He does lie, deceive, and obfuscate about Iraq, but he wouldn't change any of his real policy on the basis of public opinion. If public opinion mattered to actual policy, we would have been implementing at least some of the Baker commission suggestions, instead of talking about ‘stay the course or escalate’ being branded ‘a new way forward’. By the same token, he might talk about nonexistent 'progress' or blame the media or Clinton for the North Korea, but I don't think he would make a deal with 'The Axis of Evil'. IMHO, Bush gives us hints about his self perception when he talks about himself as 'the decider'. I believe that he truly believes that he is doing what needs to be done, and he is willing to lie, cheat and steal from the American public to do it. Furthermore, I believe he views is intractability and narrow-mindedness as 'steadfastness and strength'. I think that Bush actually still believes that he is the hero of this story.
NK is in position to do a lot of things. IMO they are more of a potential threat than Iran. For one we know they have nukes, they have artillery in range of Seoul and weapons that can easily strike Japan. They could flood the PRC with refugees straining and destabilizing the PRC. They have a larger and better armed military than Iran. While Iran can strike at our troops in the Middle East NK can strike at our troops based in SK and Japan and do severe damage to major trading partners.
His mistaken opinion is based on the fascination average Americans have with Iran. The overthrow of the Shah and the hostage crisis have permanently branded Iran in the U.S. consciousness. At the same time, very few Americans realize just how unstable and shaky the Korean situation has been for so long. It's taken for granted because no American soldiers have lost their lives in battle and North Korea hasn't actually attacked anyone. The potential refugee flood to China completely escapes most people here and is why Americans think China can bully NK into a deal. Clearly, the damage NK could do to Seoul and Japan is incalculable. When I try to discuss North Korea with some people on my job, they either yawn or look puzzled. When Iran comes up, everyone gets animated and has a strong opinion. I must admit NK didn't interest me until a friend of mine who had been there some years came back. His stories about the close calls gave me chill bumps for a while. Plus, I went to the DMZ a few years ago, talked to a few people there and that kinda "branded" the DPRK into my consciousness. If/when the regime falls and the truth comes out about the atrocities, environmental damage and illegal activities that generate revenue for the regime it will shake the world.
NK can't actually do all that. For one, the mere appearance of the possibility that we (PRC) would cut off supplies forced them back to the negotiating table. That alone demonstrates our power over them. Now, we don't like to twist arms like that, but if they actually threatened South Korea we'd do something about it. Sure their refugees might cause problems in our country, but that would come with the collapse of NK's government, which is far more injurious to NK's communist leaders than extra refugees is to us. Besides, right now they are still useful, no matter how crazy they get. They force the Americans to engage us on the issue. We all know that Bush is not a huge fan of using diplomacy to resolve issues, therefore I think it's very important that Bush has been forced to deal with NK like this. Besides... if nothing else it gives us an additional bargaining chip in the Taiwan issue.
Issue #1 with that statement: I'm not American. I'm a Chinese citizen. From our perspective, North Korea is the brat who keeps annoying everyone and won't STFU. Honestly, I think they are correct when they say that the Americans want to wipe them out; Bush said so himself with his "Axis of Evil" doctrine, so they have a legit self-defense argument. But they're going a bit overboard and we need to rein them in; I think we have done so successfully. The refugee issue is a bit overblown; we have far more resources than countries like Chad to deal with the situation. There are estimated to be about 250k of them, which is a sizable amount but nothing we can't handle. Besides, if a war actually happened we'd probably end up taking control of the border areas anyway. On the contrary, the NK situation is not unstable at all: they have not gone to war for 50 years. The reason NK is raising hell is because it thinks the Americans are upsetting the balance. NK's communist government wants to above all maintain itself in power. They thought, quite reasonable IMHO, especially if they observed what happened to Saddam, that Bush wanted to take them down. So they rigged up a few nukes and showed them to the world, calculating that this would deter an attack. It has. They aren't actually threatening anyone; they know that if they actually attack, they are doomed. I'm sure that as an American you can't picture yourself being the threatening bully running around demanding everyone's lunch money; well, that's what you are, and NK decided to do something about it rather than take it in the ass like Iraq did.
N. Korea is a boil upon the face of the earth. No one knows how to pop it without scarring... I would hazard to guess that the PRC doesn't like to get nuked or artillery shelled either.
As I said, NK wants to above all maintain their government, and it wants to DEFEND ITSELF. Bush put them with Iran and Iraq on the "Axis of Evil" list and then in short order took out Iraq. It is not a coincidence that shortly thereafter NK announced that it had a nuclear weapon. NK thought that it would find itself under attack soon, and they calculated that if they brought out their WMD's for all to see, the Americans wouldn't actually attack them, unlike Iraq, who tried to (truthfully, I might add) deny their WMD program and got crushed. NK is unhappy with us, yes. In their ideal world we'd join up with them and fight the Evil American Empire, just like we did 50 years ago. However they know that they are dependent upon economic aid from us, so there is no way they'd attack us. If they want their government to not collapse, which is what they want above all, they need to still follow our direction.
Sure, they won't attack you if you aid them, just like how we're guaranteeing those 100k barrels of oil, but once you pull off the aid by "doing something about it", then you have none of that leverage anymore. How many nukes does the world think N. Korea has? 3...4? One's enough to make any country blink.
If "you" are so good at directing them, why did you "allow" them to develop atomic weapons? Do you have a problem with Japan developing atomic weapons? Something they could build in months, if they choose to? That will be a consequence of NK doing so, in my opinion. I hope not, because I would prefer the countries having atomics to remain as few as possible, but I think Japan will, eventually, and it will be in response to North Korea. D&D. Glow in the Dark.
Wow, do you know how to read? I claim that NK's government wants to maintain itself, and thus it needs to defend itself. That's why the nukes were shown to the world. Now if you'd like to rebut this claim, then fine. We can have a discussion. But you never address what I'm saying, and it basically makes irrelevant all of your points. It won't actually attack or nuke anybody because doing so would result in the demise of their government. The barrels of oil stuff IMO is just NK using their nukes to get as much out of the Americans as they can. They sense fear in the Americans; "Why would they negotiate with us when they blew the **** out of Iraq and now are threatening to do the same to Iran? I guess they're actually afraid of the nukes." They have a huge bargaining chip, and it's to their advantage to cash it in for as much as they can get. Oh, at their height the Americans and the Soviets each had 6000 nukes. NK is small fry.
Yes, we have a huge problem with Japan developing nuclear weapons. Japan building nuclear weapons may well start a war. NK, for good or for ill, is still our ally. If you think this is a double standard.... what the hell have the Americans been doing for the past 60 years? Weren't the mujahideen once freedom fighters? Wasn't Iraq once a progressive secular Arab state which should serve as a model for the entire Middle East?
That barrels of oil stuff worked last time under Clinton when N. Korea still claimed they didn't have nukes.... My point isn't that they're going to attack anyone, but rather they're using nuclear proliferation to blackmail other countries into supporting an unstable regime. But now that they do have nukes, their ballistic missiles can barely reach our West Coast. You might want to keep being their ally if push comes to shove.
America, Bush included, does NOT want to wipe out the NK regime. We all want the regime to fall on it's own. This is an absolute fact. Bush's idiotic rhetoric was meant to scare NK into negotiating or hasten it's demise. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect of making negotiations more difficult. My Chinese friends would say you seriously underestimate your government's concern over the refugee issue. I'll leave it at that. The NK regime also acts as a buffer for China. The PRC government doesn't want an American ally (with an American troop presence) up to it's border. Kind of like how Russia doesn't want it's former client-states to join NATO. If firing missiles over Japan isn't threatening I don't know what is. The regime is demonstrating what could happen if they were "provoked". We all know self-preservation is NK's goal but they want it known that South Korea and Japan would face their full fury if the "wire was tripped". I understand very well how Bush's rhetoric and the Iraq invasion have made America seem like a "bully". I hear about it enough from non-American friends, believe me. The good thing is America will have a regime change in 2 years.
I agree with you that NK can't do anything major without it being suicidal but then again neither can Iran. To strike a major blow at America or the rest of the world each country would have to take a suicidal action. The worst that Iran can do is to attack oil shipments out of the Persian Gulf and US allies in the Gulf. That would be suicidal since Iran depends on oil shipments and given the importance of Gulf oil the rest of the World is likely to support the US taking out Iran. NK has a range of far greater targets and in short order can do far greater damage than Iran can. In both cases drastic action is suicidal but we're talking about potentials. Even without the suicide scenario NK still has proven to be very dangerous because of their weapons prolifieration. They've shown a willingness to sell missile and other technology to other countries and it wouldn't surprise me if they sold nuke technology. In regard to the PRC's control over NK from what I've read that's not as tight as you portray.
The client state issue is far more important than the refugee issue. We fought a war 50 years ago to prevent NK from falling into American hands, and we still cannot tolerate an American puppet state on our border. NK only threatened Japan as retaliation to America threatening them. Japan is a satellite state (still) of the US. I'm sorry if you feel otherwise, but given the fact that Bush put NK on the "Axis of Evil" list and shortly thereafter took out one of the countries on the list, NK has to assume that they are next to be taken out. If the Americans were trying to pressure NK into negotiating a more favorable treaty, they did a very poor job. All they did is convince NK that America is out to get them again. Sishir, yes I realize that NK is not as obedient as they used to be, but recent events show that we can still manipulate them into doing what we want by floating the threat of sanctions. Of course we never had to resort to this step before, and we don't like to twist arms like that, but now it remains as an option to control NK.
Calling someone satelite state indicates a state of independence that is not much greater than a colony, such as that which existed for Canada before WWII. Was this what you were intending to say? I think client state might be a slightly less pejorative term, but even the if this were really the case. I would describe a prerequisite of Satelite/Puppet/Client state status would be an inability to deviate far from the foreign policy of the parent state. When they try, they end up with what happened in Hungary in 1956. Japan does things that they would not do if they were a satelite, an example being their many dealings with Iran. Japan also does more trade with China than with the US. This is not a characteristic of a satelite as I understand it. I don't think this accurately describes Japan. In fact, I would suggest that Taiwan and South Korea come much closer to true 'satelite state' status. But I still think that neither could be described as such, though I'm not entirely sure about saying that about Taiwan. I'm not particularly sure, either, that it would be accurate to describe North Korea in these terms, but I don't know as much about China/North Korea relations.
I think you and I are in almost complete agreement. The PRC government's concern about having an American ally on it's border is obviously greater than the refugee issue. If NK falls, China loses a client state and America gains ground. This geopolitical reality is the reason China has supported and nurtured the humanitarian disaster known as NK for decades. And your comments about NK's response to Bush's threatening rhetoric, combined with the Iraq invasion are well taken. This is why I stated they had the opposite effected of what was intended. That doesn't change the fact that there is zero chance of America invading NK unless they attack one of our allies.
