On the banks of Pyongyang’s River Taedong parents snap memories of their children on locally-made smartphones and young couples, the women in bright, traditional chima jeogori dresses, are trailed by wedding photographers.

The capital of the world’s most reclusive dictatorship is showing creeping signs of modernisation, with an apparent emerging middle class who can purchase flatscreen TVs with online apps and download the Wimbledon final on Mokran, North Korea’s state-sanctioned answer to Netflix. 

Economic development and a push to raise living standards became the new top priority for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his state propaganda machine in April, when he announced the successful…

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