If you look at satellite photographs of the Far East by night, you’ll see a large splotch curiously lacking in light. This area of darkness is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Next to this black hole, South Korea, Japan and now China gleam. Even from hundreds of miles above, the billboards, headlights, streetlights and neon of the fast-food chains appear as tiny white dots signifying people going about their business as 21st-century energy consumers. Then in the middle of it all, a blackness nearly as large as England. It is baffling how a nation of 23 million can appear...