Meanwhile, North Korea's leadership is aware of its ever-increasing reliance on China, and the Juche ideology may catalyze diversification -- as in Myanmar.

CNN: What North Korea could learn from Myanmar

For that, the autarky enshrined in the North's guiding principle of Juche, or self-reliance, needs to make way for engagement with the outside world.

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Juche is North Korea's state ideology, which emphasizes independence and self-determination.

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Economic and political pressures do not work well on North Korea's leadership because its central ideology of Juche, translated as "self-reliance, " produces a very negative reaction to outside pressure.

CNN: What North Korea could learn from Myanmar

They believe (or maybe they really convincingly lie about believing) that the whole world admires and envies them and that they're the true light of socialism and Juche, which is their leader's philosophy of Communist self-reliance.

CNN: Vice Guide to North Korea

The song rings out from Kumsusan Memorial Palace, that supreme sacred place of Juche, the Juche Idea Tower, the Arch of Triumph, the Monument to Party Founding, and historical monuments all over the country, doesn't it?

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That will be used as a precedent by the North to seek more unconditional aid, says Hwang Jang Yop, who was the architect of North Korea's ideology of juche (self-sufficiency) before he defected to the South last year.

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China's strategy to ramp up commercial links has so far failed to elicit meaningful reform, and analysts say the new regime will be equally wary of introducing economic freedoms that could undermine a state policy of "juche" (self-reliance), and total control over its citizens' lives.

WSJ: Trade Binds North Korea to China