From riches to rags

So accustomed have we become to North Korea as a failed state, 15 times less prosperous than the south, and depending entirely on foreign aid to survive, that we forget that things were not ever thus. I remember meeting Japanese nationalists who boasted that Japan had put more effort into building the infrastructure of their colonies than any western power had done for theirs.

This was entirely true of Korea. The Japanese rulers (since 1910) left a huge industrial base in the north, including mines, processing plants for coal, iron, magnesium and zinc, and many reservoirs and pumping stations which enabled the north to fertilise and irrigate its land. By 1945, after the liberation of the Korean peninsula by the Soviets and Americans, North Korea had 76 per cent of mining production, 80 per cent of heavy industry, and 92 per cent of electricity generating capacity. It had the largest collection of hydroelectric plants in Asia.