Well, short of complaining, they have little chance of honest employment through 2024.
This is the time for all God-fearing people to increase their prayers to the Almighty to bless our President and to instill in KJU a sincere plan to conform to the agreement.
So many, probably most editorials, opinion pieces and TV talking heads just regurgitate the same thing. They state the obvious and bring nothing new to any discussion. This article is a prime example.
“For a dictatorship, freedom of thought, trade, and travel is a dangerous path. People will have more ownership of their own future. Most of all, as their expectations rise, North Koreans could lose their fear and follow South Korea in its popular protests to remove leaders.”
My guess is that the Chinese have explained to Kim how he can take advantage of capitalistic economic opportunities, give his people some small measure of increased prosperity, and still maintain an iron grip on power.
They also probably explained that as long as you look like you are open to “reform”, and let Western corporations make deals with you that are very profitable, the West seems to completely overlook any human rights abuses you are committing.
They’re closest to what was accomplished than most.
Though the “Look out Kim!” idea is way off. Kim helped himself with NKs.
True but they can’t do it forever. Their adoration for Kim may be contrived but they will see him as a hero who tamed the great aggressor nation of America. America came to the table out of fear of the North Korean People’s Army and its great leader Kim Jong Un.
It looks like Kim is going with the China model: economic liberalization,foreign investment,limited capitalism under state supervision while still maintaining governing control with the one people, one party, one leader, one nation form of government. The North Koreans will eat better but still will live in a police state sustained with Western investment.
“North Koreans could lose their fear and follow South Korea in its popular protests to remove leaders.”
More likely the regime will retain their absolute control, and the standard of living/National wealth will just increase a lot - like China and Vietnam.
Do the Norks even know that Rocketman and Trump had a summit?
Or has news of that been prevented from being circulated?
What would be best for the North Korean people and Chairman Kim is the following:
1. Open up NK to the inspectors to ensure they are in compliance on de-nuclearization.
2. With the nuke threat gone then our whole concern with Korea is all about the Korean people in both North and South. That’s where we tell Kim to open up his borders to let his people visit South Korea and as they do that then he can have his own weapons inspectors start looking at US military facilities towards us reducing our forces there over the next decade and us reducing the sanctions on NK leaders. A carefully well phased approach on this will get us the desired outcome for all the Korean people. It’ll be like what happened to the Berlin Wall in the early 1990’s.
What makes the situation for NK so different from Iran or Libya is the existence of a more mature political system in South Korea. They share the common language/history with the people of NK. The more we can do to promote cross-border dialogue/interactions between those people the better for them and the world. As long as there is sunlight and freedom to travel then the era of massive atrocities will be over soon.
If Chairman Kim is good on his word/deals then we should treat him just the same as the USA did to Emporer Hirohito of Japan after WW2. This will help ensure a smooth transition to peace and normalized relations.
All of them.
How many people in North Korea even KNOW that Un went to talk with Trump ?