On NPR, ROB GIFFORD interviews a young Chinese woman who says:

The situation now in North Korea is something like the situation in China while we in cultural revolution. So I was so surprised 'cause China is more open and more urban. So we have much freedom. North Korea people--they don't have the same right, the same freedom as we have.

GIFFORD: When Chinese people stop pitying those in other countries for having a lack of freedom, you know something's changing. China may still be run by a Communist Party, but it's being transformed so rapidly that's it's completely unrecognizable from persistently Stalinist North Korea.