[chatmasta]

How do you say in one sentence that the regime "does not care in the least what the west thinks," and then in the next sentence that they feed westerners a propaganda machine? Obviously they care very much what the west thinks...

[cfcef]

They feed westerners a propaganda machine to fill the time and provide a trip. You need paying customers for the hard cash, but you can hardly let them wander around in the general population. The propaganda is there, might as well use it. And it helps with domestic propaganda too: the spin put on the aid and payments made to NK, and trips to NK by high profile politicians like Bill Clinton, is the East Asian motif of tribute. What better tribute to the glories of the NK regime is showing your people how foreigners come from around the world to visit the shrines of the Kims?