Is North Korea’s regime kept alive by the Korean diaspora? Yes, according to some. They claim the more than one-half million people of Korean descent living in Japan play an important role in supplying the DPRK government with foreign cash. Leiden University’s lecturer Jake Wright looks at the accusation more closely and questions the attempts to sanction this group. As South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol plans to visit The Netherlands in December, LeidenAsiaCentre’s ‘Asia Academy looks at ‘the other side’. What is the current situation in North Korea? What are the DPRK’s ties to the outside world? And are Koreans living outside the DPRK employed as the Hermit Kingdom’s cash cows?