“I came to believe I could get away with anything in North Korea with bribes,” he said, “except the crime of criticizing the ruling Kim family.”<br />Eighty percent of consumer goods sold in North Korean markets originate in China, according to an estimate by<br />Kim Young-hee, director of the North Korean economy department at the Korea Development Bank in the South.<br />“Instead, they now flee to South Korea to have a better life they learned through the markets.”<br />Jung Gwang-il, who leads a defectors’ group in Seoul called No Chain, said<br />that with more North Koreans getting what they needed from markets rather than the state, their view of Mr. Kim was changing.<br />“Our attitude toward the government was this: If you can’t feed us, leave us alone so we can make a living through the market,” said Kim Jin-hee,<br />who fled North Korea in 2014 and, like others interviewed for this article, uses a new name in the South to protect relatives she left behind.<br />“Officials need the markets as much as the people need them,” said Kim Jeong-ae, a<br />journalist in Seoul who worked as a propagandist in North Korea before defecting.
