North Korea warns of attack if ships checked (Really People?)

Nobody. Causing yields to skyrocket and prices to plummet -> hence the collapse of our currency.

 

Given the nature of modernized conflict I doubt the PRC seriously considers NK a buffer. The PRC is propping up the NK because if NK collapses it creates a humanitarian catastrophe on the on their border. The PRC has good trade relations with SK and is codependent on the US while their might be sabre rattling I strongly doubt the PRC defends NK if they launch an offensive attack.

 

Actually, this is a case where the Chinese government are heck of a lot more pragmatic then the general populous. It's not just bad blood, but a lot of the public wanting to flex their military muscle (a lot of the younger generation with angst that hasn't actually witnessed the horrors a war can bring) and get revenge for the massacres in WWII. In some of the anti-Japanese demonstrations a while back, it was the government that ordered a media blackout and tried to calm the flames.

Think about what happened on 9/11 but 1000x. Except for the fact that the country didn't have the ability to do anything till now. A war would be disastrous for everyone (including you and me) but and the situation is going to be delicate for at least a few more generations (most people still had grand parents and such that lived through the time period and heard first hand stories of the atrocities).

Lastly, you are way too naive to believe that the S. Koreans would be willing to see a militarized Japan. I think S. Koreans would be more than happy to work with N. Korea on any demand rather than seeing a militarized Japan. China and Japan's bad blood is the headline news, but if you think S. Koreans wont be screaming foul if Japan gets a military, you're don't know S. Asian history very well. When Japan started modifying text books, China's discontent got the headline, but Koreans were definitely in the Bi-lines.

 

well considering the fact that the korean penninsula is 80% mountainous, its a pretty damn good buffer against a land offensives from japan/sk (and in turn from us forces station in those countries) if it should ever materialize.

im sure china knows the us/japan/sk are not interested in starting something w/ it. but at the same time, there is no real reason for china to let that buffer go (whether it goes bc of a coup, collapse, or war) by having nk there, it basically allows china to concentrate its forces in other areas. it also keeps us/japan/sk distracted while china can go about its own business.

the best case scenario would be for nk and sk to reunify like german. but i think thats still a generation away from even being a possibility.

 

Would that not simultaneously collapse China's economy?

 

great documentary

<embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=1875007335054132657&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:500px;height:426px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed>

 

is there a link for the original article posted? i didnt see one, wanted to check it out

 

I think there is more than a bit of irony in the fact that the origin of North Korea's atomic weapons program goes back to the USSR, not China, as some might assume. The irony, at least to me, lies in China being "put on the spot" by NK's madness, being their ally (as stupid as I think that is), yet Russia (the "Soviet Union"/Putin... I think he is the living reincarnation of the old Soviet strongmen) is pretty much out of a potential conflict, and a potential hoard of refugees.


They only have to worry about the fallout.

 

China would go ballistic if Japan started rearming and carrying out independent operations.

 

i don't think that's the best scenario. it's much better to play them separately as pawns than having to deal with as one nation. best if family rule ends there and become a rational state.

 

yes from a chinese/japanese perspective, they would prefer the two korea's dont reunify.

i think the us/sk/nk would prefer reunification. and eventually, reunification will occur. its just a matter of time bc koreans are tired of outside powers weilding so much influence over them.

 

you never know. maybe unification will happen soon. maybe taiwan will reunify with mainland too. just never know. but for n. and s., they are stuck in a location where every neighbhor was once a super power at one time or another, except them.

 

yup!

its the sight of a long extended proxy-war between the superpowers/ideologies...

i think this is one of the driving factors for nk to gain nukes. they want to flip the bird to the world and say "get off my back. ill do whatever i want to do." kinda like an angry teenage brat.

 

Are the majority of South Korean's even in favor of unification? I know the younger generation have a lot more concerns about unification, but it seems like its taboo to be against unification in S. Korea. For South Korea, unification would be ridiculously expensive which could lead to economic instability. I think the last S. Korea president, the guy who took a header of a cliff, said the most realistic unification scenario would be a confederation between the two states with N. Korea's status quo possibly still in power.

 

yeah the older generation wants reunification but younger people are hesitant bc of the economic consequences.

if you look at it in the long run, it would benefit both nk and sk to reunify. just the reconstruction of nk's decrepit infrastucture alone would create thousands of jobs.

 

Worth a laugh. But what course of action do you recommend against North Korea? Certainly not military action against the fifth-largest standing army on the planet (and undeniably the most brainwashed/propagandized) and a government that would not hesitate to bomb Seoul into the ground, I hope?

 

^ At the moment I think military action is out of the question. An allied force of US and SK would win, eventually, against NK but it would be devestating physically for SK and would do severe damage to the global economy. At the moment the most we can probably due is just wait out the regime until Kim Jong Il is no longer in charge.

 

North Korea is one of the most interestingly confounding political situation in the world. It sounds as though the "wait-and-see," policy was what people tried after the death of Kim Il-Sung and the ascension of Kim Jong-Il, since it was not guaranteed that the hereditary succession would work in spite of the generals. Yet, it did. Reports coming out say that Kim Jong-Il is grooming his youngest son for succession, so that will be another key thing to watch.

A war with North Korea would be one of the largest humanitarian crises since World War II and Vietnam. Seoul would be crushed (and if Pyongyang can manage it, I bet they wouldn't hesitate to annihilate any part of Japan they can reach), refugees would stream into China and South Korea, and millions of people would die.

 

i heard that kim jong-il was actually obama's father.