They say every cloud has a silver lining, and there may be some perverse truth to that for the Kim Jong Un regime during the COVID-19 pandemic.

North Korea has kept the virus from ravaging its poorly equipped health care infrastructure by keeping its borders shut since the beginning of the pandemic, but the ripple effects have been disastrous.

Its minuscule trade with the outside world has shrunk to a fraction of what it used to be. While “privileged” Pyongyangites have had to make do without foreign goods, it stands to reason that those in