North Korea's economy is flourishing in ways not seen in years, aided by arms sales and troop deployments to Russia, supplies and financing from China, and the ability to flout international sanctions to import more energy, components and materials.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to visit North Korea this week for his first foreign trip of the year, as the Kim regime has initiated a nationwide construction boom, building 10,000 new homes in Pyongyang last year.
Restaurants in Pyongyang serve up brick-oven pizza and chicken wings, and diners can pay through a mobile QR-code system. Chinese electric vehicles whiz through the streets, and Pyongyang has new pet stores, an internet-gaming cafe and car dealerships selling BMWs.
The regime doesn't release official economic data, tightly controls information and orchestrates what visitors can see, but outside the capital city, North Korea remains poor, with nearly half of its 26 million residents malnourished, according to a U.N. report.
North Korea's economic standing is the strongest since Kim assumed power nearly 15 years ago, and likely exceeds any point during the tenure of his father, Kim Jong Il, who ruled from 1994 until his 2011 death.
The Kim regime has fortified its energy supply and access to construction materials by sending munitions and more than 15,000 troops to the Russian front lines in the Ukraine war, netting Pyongyang billions of dollars in arms sales.
Monthly trade with China just hit an eight-year high, with a variety of Chinese consumer brands touting business in North Korea despite such sales violating sanctions.
The proliferation of tech gadgets, which have ushered in a North Korean digital economy, relies heavily on Chinese components, and many of Kim's army of cyber thieves live in China, where they can more freely connect to the internet and operate without fear of arrest by outside authorities.
Kim's nuclear program has proven to be a deterrent against military attacks or attempts to forcibly unseat him from power, enabling him to shift his focus to the economy, and the economic progress dims hope for a nuclear deal with the U.S.
