Under the palm trees / the curse of resources

When I was young, cartoons show that the natives of the Equatorial region are enjoying a leisurely nap without working under the palm trees. Professor Jang Ha-joon of Cambridge University, who probably saw the cartoon with me, says in his book [edible economics] that if a native is slacking under a palm tree, his head will hurt a lot from the impact of falling palm fruit. And he says that people in warm, natural resource-rich countries are not lazy, and that they are poor even if they work hard because of other problems, such as political turmoil, backward economic structures, or authoritarian political systems.

 

Of course, Bangladeshis, who can produce three rice crops, are very optimistic and pleasant compared to Muslim countries in the Middle East, even though they are in the same Islamic region. That's why they are always bangl bangl smiling (sorry). Bangladesh does not seem to accept the blessing of resources as a curse. However, Russia and North Korea seem to have become curses of resources. Russia and North Korea are always at war or trying to wage war, and with abundant resources, even with a little effort, they stamp out the national power that is struggling to expand. Perhaps after this time, they think that one day a lot of resources will rebound the future. But I don't think those days will ever come.

 

Countries such as Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Switzerland were rather fortunate not to have resources. These are countries that have developed science and technology by maximizing the human resources that exist. The atmosphere of a country becomes a habit. A country that only prepares for war like crazy will forever be with war, and a country that is determined to develop technology with the determination to die will forever be with technological advancement. As I once said, this is why Russia must stop the war quickly.

 

I have become a habit of looking around the mine area of Gangwon-do, where I lived when I was young during the interlude of changing jobs. Perhaps my habit of thinking about North Korea will last forever. What's the point of thinking after time? As the days go by, I feel more and more regretful.

 

North Korea and South Korea have a large number of Paleozoic strata. The underground resources that have been pressed for a long time are hard. In the Paleozoic strata, there are many things such as anthracite, limestone, and tungsten. Close to Baekdusan Mountain in North Korea, there are many Cenozoic strata. The topography of Mount Baekdu and the Gama Plateau was created by the eruption of a volcano in the Cenozoicera. There are already soft underground resources like lignite from the Aoji coal mine, which is active in mining. South Korea doesn't know yet, but it also has oil in the Cenozoic stratum. Rare earths, which are thought to be buried very much in North Korea, are said to be not very related to the geological age but to the rock form. Indirectly, however, they are also related to the geological age.

 

I asked artificial intelligence to organize the discussion, but it seems like a mineral with low dignity from the first discussion. It's worse than I thought for a long time. There are not many intellectual resources mined from artificial intelligence today.

The Resource Curse — When Abundance Breeds Hunger

Lee Hyeong-chun | Geopolitical Columnist

Lie down beneath a coconut palm and fruit will fall. You may crack your skull, but you will not starve. This old perception of the tropical island nations of the South Pacific is not mere prejudice. Where nature is too generous, the pressure to survive is low, the incentive to accumulate is weak, and without a brutal winter there is little need to plan or store. It is not laziness — it is rational adaptation shaped by environment.

But this logic does not apply only to fruit above ground. Beneath the earth — where oil and gas, coal and iron ore, and rare earth elements lie buried — the same paradox operates. Resources mean endurance. Even from ruin, recovery is possible. As long as the land holds wealth, the state does not die. This is the shared psychological conviction of resource-rich authoritarian regimes.

Putin's war equation

Why does Vladimir Putin refuse to stop his war even as his economy buckles? This is not simple madness. Russia is among the world's largest holders of natural resources. Oil and gas exports finance the war, and despite Western sanctions, exports are rerouted through India, China, and Turkey. Behind it all is a cold calculation: short-term pain can be offset by long-term resource wealth.

This is the core mechanism of the Resource Curse. The more abundant the resources, the more a regime can operate without taxation — and therefore without accountability to its people. The soil for democracy disappears. It is why oil-rich Venezuela collapsed, and why diamond-saturated Congo remains poor.

North Korea — a regime that looks underground while its people starve above it

North Korea is the purest expression of this paradox. The northern half of the Korean Peninsula is a geological treasure chest, shaped by billions of years of tectonic history. Magmatic activity produced gold, tungsten, and molybdenum. Ancient sedimentary layers yielded world-class anthracite coal reserves. And rare earth deposits are estimated to be among the largest on the planet. This buried wealth is the foundation upon which the Kim regime continues to stand, despite international sanctions and chronic food shortages.

Coal and iron ore are sold to China at below-market prices. The revenues fund nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and the maintenance of the elite. The people are not the beneficiaries of these resources. The regime is. The population starves above ground while the government survives on what lies beneath. This contradiction is the structural reason why external pressure alone has never been enough.

The miracle of scarcity — a different path

The opposite cases also exist. South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland. These nations grew precisely because they lacked natural resources. With nothing underground to rely on, they invested in people. The pressure of survival generated innovation and educational drive. Scarcity, paradoxically, became the engine of prosperity. With no palm tree to lie beneath, they had no choice but to stand up.

The Resource Curse is not destiny. Norway built a sovereign wealth fund from its oil, saving for future generations. The difference lies in institutions and a culture of accountability — whether a society can build structures that return resource wealth to its citizens, or whether it cannot.

Those who rest beneath the palm tree are not always condemned to poverty. But the moment a few seize all the fruit, everyone else goes hungry. On Russia's battlefields, in North Korea's food ration lines, in the child labor of Congo's mines — we are witnessing the same tragedy, written in different languages.

Lee Hyeong-chun is an independent columnist publishing geopolitical and philosophical analysis in Korean