For decades, North Korean authorities have taught ordinary citizens not to harbor illusions about South Korea, the United States, and Japan, on the grounds that admiring the culture and lifestyles of \u201chostile states\u201d could erode faith in the system. But recent developments inside the country suggest the authorities\u2019 vigilance extends well beyond these so-called hostile states. Even China and Russia \u2013 partners with whom North Korea is deepening strategic cooperation \u2013 are no exception.<\/p>\n
North Korea needs Chinese goods and capital, and is expanding military and economic cooperation with Russia. Yet it does not permit ordinary citizens to envy China\u2019s standard of living or Russia\u2019s technological prowess. The state may draw closer to both countries; however, its people are not allowed to hold any \u201cillusions\u201d about them. This contradiction reveals less about North Korea\u2019s foreign policy than about the underlying logic that keeps its system intact.<\/p>\n
Even a Friendly Nation May Not Be Seen However One Wishes<\/b><\/p>\n
According to Daily NK\u2019s reporting, the Organization and Guidance Department of North Korea\u2019s Central Committee instructed border-area party organizations and workers\u2019 groups in June to tighten discipline and ideological control, emphasizing that people \u201cmust not harbor illusions about Chinese-style socialism.\u201d The move has been widely interpreted as a preemptive effort to stop North Koreans from taking interest in China\u2019s market economy and living standards \u2013 and comparing them to conditions at home \u2013 as cross-border trade and personal exchanges with China expand<\/a>.<\/p>\n China is North Korea\u2019s largest trading partner and its closest socialist ally \u2013 which may be exactly what makes it such a dangerous point of comparison. People might ask: If we are both socialist countries, why can individuals in China run businesses and earn money? Why are China\u2019s cities and villages better off than ours? Why does the state accept Chinese goods and technology while demanding that ordinary people practice total self-reliance?<\/p>\n A similar pattern is visible with Russia. When a new destroyer capsized during launch at the Chongjin shipyard in May 2025, some officials in the munitions sector reportedly proposed importing a large Russian crane as the most realistic way to salvage the situation. Instead, they were dismissed from their posts, and Kim Jong Un reportedly rebuked them, warning against \u201charboring illusions about foreign countries.\u201d North Korea\u2019s relationship with Russia has effectively reached the level of a military alliance \u2013 yet treating Russian technology as superior to North Korea\u2019s own<\/a> has become a political liability.<\/p>\n The information controls surrounding North Korea\u2019s troop deployment to Russia fit the same pattern. Family members of deployed soldiers interviewed by Daily NK said they had not been told in advance that their sons were headed to a war zone \u2013 only that they were leaving for \u201cstudy-abroad training\u201d or \u201ctraining to represent the fatherland.\u201d Word of the deployment reached families late, not through any official notice but through letters, rumor, and word-of-mouth. Before officially acknowledging the deployment, the authorities branded the rumors as false<\/a> and moved to suppress them.<\/p>\n AsiaPress likewise reported that, even while Pyongyang refused to officially confirm the deployment, information about casualties among North Korean troops in Russia reached the country and unsettled parents. That information is believed to have spread through South Korean broadcasts, Chinese mobile phones in border areas, and word of mouth. Facts the authorities tried to conceal<\/a> reached ordinary people through multiple informal information networks.<\/p>\n North Korean authorities present cooperation with Russia as a diplomatic achievement of Kim Jong Un\u2019s. But specifics \u2013 the scale of the deployment, casualty figures, how the soldiers are treated, what Russia gives North Korea in return \u2013 remain matters ordinary people are not supposed to know, let alone ask about. What Pyongyang wants is not a population devoid of pro-Russia sentiment, but one that views Russia only in the terms the authorities permit.<\/p>\n What North Korea Fears Is Not Information but Comparison<\/b><\/p>\n North Korea holds up self-reliance and self-determination as basic principles of state governance. In its view, North Korea\u2019s problems must be solved the North Korean way, and there is no alternative to the path laid out by the party and the leader.<\/p>\n Within this framework, admiration for foreign countries can never remain a matter of personal taste. The moment North Koreans compare wages, consumption levels, healthcare, education, or freedom of movement and communication abroad with conditions in their country, they risk reaching conclusions the authorities never sanctioned. What threatens the system is not so much the fact that life may be better elsewhere, but the fact that a society can be run differently from North Korea\u2019s own model.<\/p>\n A Korea Institute for National Unification study published last year found<\/a> that as marketization and the spread of information technology converge in North Korea, outside information is flowing in quietly but deeply, and reshaping people\u2019s perceptions and desires. Markets are not simply places to trade goods; they function as spaces where all kinds of information circulates and new lifestyles and cultural habits take root. To rein in this organic change, North Korean authorities have stepped up controls on what they label \u201cnon-socialist\u201d and \u201canti-socialist\u201d behavior.<\/p>\n The spread of smartphones poses a similar double-edged challenge for the authorities. 38 North reported <\/a>that in 2026, smartphones are becoming increasingly embedded in North Koreans\u2019 daily lives, with the spread of electronic wallets and mobile payments. Smartphones give the state an efficient means of managing the economy and its people \u2013 but they are also tools that let people exchange information and keep their own records.<\/p>\n According to AsiaPress reporting, authorities have checked the stored data on phones left at repair shops and caught people who had watched Chinese films. Authorities have inspected phones simply because their owners had taken photographs on the street. Sources say even photographing homeless people<\/a>, market price tags, or the scene of an accident can bring on a crackdown. Phone ownership is permitted, but using a phone to document and share reality is not.<\/p>\n The Korea Institute for National Unification\u2019s White Paper on North Korean Human Rights 2025 likewise noted<\/a> that, since 2021, North Korea has toughened penalties for foreign culture and expression through special laws such as the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Law and the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Law \u2013 some of which prescribe the death penalty. North Korea treats access to information and freedom of expression as crimes that threaten the security of the system.<\/p>\n