After almost six decades of Communist rule by the Kim family, North Korea can boast industrial equipment with a value of $2 billion, according to the Bank of Korea, South Korea's central bank. By contrast, the same industrial inventory in South Korea is worth $489 billion.
In the wake of the train explosion, the limits of North Korea's openness were on display. With dozens of reporters in the Chinese border city of Dandong, North Korean officials refused to let any journalist into the country. When foreign aid workers drove up from Pyongyang, North Korean officials refused to allow them to visit blast victims in hospitals in Sinujiu, because they lacked permits to enter the city, nominally a free trade zone.
And then North Korean officials refused to allow South Korea to send aid by truck to Ryongchon. In a country where many trucks look like battered props from Soviet movies of the 1950's, the sight of a convoy of modern trucks driving the length of the nation was deemed to be too destabilizing.
