Comments on: Waiting for the Ceausescu Moment

By: Michael Sheehan

Michael Sheehan — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:38:39 +0000

The Chinese are sufficiently deft to work the situation to their advantage. They’ve allowed Pyongyang to be on a ‘long leash’ because it suits their (China’s) national self-interest in a lot of ways. Without having to spend too much, they been able to maintain a rather effective buffer state against the capitalists, as well as force the West to waste some big defense bucks to keep the Kim Family Regime in a box.

If things start getting ‘iffy’, their ‘Plan B’, the infiltration and take over of the NK economy, will be pretty far along before anybody really becomes the wiser for it.

Except for the mouthing of the requisite platitudes, the South Koreans have been willing to do little, especially since they became aware of the true economic costs associated with a rapid re-unification. They think it’s great that they are able to limit their inputs to some rice handouts and the build-up of a slave labor camp in Kaesong. And, for only a few million dollars more, they’ve been able to purchase a Nobel Peace Prize.

Now … if Beijing can only get Seoul to address the electrical energy shortage in NK, things will really start looking a lot brighter.

Looks like everybody comes out a winner on this (except the unfortunate wretches in the camps).

By: james

james — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 20:11:30 +0000

if anything did happen within the next 2 years, do you think China would be so bold in making ‘offensive’ type moves with the Olympics in sight?

i loved how SARS played out.

china and it’s government wanted to play ‘hush hush’.

the WHO director comes in and reminds them straight out….’stop BS’ing the rest of the world. you have the olympics coming. show all your cards or international public opinion will ruin you’.

so they cooperated.

By: Mi-Hwa

Mi-Hwa — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:24:38 +0000

I’m also counting on the fact that communism is on the way out, as people like Gordon Chang has pointed out. It will be hard for the Chinese government to control the stubborn North Koreans when it can’t even control its own citizens. Also, Tibet will one day regain its independence.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:33:31 +0000

Iâ€™m also hoping for another â€˜Korean Miracleâ€™ in the form of reunification.

Use The Force, Luke … the Fohhhhhhrce!

By: Mi-Hwa

Mi-Hwa — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:19:06 +0000

To Zhang: I’m counting on the fact that Chinese leaders have become more civilized since Deng Xiaoping, who was responsible for the massacres in Vietnam and at Tiananmen Square.

I’m also hoping for another ‘Korean Miracle’ in the form of reunification.

By: Zhang Fei

Zhang Fei — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 05:58:04 +0000

Joshua: There would be an almost incalculable backlash, which might even accelerate to an anti-Chinese insurgency involving some of the loose guns that will be floating around, post collapse. Such resistance would be slow to take off in the North, because initially, the North Koreans would just be glad to be eating. But over time, the hostility would spread, and North Koreans would be quick to test the limits of the kinder, gentler repression of the Chinese.

China does kinder, gentler repression only when it can do so and maintain control. At Tiananmen, it showed what it is still capable of doing. When China invaded Vietnam in the late ’70′s, it is said to have massacred entire villages – men, women and children. And China wasn’t even there to stay. My feeling is that China would have no problem controlling North Korea, any more than it had any problem annexing East Turkestan or Tibet. I’ve always thought that the Chinese would be better off going after lower-hanging fruit. Taiwan is out of the question because of Uncle Sam’s protection and the 100-mile wide Taiwan Straits. Mongolia is out of the question because of Russian protection. Why North Korea? Because it has no friends. None at all. Apart from China.

By: Corpy

Corpy — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 04:30:09 +0000

Joshua,
I don’t think the Chinese would ever be so foolish as to intervene directly and rule the North openly. I think you’re right to assume an action along those lines would provoke a severe backlash in the Koreas and throughout the world. They would be much smarter to groom a friendly military man from the current Northern establishment and put him on the top when the right moment arises. Of course, you only have to look to the example of Kim Il Sung and the Soviets to see how uncertain a gambit like that can be, but it seems a safer alternative to block a united and possibly pro-US Korea from touching Chinese borders.
You touch on the most troubling – personally – aspect of a Chinese intervention: couldn’t it be preferable to allow China to assume the monumental cost of developing the North? As the third rail of South Korean politics, we all know that very few people in this country want to realistically address a post-collapse scenario. It’s just too easy to preach to the masses of ‘glorious unification’ but no one speaks openly about the elephant in the room. That seems to be the heart of the continuing popularity for the failed ‘Sunshine’ policy. If its failure were to be acknowledged it would neccessarily mean the government of South Korea would have to begin planning and allocating the massive resources that will have to be standing ready to absorb the initial shock of a post KFR collapse, something the rejection of Oplan 5029 suggests is not about to be popular. On that note, here are some of the questions I would like to see realistic (from a US and SK perspective) answers to:
1. Who will stop the flood of refugees to the South? Will anyone have the will to stop the desperate and hungry people who will certainly flock to the wealthy cities so nearby? Will the current armed border continue to exist?
2. Will the US and SK pony up the resources that proper stabilization will require?
3. What is the potential form of a post-collapse government? Will it be something along the lines of the already proposed confederation model? Considering the vast differences in per capita GDP and educational levels, would further integration even be possible?

Thinking about potential answers to these questions, sometimes I feel like it might be better to let the Chinese have their go at it.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 01:19:04 +0000

Jeffery, I think any Chinese calculation that it can grab half of Korea underestimates Korean nationalism.

There would be an almost incalculable backlash, which might even accelerate to an anti-Chinese insurgency involving some of the loose guns that will be floating around, post collapse. Such resistance would be slow to take off in the North, because initially, the North Koreans would just be glad to be eating. But over time, the hostility would spread, and North Koreans would be quick to test the limits of the kinder, gentler repression of the Chinese.

Eventually, South Koreans and North Koreans alike could demand that the Chinese leave. Plus, reconstruction would be very expensive for China. Part of me hopes China tries to grab North Korea for just those reasons.

And anyway, you have to concede by now that Sunshine isn’t reaching the ordinary people of North Korea. It’s smuggled ell phones and and videotapes that are really having an effect, and Sunshine has nothing to do with that.

By: Horace Jeffery Hodges

Horace Jeffery Hodges — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 01:11:03 +0000

I’d rejoice to see Kim Jong Il gone and the two Koreas on the path to reunification, but how do you see the post-collapse scenario?

I am concerned — and this is a concern, not a conspiracy theory — that China has provisional territorial aims in the northern portion of the Korean peninsula and that a North Korean collapse would present the Chinese government with an opportunity.

That’s one reason that I supported, with reservations, the Sunshine Policy. I think that the best method of undermining the North is by South Korean investment, for money corrupts, especially in a system like the one in the North.

Loyalty would follow the money, the North would become dependent upon the South, and China would lose influence.

These days, unfortunately, North Korea seems to be ever more integrated into the Chinese economy.

And that — as I’ve noted — has me concerned.

Jeffery Hodges

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By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 04:03:35 +0000

An archduke Franz Ferdinand moment more likely.