Disclaimer: this piece was written before the tragic news of Otto Warmbier’s death.

Every North Korean watcher remembers a number of instances when international media began to write (at great length and with genuine enthusiasm) about some imminent dramatic change in North Korea’s policy, usually implied to be the start of a miraculous transformation of the country into a wonder of East Asia.

One such example of this appeared in 2015, with reports of an imminent tourist boom. The North Korean government had made public its intention to dramatically increase the number of foreign tourists visiting the country. In May