From China is better than the US to... North Korea?

Personal safety, yes.

Because they're ignorant. I've been to the DPRK on a USO tour. I've also been on the north side of the DPRK when I was visiting Vladivostok. I saw a TON of people who were ethnically Korean, but I know those people have more ties to the DPRK than I probably know. It was fun switching languages on them.

Anyway, that was a couple of days, and that was insightful enough.

They're going to be in the FAFO zone soon enough. Maybe we'll have a few people make the stupid move of going there, and with this current administration, that's not a good idea.

You need to realize that Americans live in an echo chamber. They rank 3rd for number of internet users around the world, after China and India, which means they listen to people complaining about their same problems 24/7 and so does everyone online who speaks English.

Many of these non-American English speakers listening happen to be Europeans from rich, progressive countries with strong socialist policies who are going to reinforce this American belief that they truly have it worse than everyone else, simply because they probably do have it worse than the average Norwegian or German...

Unfortunately they lack the perspective to realize that this doesn't apply to the vast majority of countries around the world. In fact, it doesn't even apply to all Europe, just some parts of it. This sort of ignorance makes them very susceptible to propaganda from other countries such as the communist ones and that's how you get nonsense like what you described in your post.

I think making assumptions about countries we know little of, other than exposure through biased sources, is of little value conversationally or intellectually. Every nation has it's own strengths and shortcomings. I would rather see us reach out to one another for understanding and where we share common values.

No totalitarian dictatorship has a thriving population. We need DEMOCRATIC socialism. 

According to my mom’s Chinese friend, North Korea asks China for food stores pretty consistently

I don't understand why you care so much, so what if people think china or north korea are better than the usa? what does that do?

During the Korea war the air force had the order to "bomb every stone on top of another and everything that moves" they murdered 20% of the north Korean population and destroyed every last bit of infrastructure.

Afterwards they sanctioned the country, demonised their government and then pointed the fingers at the evil dictators starving their population

I'm sure life is hard in north Korea (altho these days it's much better than many other developing nations) but at least it's a peaceful country, the only war it fought was the Korea war

Do they know Otto Frederick Warmbier？

我要笑疯了
LMAO!!!!! Comparing with China is one thing, given that the U.S. has indeed been regressing a bit lately, but to bring North Korea into the comparison? That's just too absurd!

There is a concept in literature known as hyperbole.

This is a great example of this.

We Americans love to hyperbolize our very real problems.