Kim Jong Nam Predicts the fall of North Korea "soon"

More likely China would invade Taiwan, since it considers Taiwan to be reellious providence and should be under PRC jurisdiction.

Possible (China invades Taiwain), but unlikely because of the idea that given enough time, Taiwan will come back "home" so to speak (opinions differ WILDLY as the odds of this happening within a lifetime or two.)

But back to NK, what's stoppin the USA from just going Korean War 2.0?

They invade Afghanistan for 911 and look for WMD in Iraq. If they can get something blown up by the North Koreans or just finally pay attention to the North Koreans boasting that they have Nukes, its all the justification USA usually needs.

Surely North Korea would pose no challenge to 1/3 of the military might of the world's only Super Power.

Well China is the big wall stopping the US from just steamrolling really.

The best case scenario would be a joint US China. GTFO with maybe Russia playing the middle man between the two, unite the two halves and get lots of trade and development treaties that would benefit all sides (plus some non aggression pact clauses like no US or Chinese bases or tropes in NK after the country is stable UN and Korean only and such.)

(a person can dream...)

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Sounds pretty good all around actually.

USA dismantles and pulls out their military bases from South Korea, China "encourages" the Glorious Leader to accept early retirement, and the South Koreans can move to fix the place up.

Still, leaves the question of what makes it worth all that effort though. North Korea doesn't sound like its got much natural resources to sell, its people would probably need a lot of rehab to be useful in a market economy and their industries are not likely to be awe inspiring.

Bah.

edited 30th Jan '12 11:55:19 PM by Natasel

The South Korean political elites are TERRIFIED of reunification. They don't want the refugees to "drag down" the South's economy but know it would be political suicide to reject them.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Unification is possible but would essentially mean putting North Korea under UN jurisdiction, enforcing peace with heavy foreign presence and artificially forcing economy to catch up with south.

A few things:

1. China already has declared war on Taiwan - a trade war. Basically the Chinese are buying up all of Asia's rare earth metals so that they can deny Taiwan access to lithium and a few other hard to get minerals. Since Taiwan's main industries are lithium batteries and computer circuits, this will eventually starve the country or force them to give in to Chinese demands in order to keep their computer industry afloat. Why do you think President Obama wants to give Taiwan more jet aircraft? The man isn't an idiot, he knows what China is up to.

2. America isn't going to leave Asia, even if North Korea falls. Right now we have a policy of Chinese containment in place, because we cannot allow another nation to become a Pacific power. We let that happen once with Japan, and look at the consequences. So even if North Korea falls and reunification occurs, you can expect a lot of continued cooperation between Korea and the United States. For that matter, you can expect a lot of American meddling in a lot of East Asian nations - already we are trying to re-open airforce bases in the Phillipines, and to reinforce our military alliance with Australia.

3. Both of the big powers in the region, China and the USA, like the status quo. So the only way for North Korea to fall is from within. A "joint invasion" is not in China's interest because it opens the door for American influence on a united Korea, and there's a snowball's chance in Hell that America would dismantle its bases in South Korea after reunification (the real threat is and always has been China, North Korea is just a convenient excuse for the Americans).

Well I think I'll hit through all the ideas in the thread in a series of points.

• Unification problems

It'd be hard, but Germany did it. North Korea is going to have to go through the same pains and likely have the same level of discrimination. Besides, the South isn't that democratic in the first place, so really the political difference between the two is more along the lines of "got everybody feeding a functional economy" versus "everybody is boycotting a dysfunctional economy". The North would likely turn into a series of heavy manufacturing jobs, while the South still has cars and electronics.

Plus, with a unified Korea, China will trade with everybody there, not just North or South.

• China/Taiwan

Taiwan is going to fold back into China eventually, it's just a question of when. Trying to butt into a very long protracted civil war is a recipe for a world war.

• America and a Pacific Power

The last time, as in, the US used nuclear weapons against a inhabited area? USA has no moral superiority over the Imperial Japanese. Everybody else, on the other hand, has quite a few reasons to be afraid of a rising Japan. On the other hand, as annoying as China ever was, they're not likely to invade Vietnam or India again. They actually have less land than the height of the Qing Dynasty, so maybe those breakaway territories could be afraid of a resurgent China. Or they could try to profit from it by trying to get development money from the central authority in China. Really hard to say what sort of effect that might have.

Assuming China will be bad is just arrogance on the part of Americans. Let's just say, American hands are hardly clean. Only neocons or right-wing Reaganites could possibly think America's influence on the world was happy sunshine times.

• America and China cooperating

The cooperation in this case would likely be more like recognising spheres of influence. USA pulls from South Korea, China pulls from North Korea. Then both use soft methods to assist a unification plan. Not likely to happen, but it's the softest way to resolve the problem.

Probably the best way is for a slow guarantee of luxuries for the North Korean elite, via Chinese money and protection (grandfather clause to go with it), and the South will slowly lose US military bases. South Koreans themselves will likely be very happy with that, North Koreans will get all sorts of new job opportunities (while the elite will probably have to be whisked away into Chinese locations to live out their lives in secret).

It'd be a bad idea to involve any more people than this. Russia isn't really cared about. Everybody hates the Japanese.

...Breadloaf, did you seriously say that the US has no moral superiority over a regime which killed 6 million people?!!!

(source.)

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

China controls over 90% of all rare earth mining on, err, Earth. They don't need to deliberately buy up rare earths, they already have them! And their policy to export less of them is global, not just directed against Taiwan. It's so their own electroncis industry can use more of the stuff. That Taiwan's economy, which is very dependent on its electronics industry, is especially hit hard by that policy is just, well, incidental. It's no deliberate anti-Taiwanese action on part on China. And even if it would be no different than the USA's embargo of Cuba...

Absolutely incomparable. The GDR was poorer than West Germany, yes, but it was an industrialized country with good infrastructure and always guaranteed supply situation of all basic goods. In North Korea, OTOH, people are starving. North Korea is on third world levels! It's absolutely not comparable to the GDR.

No it won't. It won't "declare independence", either (a pity), but in any case it will not join the PRC. Why should it? There's no reason to, and the population doesn't want it.

Oh nonsense. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, no doubt, but in the end of the day All Crimes Are Equal is not true. The world would be a worse one had Japan won.

Of course. People don't do "invasions" anymore, only "interventions". Now, sinophobia in the USA is indeed silly, as the PRC has been very well behaved and civil since Mao's death. OTOH, there is no need to stylize them as paragons of peace, either.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

The suggestion was that USA should never have let a Pacific Power rise in the region because "look what happened last time" which means two things

• Any country rising to power in the Pacific is bad for the world
• USA is a morally superior country

I had never suggested Imperial Japan was morally good or good for the world, nor did I suggest I wanted them to win. But suggesting that not allowing a Pacific Power to rise is an inherently good thing is flawed thinking based only on one example; Imperial Japan.

The USA is hardly a paragon of awesomeness. How many civilians did America kill en masse in the Philippine War? Or the Secret War? Or the Vietnam War? Or the Korean War? How many weapons is America supplying world wide to fuel regional conflicts? As for during the time of Japanese war crimes, did America not have internment camps? Mass lynchings of blacks? Sterilisation/euthanasia progroms for the weak and "genetically inferior"?

We can't assume to know what the effect of a rising China will be but I think it would preferable to have the other countries to be economically sound to stand up to a major local power. Much like how it sucks for Mexico but not as much for Canada to be beside the USA.

The key here is to support key countries to develop. North Korea was a thriving manufacturing-based economy in the 1980s, and we had a good chance at reunification there, just like Germany, but we gave it up and we have to spend the money/time for the last 30 years that we chose not to unify the two countries. We could argue whose fault that ultimately was but that's the situation we are in. It's the price we pay for letting the problem fester.

There is one little difference between Korea's and Germanies.

East Germany had infrastructure that could be incorporated into West Germany and people knew that things were not good. It also wasn't one mistake away from causing biggest clusterfuck ever. Furthermore, EG(16,111,000) had smaller population than WG(63,254,000)(25%), compared to NK(estimate 2008, 24,051,218) to SK (2010, 48,875,000)(49%), basically nearly half of SK population. Furthermore, German Reunification is still not complete, there is noticeable gap between former West Germany states and former East Germany states. NK and SK have even more different lifestyles and NK population has little to no way of knowing what happens outside official news.

Additionally, NK economy is a disaster. Even East Germany had better economy, especially if compared to neighbors. Income Per Capita was 3:1 with Germany, with SK and NK it's 17:1. Finally, if something is to be learned for German Reunification it's that both sides need to have much more similar economies, otherwise other side will face recession and first one will pay the price for it.

edited 31st Jan '12 8:48:20 AM by Mandemo

I think the best option is actually North Korean internal reform. Lets remember that under Mao there was also starvation on China, and look at it now 50 years later.

Once North Korea´s economy grows beyond the starvation line and the goverment begins to grown donw the peaceful reunification is possible.

Maybe for reunification borders will still be in place an enforced and NK would be an autonomous region until further notice,.

edited 31st Jan '12 8:48:23 AM by Baff

I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.

Did Mao also starve his people intellectually?

I'm a skeptical squirrel

Well, he tough it was a good idea, turned out it wasn't... at least Chinese government itself admits the whole "The Great Leap Forward" was a disaster. They actually blamed it on cult of personality of Mao.

Don't expect to hear even slightest admission of mistakes from North Korea anytime soon...

@ johnnyfog

Yeah, unfortunately he did... well his wife in the Gang of Four did anyway. The "cultural revolution" was an intellectual purging before the Communist party shut it down and jailed the leaders of the movement.

@ Unification

Well, it really doesn't matter how much it costs anyway, the point is moot. Unification is the primary goal and I think we should stick with that.

I have zero details on what the new leader of North Korea is like at all, and besides, I had very little details of Kim Jong Il anyway. It didn't seem like he actually did that much himself, versus the military elite doing a lot of stuff in his name. So it's likely that the leadership problem is much less a single point of change than it is a very large committee of elites running the show behind the Kim name.

If China could have enforced positive reform on North Korea, they would have already done so. So the problem here is that everyone expects China to do things they cannot do in North Korea. Plus, given the increasingly negative attitude toward war and conflict in China, it's not likely the government is really capable of mobilising people to fight anything except a direct American invasion of Chinese soil.

So what are the options left?

Well it's likely to be about quid pro quo. The elites in North Korea aren't going to give up privileged positions in life just because USA says so. American opinions mean basically nothing to them and however well intentioned the American government or its people are, that won't change much.

I think instead that it'll be about maintaining their elite positions in some form while improving the lives of North Koreans. This plus increased communication between North and South would be helpful. Right now, the South blocks access to anything in the North. Why? Are they afraid South Korean people will somehow get absorbed into communist ideology simply because they can hear Northern bs? I should think the South is more confident than that, it's the North that should be worried about information leaking in.

I think the "necessary" evil here, may be allowing the North Korean leadership to profit from unification. They get disclosed kickbacks for UNESCO schools built in the country, as an example. I'd rather waste a million dollars on them than have thousands of North Koreans die on principle.

I think the only way for change in North Korea to occur is for the Chinese to prevail upon KJU (or his controllers) to do a Chinese-style reform of the economy. KJI was never interested in it himself (though he humored Beijing with a couple of special areas), but maybe now once things have settled in Pyongyang for his son, the Chinese might find a more willing partner.

Problem with the "Chinese Style" is this:

The Communist Party (its still their official name) has shown that it actually gives a damn about the Chinese people, being in the Guiness Book of Records as having led the largest number of people out of poverty to date.

The NK leadership may not care.

Improving the masses' quality of life, giving the people monetary power, voting rights, free access to information, all this may not be in the NK leadership's interest or future plans.

If the propaganda is to be believed, the N. Koreans are locked in a titanic battle between Good (them of course) and Evil (specifically Courrupt, Soul less, Bourgoise, Western, Capitalist Pig Dog Outsiders.)

The very IDEA that people outside of NK want to HELP is probably considered crazy.

And that's how the NK leaders would want it. Its job/life security of sorts. Keep the masses distracted and blame all their troubles on others, and no matter how bad things get, the NK leaders can enjoy the high life.

I think a problem in reunification is that the people of NK have been so brainwashed in hating the South Korean devils and US monsters so it will be very hard to break that into the people once reunification happens.

Also known as Achillesforever6 of Lordkat.com fame

That's why North Korea needs a leader that will help lead reforms, much like what happened in Taiwan or Soviet Union, albeit with different responses. Either the generation of leaders helped transition to a more free state, or caused the citizens/members to see the truth and rebel.

Now using Trivialis handle.

I'm pretty positive that if Kim Jong-nam had become Glorious Leader of North Korea after his father's death, we'd actually be seeing North Korea open up to the outside world and begin real reforms.

edited 31st Jan '12 10:08:57 PM by GameGuruGG

Wizard Needs Food Badly

Pretty sure that's why they kicked him out.

Or Nam's just shopping around for a Super Power to back him in case of a "spontanious" regime change.

(sort of) worked in Iran, so who knows?

I can only hope so...

"Oh wait. She doesn't have a... Forget what I said, don't catch the preggo. Just wear her hat." - Question Marc

How do people think North Korea will be affected by their rocket crashing? This time they didn't hide it from the people, will they finally become more open?

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.