During Mao's days, China was poorer than N. Korea. N. Korea has been regressing since then while China has been making strides. Kim Il-Sung's obession with his eternal glory turned the entire country into a den of incompetent servile ideologues.
Ummm... actually I that's not true. China during Mao's time was never as poor as these North Koreans are. There was this one period of starvation in China, but it wasn't even half as long as North Korea's starvation period.