Seriously Stanton, let’s not talk about anything irrelevant to the DPRK and China’s role with regard to the DPRK here, after all this is a blog about the DPRK.

Right. After all, Jing Jing and Cha Cha are watching. Say no more! By the way, do you have an opinion about Green Dam?

@Sonagi, indeed, there’s a bit of Chaucer meets The Star in it.

Of course we could take this one step further with reference to Mao’s physician’s voluminous memoirs (Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao) where the author states quite clearly that with reference to Mao’s vaunted sexual activity, the Chairman in his later years frequently engaged in intercourse, but due to his fidelity to Daoist methods of fluid conservation, never had an orgasm in the conventional sense of the word. (As I recall, Nietzsche also wrote about this somewhere.)

Anyway, with either Anna Nicole Smith or Chairman Mao (or both together as a couple even stranger than Mao with neurotic Jiang Qing and A.N. Smith with Strom Thurmond or whomever) it seems that the coital metaphor could be extended profitably into the realm of international relations, or Sino-North Korean relations. Some kind of variation on “same bed, different dreams.”

What inspired you to make that analogy? Were you flipping through The Star while waiting in line at Wegmans?

That’s a fascinating question indeed, and one that has gotten much more complicated since PRC-ROK diplomatic relations were forged in 1992. North Korean leaders are still sore at Deng Xiaoping for that. I think in some ways, regardless of what China does or professes to do, the DPRK leadership fears a late-Koguryo scenario where a China-southern Korean alliance unifies the peninsula and wipes out the power center in Pyongyang. Fortunately the current debate seems more manageable and rooted in the Cold War and doesn’t appear to be dragging back into the Three Kingdoms era or the Qin/Han epoch; that’s raging elsewhere.

On China’s side, there’s obviously a great deal of frustration with Pyongyang’s recalcitrance to open up the economy — but fortunately, China doesn’t have a track record of invading countries with the motive of creating guaranteed trading partners.

I have to say that as regards the current thread, I’ve never seen the notion of Chinese pragmatism toward North Korea asserted quite this way before. Glad that Joshua and the challenger seem to have the time to duke it out for our edification. (Not sure if that counts as a “harmonious comment,” but if so, fine by me.)

Seriously Stanton, let’s not talk about anything irrelevant to the DPRK and China’s role with regard to the DPRK here, after all this is a blog about the DPRK. For starters, care to answer my questions? They are serious questions.

Sure China wants good relations with the US, she wants good relations with pretty much everybody. Isn’t it a no-brainer? You guys don’t want good relations with the rest of the world? Of course, you AmeriCons are not of this world, you are better than the rest of us. What does this have anything to do with what we have been discussing here, anyway? You can’t handle different opinions Stanton? Ahh, you must have been spoiled by the overly harmonious tone of the comments people have left on your blog. I am simply disagreeing with you and calling you nuts on some of your allegations. What? Too much for you to handle?

Haha Stanton, talk about “subverting the Chinese system of government”, you can’t even handle the DPRK, what makes you think you can handle China? Who do you think you are Stanton? You need to wake up and smell the coffee. You need to have a reality check.

Instead of wasting your time indulging in stuff not related to assertions and allegations about the DPRK and China that you started, you should seriously answer my questions and move on!

I see, not only does Barrack Obama’s shallow rhetoric inspire you ….

OK, you’re really in over your head with that one. Put the bong down, dude.

From the CIA-affiliated pro-TGIE organizations to the NED-funded Uighur Islamic insurgents, your hands have been all over China.

Barack Obama the neocon is subverting China! Well, we’ve learned something about you, because no one but a Chi-Bot would echo propaganda that ridiculous.

I see, not only does Barrack Obama’s shallow rhetoric inspire you, you are also a student of Tom Clancy’s shrewd fantasy. China invading the DPRK? Why should China do that? What can China gain from invading the DPRK? China already has a lot on her plate, she doesn’t need more problems and headaches. Of course you can’t answer any of my questions as you have been evading them since I got here. Logic makes no sense to you Stanton, you tend to think the Chinese (and the North Koreans too) are a bunch of fools or drone driven not by common sense but by some sort of weird, alien psyche that you, your peace-loving, freedom-championing AmeriCons will never comprehend.

Plus, condemnations from the international community is going to crush the thin-skinned China; on the other hand they won’t bother the ultra-thick-skinned AmeriCons who do whatever they want, whenever they want and in any place they want. Therefore I think you people are in a much better position to invade the DPRK. You’ve got everything.

I doubt that the North Koreans, after being indoctrinated for decades to regard you AmeriCons as morons would be that happy to take up arms supplied by you to fight the Chinese or anyone else. Please, North Koreans are human too, they are not that dumb (perhaps even smarter than the average AmeriCons).

You talked as if you people have not been trying to spur more domestic unrests in China. From the CIA-affiliated pro-TGIE organizations to the NED-funded Uighur Islamic insurgents, your hands have been all over China. Sure Stanton, if the value of your house dropping to below 50K doesn’t concern you at all, by all means please write to your congressmen to ask them to bring hell to China. This is the only way to have “One Free Korea”, like I said!

The Chinese government must have no idea how much damage its netizens are doing to its global image every time they show up in a comment thread. By being such enthusiastic consumers of their internal propaganda Chi-Bots persuasively contradict their government’s external propaganda about wanting good relations with America. What China wants, of course, is to take advantage of America as an export market while indoctrinating netizens in an ethos of angry, anti-Western victimhood and nationalism that’s eerily similar to Germany in the 1930′s. What else does the CCP have when its founding principles have been such a catastrophe? Ironically, it was the Olympics and the outrageous behavior of Chinese thugs in the streets and the Chi-Bots online that reinforced my belief that we should be subverting the Chinese system of government — peacefully in Han China, but by quietly encouraging the formation of disciplined armed resistance movements in places like Burma, North Korea, and perhaps one day, Tibet.

I certainly wouldn’t be saying that now if China really was evolving inexorably toward a truly free market and a more representative government, as opposed to trying to perfect fascism.

You have to realize that convention wisdom doesn’t apply to the DPRK. China has sort of become the DPRK’s hostage (willingly or unwillingly). The North Koreans know where it hurts China the most and they know how to play the game. They know China has NO CHOICE but to keep propping up North Korea, because the alternative would be letting it collapse, a price China is not willing to pay any time soon. Basically the DPRK is backmailing China like this: “Feed me and pay me, otherwise you are going to suffer if I die”. After getting fed and paid by China, the DPRK might choose to periodically show its “appreciation” by making some half-hearted gestures that save China’s face. The DPRK is very wary of China exerting more influence there and they are doing their best to minimize it.

Seriously, if you guys were the leaders of China, what would you do? What alternatives? Invading the DPRK? Collaborating 100% with the friggin’ AmeriCons, who ultimately want to suffocate you to death?