Posted on 01/04/2018 5:15:45 AM PST by Kaslin
For good or evil, we may see radical changes in North Korea in 2018.
The beefed-up United Nations sanctions by midyear could lead to widespread North Korean hunger, as well as the virtual end of the country's industry and transportation.
In the past, the West had called off such existential sanctions and rushed in cash and humanitarian aid on news of growing starvation. Would it now if the bleak alternative was a lunatic's nuclear missile possibly striking San Diego or Seattle?
To survive an unending trade embargo -- and perhaps to avoid a coup -- Kim Jong Un would likely either have to recalibrate his nuclear program or consider using it.
China has always been unwilling to give up pit bull North Korea as its client. The Kim dynasty has proved especially useful over the past 30 years for aggravating and distracting the Chinese communist government's archenemy, Japan, and its chief rival, the United States.
Yet China is now worried that the Donald Trump administration is as unfathomable as the prior Obama administration's strategic patience doctrine was predictable.
Beijing's sponsorship of the rogue nuclear regime in North Korea could increasingly become bad business, given global anxieties over the many possible trajectories of North Korea nuclear missiles.
What are some likely scenarios for 2018?
1) The status quo. China may loudly proclaim that it is following U.N. commercial sanctions while it secretly offers just enough sanction-busting aid to keep Kim Jong Un afloat. It might use its leverage to force Kim to cool his nuclear rhetoric -- even as it stealthily supplies embargoed fuel and food.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
At some point, I think China is going to talk to some of the generals and arrange a coup to occur. It’ll be made to look like some car-accident or heart-attack. Then some committee will meet and shrink the whole thing down to a manageable state. This drama-by-week isn’t really resolving much of anything.
It is a race against time for Kim and China. They will both wait until after the 2018 elections to see if the Democrats take back the House and Senate.
Lessee...
...do I want my people to STARVE; or glow in the dark??
I think they alREADY know this.
Much better than the American people; fed by leftist pap; do!
North Korea shouldn't have survived 1951.
Very interesting article.
North Korea: A gulag disguised as a nation...
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