In an ugly incident last month, a man fled a North Korean military camp near the DPRK/China border, crossed a river into China and killed four villagers before being caught by local police. In a new development, it appears the killer may have been trying to steal food and money, in response to Kim Jong Un's ongoing crackdown on bribery.
While China's anti-corruption purge process has been taking place since Xi Jinping's ascension, it turns out that a similar crackdown has been underway in everyone's favorite local despotism, the DPRK. Since Kim Jong Un came to power, he has been clamping down on bribery throughout the country, according to a new report by Bloomberg.
Bribery is what makes the world go 'round in North Korea, and for troops stationed near the Chinese border, "bribes were one of the key sources of income for these guards to survive," according to Kang Dong Wan, a professor at Dong-a University in South Korea.
There's also the looming threat of food shortages in the country. While there aren't reports of the widespread, devastating famines of the 1990's, North Korea is hardly a breadbasket. Bloomberg says that "about 70 percent of North Koreans struggle to secure food supplies."
Couple food insecurity with a lack of money, give the man a rifle and position him close to the border of a country that promises (relatively speaking) infinite wealth and freedom, and these border-town robberies start to make more sense. Let's see you make a movie about that, James Franco.
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