West welcomes North Korean cheap goods & filthy rich

Fenestella

Banned
China was and still is a one-party state having WMD, zero tolerance for dissidence, and cheap labor.
North Korea was and still is a one-party state having WMD, zero tolerance for dissidence, and cheaper labor.

For decades, the West has been blessed with cheap goods made in China, the Chinese filthy rich have been blessed with Western residency and citizenship.

Could the Western welcome of North Korean cheap goods and filthy rich begin in roughly the same period when the West began to welcome Chinese cheap goods and filthy rich?
 
First of all, North Korea must be willing to become "filthy rich" by adopting the market economy. This wasn't going to happen if they were in a situation they were at after the collapse of Soviet Union.

States always place security above economic development, if they feel the are threatened, they would devote everything they have on defense. IOTL defense sucked up not only North Korea's money, but also its manpower. A North Korea boy have to serve in the KPA for ten to thirteen yearsbefore being discharged into the labour force.

It might happen in future, with the Kim family feeling secure under its own nuclear umbrella, and places more emphasis on economy, and more confident that more openness to the world (and contact with South Korea) would not bring about its own collapse. There are signs that a glasnost (but not perestroika) is already going on inside North Korea. The western states, for the lack of a better option, tolerates DPRK's nuclear status.

The only way to prevent North Korea from pursueing nuclear weapons IOTL would be having Russia or China granting it nuclear protection, i.e. to promise defending North Korea with Nuclear weapons had the later been attacked.
 
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