsequently acknowledged the shortcomings of the reform program, and the official identified as being responsible for its implementation was executed in March 2010.

After Kim Jong Il’s consolidation of power under the 1998 constitution, his regime began to pursue formal diplomatic relations with many countries, including those of western Europe. By early 2001 North Korea had established relations with most of the West, amid a friendlier climate created by the improving inter-Korean relations. The United States, South Korea, and Japan also had reasons for keeping diplomatic channels open with North Korea, such as maintaining peace and seeking improvements in the country’s human rights situation. Despite its successes with other countries, however, North Korea did not make any substantive progress in its diplomatic talks with Japan and the United States, even after years of direct contact.

Relations with the United States in particular reached a low point in January 2002, when U.S. Pres. George W. Bush named North Korea, with Iran and Iraq, as part of an “axis of evil” of countries that were pursuing the development of weapons of mass destruction. Tensions remained high for several years. Multiparty talks in 2008 resulted in the U.S. government’s removal of North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in October, as North Korea took certain previously agreed-upon steps in connection with the pending nuclear issues.

In contrast to the hopeful beginning of the 21st century, however, the ensuing years saw the erosion of the gains that had been made in international cooperation. The joint ventures established under the “sunshine policy” after 2000 were suspended by the North within a few years. North Korea’s launch of several rockets in 2009—which the international community generally suspected were tests of ballistic missiles—were considered by many observers to be diplomatically provocative acts.

Relations with the South

After the death of Kim Il-Sung and through the early years of the Kim Jong Il regime, the situation between North and South remained fairly static, although the countries participated in multiparty negotiations on nuclear issues and South Korea supplied aid to the North. Hopes were high at the turn of the 21st century that the issues dividing the two Koreas might soon be resolved. As part of his policy of reconciliation with the North, which he termed the “sunshine policy,” South Korean Pres. Kim Dae-Jung visited North Korea in June 2000—the first time any Korean head of state had traveled to the other side—and the two leaders worked out a five-point joint declaration that specified steps to be taken toward the ultimate goal of national unification. A select number of North and South Koreans were permitted to attend cross-border family reunions. Later that year, at the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, North and South Korean athletes marched together (though they competed as separate teams) under a single flag showing a silhouette of the Korean peninsula. (The countries also made a joint appearance—with separate teams—at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens but failed to reach an agreement to do likewise at Beijing in 2008.) Kim Jong Il’s government reestablished diplomatic relations with several Western countries and pledged to continue its moratorium on missile testing.

Efforts to restore a North-South dialogue continued. In May 2007 trains from both the North and the South crossed the demilitarized zone to the other side, the first such travel since the Korean War. Later, in October, the two Koreas held a second summit, in which Roh Moo Hyun, the South Korean president, traveled to P’yŏngyang to meet with Kim Jong Il.

The December 2007 election of Lee Myung-Bak as South Korean president began another period of coolness in inter-Korean relations as Lee took a more hard-line position toward P’yŏngyang. Tensions increased when the North Korean government announced in January 2009 that it was nullifying all military and political agreements with South Korea. In May of that year it announced the cancellation of all business contracts with South Korea that pertained to the joint-venture Kaesŏng Industrial Complex, although, in practice, little changed there. In March 2010 a South Korean warship, the Ch’ŏnan (Cheonan), exploded and sank in the waters of the Yellow Sea near Paengnyŏng (Baengnyeong) Island, close to the maritime border with North Korea. An international team of investigators concluded in May that the explosion had been caused by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine. South Korea soon ended all trade relations with its northern neighbour and declared its intention to resume propaganda broadcasts along the border. The North Korean government, denying responsibility for the attack, severed all ties with South Korea.

Relations between the two countries continued to be mixed. A cross-border reunion for hundreds of North and South Korean family members took place in late October 2010. However, one month later, as South Korea was conducting a military exercise off the country’s northwestern coast, North Korean artillery shells bombarded the South Korean border island of Yŏnp’yŏng (Yeonpyeong), which also has been the scene of offshore naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002. The shells hit a military base and civilian homes, and there were several casualties. South Korean forces returned fire and raised the level of military preparedness on the island. The incident was considered one of the most serious episodes of belligerence between North and South in years.

Kim Jong-Un’s consolidation of power

Kim Jong-Un affected a friendlier public demeanour than his father had, drawing comparisons to his grandfather, the “eternal president” Kim Il-Sung, but hopes that the youngest Kim would forge a new direction for the country were soon dashed. He quickly moved to solidify his position, executing those who challenged his rule and demoting officials who had accrued influence under his father. In April 2012 Kim was named chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission, a title formerly held by his father, as well as first chairman of the National Defense Commission, the country’s highest administrative authority.

Photographs of Kim’s uncle Jang Song-Thaek standing directly behind Kim Jong-Un in Kim Jong Il’s funeral cortege led many in China and the West to conclude that Jang would exert significant influence within the new regime. Jang had played a central role in the regime transition after the death of Kim Il-Sung and oversaw the brutal response to an abortive coup by the VI Army Corps in 1995. At one time, Jang had been seen as a possible successor to Kim Jong Il, and international observers believed that he would promote reform within the North Korean government. Those assumptions proved to be flawed. Jang was branded a traitor, and he and his entire inner circle were purged and executed in late 2013. Some of the executions were reportedly carried out with antiaircraft machine guns, and Jang’s name and image were erased from official party communications.

The succession brought great uncertainty to the region and the world. North Korea once again instituted dramatic escalations of its rhetoric against the United States and South Korea, including verbal threats of missile attacks against both countries. In April 2013 North Korea shut down the joint industrial zone in Kaesŏng, though it was reopened some four months later. It was shut down again in February 2016 by the South Korean side, seemingly for good, and workers from both countries were recalled home.

Acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear program

North Korean and U.S. officials met in Beijing in late February 2012 for talks that resulted in a pledge from North Korea to cease nuclear and missile testing and the enrichment of uranium at the Yŏngbyŏn nuclear facility in exchange for food aid from the United States. In mid-April, however, North Korea test-fired a rocket. Although the rocket broke up shortly after launch, the test garnered international disapproval and led to cancellation of the February agreement. Then in mid-December 2012 the country successfully launched southward over Japanese airspace a long-range rocket that placed a satellite in Earth orbit; debris from the launch fell into the sea east of the Philippines. The UN Security Council condemned the launch and called it a threat to regional security.

In February 2013 North Korea conducted its third successful underground nuclear test. The action was greeted with strong condemnation by the UN and governments around the world, and the country’s major ally, China, lodged a formal diplomatic protest. The expansion of North Korea’s nuclear program cast into relief the growing distance between Beijing and P’yŏngyang. Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping had expressly warned against the December 2012 missile launch, and the rejection of that advice precipitated a sharp curtailment of high-level contacts between the countries. The execution of Jang Song-Thaek, the most prominent pro-China voice in the upper echelons of North Korean politics, signaled an additional chilling of the relationship. Henceforth, any North Korean official who counseled rapprochement with Beijing risked association with the purged Jang.

While ties with China showed signs of strain, relations with South Korea remained typically uneven. Family reunions between relatives who had been separated since the Korean War took place in February 2014 in the Mount Kumgang resort area. South Korean Pres. Park Geun-Hye had suggested making the reunions a regularly scheduled event, but North Korea rejected the proposal. The following month the two countries traded artillery barrages in the Yellow Sea.

In November 2014 North Korea emerged as the prime suspect in a malicious cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. Prior to the release of The Interview, a comedic farce about a CIA plot to assassinate Kim, hackers released tens of thousands of Sony’s internal e-mails and issued threats against theatres that showed the film. The North Korean government denied responsibility for the hack.

In January 2016 North Korea claimed to have conducted its first hydrogen bomb test, and the UN Security Council responded by unanimously approving a dramatic expansion of the decade-old sanctions against the regime. The first Korean Workers’ Party congress in 36 years convened on May 6, 2016, and bestowed the title of party chairman on Kim. The congress of the Supreme People’s Assembly revised the constitution the following month, broadening and solidifying Kim’s already expansive powers. In September 2016 North Korea detonated its fifth and most powerful nuclear weapon to date, and it conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests throughout the year. Additional UN sanctions were promptly enacted, restricting trade in coal, North Korea’s most significant export.

As world leaders exhorted China to use its influence to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the two traditional allies seemed to be increasingly acting at cross-purposes. Kim Jong-Nam, Kim Jong Il’s eldest son and Kim Jong-Un’s half-brother, had lived for years under Chinese protection in Beijing and Macau. On February 13, 2017, he was assassinated in Kuala Lumpur when two women pressed a cloth doused in VX nerve agent to his face. The high-profile murder of China’s most valuable North Korean political asset, presumably on orders from P’yŏngyang, could not have come at a more sensitive time. Within days, China announced that it was suspending North Korean coal imports for the remainder of the year.

In July 2017 North Korea successfully launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); the estimated range of these missiles was in excess of 5,000 miles (8,000 km). With the mainland United States now theoretically within striking distance of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, U.S. Pres. Donald Trump vowed to respond to threats from P’yŏngyang with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” The UN—acting with Chinese support—leveled new sanctions that effectively banned all of North Korea’s most significant exports. Seemingly unmoved by these developments, the North Korean military issued a statement saying that it was considering a strike in the waters off Guam, a U.S. territory and the site of a major U.S. military installation.

Engagement with South Korea and the United States

North Korea continued to maintain a belligerent posture throughout 2017, but the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in P’yŏngch’ang (Pyeongchang), South Korea, offered a surprising avenue for dialogue. Athletes from both Koreas marched into the opening ceremonies together under a flag that depicted a silhouette of the Korean peninsula on a field of white. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-Jong, attended the games, thus becoming the first official representative of North Korea’s ruling family to set foot in the South since the end of the Korean War. Kim Yo-Jong met with South Korean Pres. Moon Jae-In on February 10, 2018, and delivered a handwritten note from her brother that invited Moon to visit him in P’yŏngyang “at the earliest date possible.” In March members of Moon’s administration traveled to P’yŏngyang to meet with Kim Jong-Un for a working dinner. That event paved the way for a historic meeting between Kim and Moon at the “truce village” of P’anmunjŏm on April 27, 2018. It marked the first time in more than a decade that the leaders of the two Koreas had engaged in direct talks, and the pair discussed the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and the conclusion of an armistice that would officially end the Korean War.

If Kim’s dialogue with the South seemed like a radical departure from the norm, the shift in relations with the U.S. was an even more extreme pivot. Less than a year earlier, Kim and Trump had been exchanging insults and threatening each other with nuclear war, but by May 2018 the two had begun preparing for an unprecedented summit in Singapore. After North Korean officials characterized threatening statements from senior members of the Trump administration as “ignorant and stupid,” Trump cancelled the meeting, only to reverse himself eight days later. On June 12, 2018, for the first time in history, the sitting leaders of the United States and North Korea met face-to-face. The meeting was a triumph for Kim. Not only did he engage the leader of his country’s most powerful adversary as an equal, but Trump promised to end joint U.S.–South Korea military exercises—an announcement that took both Seoul and the Pentagon by surprise. Trump further stated that he wished to end the American military presence in South Korea and pledged to invite Kim to visit him at the White House at a later date.

Talks continued in February 2019, with a summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, that yielded little concrete progress. North Korean negotiators had requested the removal of some or all U.S. economic sanctions (the two sides offered differing accounts of the details) as a prerequisite to additional steps in the denuclearization process, and formal discussions collapsed shortly after they began. Nevertheless, the event was a success for Kim: once again he appeared side-by-side with Trump, an image that held enormous propaganda value for North Korea. Kim also fielded what were believed to have been his first-ever questions from foreign journalists, a novel step for the historically secretive P’yŏngyang regime. The breakdown of the Hanoi talks did not signal an end to the detente, however. On June 30, 2019, Trump met Kim in P’anmunjŏm, in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. During that encounter Trump briefly stepped across a concrete marker indicating the border between the two countries and became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea.