N. Korea: Regime collapse in Pyongyang (no-notice regime collapse)

WT ^ | 01/21/08 | Daniel L. Davis

[GeronL]

The Chinese would move in to grab those nuke research centers near its border if there is chaos

[GeronL]

China will want to secure those nuke facilities near its border

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

God is the eternal GOD of creation and of salvation and as judge of nations! He is the Ancient of Days. May He judge the destroyers who have been in power in North Korea and May He deliver these poor slaves from their current and from any future slave master wannabes! May the Gospel of Jesus Christ once again sweep through North Korea like a wave of truth that brings them hope, healing, and life!

There are many Christian South Koreans who have been praying for the deliverance from this evil in North Korea for all these long years. Their prayers have not been in vein. God bless the people of Korea!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I don’t think NK will collapse. It will become another dictatorship, another spoils system, with fewer enslaved people, perhaps.

[wastedyears]

Within a year of North Korea standing up again, we’ll have a great trade agreement going with them. We buy their stuff and our stuff is banned.

Isn’t unfettered free trade wonderful?

/s

[MonicaG]

Amen. Been praying ever since reading Acquariums of Pyonyang (sp?).

[syriacus]

Any plans that we and other nations make would be useless.

I wonder if the UN will even make a peep.

[syriacus]

From the CIA World Factbook for North Korea

Natural resources: coal, lead, tungsten, zinc, graphite, magnesite, iron ore, copper, gold, pyrites, salt, fluorspar, hydropower

Land use: arable land: 22.4%

Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Mississippi

[The Pack Knight]

A North Korean collapse will put the South Koreans in a hell of a pickle. They have to move up because of the popular backlash you mentioned, but people in the know there really don't want this to happen.

Absorbing North Korea will be a hideous shock to the Korean economy. Germany is still feeling the hurt from its reunification 17 years ago, and that's nothing compared to what's going to happen in Korea.

Add to that the added cost of defending their new territory. While I don't think the Chinese are going to move in, beyond possibly establishing a security buffer south of the Yalu, they certainly won't be happy sharing a border with the ROK. Things are likely to be tense, and that means their new northern border will probably be just as heavily militarized as their old one.

People have been thinking of ways to make this transition a softer one, but I don't see how it can be done. The South Koreans and their allies are just going to have to manage as best they can. The problem is the economic effects which will ripple throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim, and will probably affect the global economy as well.

While it'll be good to see this monstrous regime tossed in the dustbin of history, it won't be a fun time for anyone.

[PapaBear3625]

N. Korea is China's important buffer. North East corner of N. Korea also provide vital access to the sea for land-locked Eastern Manchuria region.

I agree that China has a lot of incentive to move in and make N Korea a client state, after getting rid of the crazyness of the N Korean regime

I could just imagine the reaction of the N Korean people to finding out that it was all a con, that capitalist S Korea is prosperous and well fed, and that all pure communism gives you is misery. China cannot afford to have a country on their border whose people are thoroughly disillusioned with Communism

[The Pack Knight]

I don’t think NK will collapse. It will become another dictatorship, another spoils system, with fewer enslaved people, perhaps.

Honestly, that'd probably be best for everyone. Depending on who's in charge, it might even leave the door open for a more orderly and gradual reunification, which will mitigate a lot of the pain reunification would cause.

[PapaBear3625]

and probably the basing of at least a reinforced division in Alaska where it could be airlifted readily to the area on short notice.

Not Alaska. Have you considered what airlifting a division from Alaska in the middle of an Alaskan winter would be like?

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Oh, I have not read that. But I have read about the South Korean Christians who have a “prayer mountain” who pray 24x7 there (different ones) - with these Korean Christians, prayer is not something taken lightly! God bless them and may God Arise in North Korea and may the enemies of man and God be scattered!

[The_Reader_David]

Actually more like East Germany collapsed, communist Czechoslovakia collapsed, . . .the Soviet Union collapsed.

According to some of the few reports one can get about actual conditions inside the country, NK already has a lot of the slightly wierd ‘living as if’ phenomenon that Eastern Europe had in the last days of communism there, including a non-so-underground free-market ‘black’ economy.

Once the strong-man dies, any dissension among the elite as to the course of the country (a successor dictator or ruling council or . . .) and the whole thing could come apart pretty quick. Either that or agreement on a successor who turns out to be a Korean Gorbachev, who actually tries surgery on the sick system and kills it, and the collapse could come in short order.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

A pleasant thought, professor.

[MarcoPolo]

I don't think China would try to take over North Korea at this point. For one thing, South Korea would kick the crap out of them or at least put up a fight that China cannot afford to engage in. Secondly, because nobody wants to fight the Koreans anyway. It was my experience while living in China that while the Chinese hate Japanese and the Mongolians hate the Chinese, nearly everybody likes the South Koreans. I'm serious. They are fairly universally liked by the peoples of that region.

Plus, as others on this thread have pointed out, China has a passion that overwhelms nearly all others in their mind---MONEY. I have never, and I mean NEVER, seen a people more in love with the idea of making money, to the point that it has realistically become the god of many of them.

[MarcoPolo]

I don't think China would try to take over North Korea at this point. For one thing, South Korea would kick the crap out of them or at least put up a fight that China cannot afford to engage in. Secondly, because nobody wants to fight the Koreans anyway. It was my experience while living in China that while the Chinese hate Japanese and the Mongolians hate the Chinese, nearly everybody likes the South Koreans. I'm serious. They are fairly universally liked by the peoples of that region.

Plus, as others on this thread have pointed out, China has a passion that overwhelms nearly all others in their mind---MONEY. I have never, and I mean NEVER, seen a people more in love with the idea of making money, to the point that it has realistically become the god of many of them.

[MarcoPolo]

Oops! Sorry for the repost!

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ordinary people may worship money as their supreme deity, but those in power have different prerogative. Imperial prerogative takes precedence over money.

[Non-Sequitur]

It has a lot of strategic value to China.

Enough to offset the headaches involved with taking over the country should Kim...depart?