Posted on 10/02/2018 7:05:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Why is it that they have to be one country?
It would be like trying to combine Canada and the US, even though we do share a common language. But North Korea’s culture is completely different. Better for them to be independent with close economic cooperation with the South.
I’ve read that $5-10 trillion estimate, too. It comes from a wildly optimistic South Korean mining company that wants to compete with the national mining company there. The draw is that ROK has to import so much of what they could get cheap from the Norks, particularly iron ore, steel-quality coal, and rare earths. However, all the reserves have been graded by the Norks only, with the exception of ores found during the Japanese occupation. Only with such a high estimate could the Norks convince the ROK, Russians and Chinese to pay for virtually total infrastructure development.
Reunification/regime change costs on the Peninsula will make the Reunification of the Germanies look like pocket change.
Environmental disasters, famine, disease, crime and infrastructure collapse (among other crises) will likely be of biblical proportion. The average ROK citizen in 2018 supports reunification in a fuzzy noncommittal way, but will likely balk at the costs, especially when it affects quality of life in the south.
Who then, subsidizes the reunion? America? The UN?
Who occupies the ruins of Norkland to provide security, establish stability and administer the aid efforts? We have contingency plans for the inevitable fall of NK, and in all of them the worst case scenarios have the Chinese taking advantage of a real or perceived gap to swarm south to the DMZ.
It won’t be boring that’s for sure...
The ROK (”South Korean”) Army of 1950 and the one of today do not resemble each other in any meaningful way. If North Korea needs to be occupied for a time to stabilize it the ROKA is perfectly capable of doing so. There is not a finer army in Asia and only a few world-wide. That’s the least of our worries.
Yep - lots of business opportunities would open up and help fund the process and make some folks lots of money...
The commies of China and Vietnam are not the commies of yesteryear where they were closed societies with long bread lines and the populace was being murdered by their own governments. The closest thing we have to that today is Venezuela, Cuba AND NORTH KOREA. China and Vietnam are very prosperous and open as compared to the 70’s. They’ve learned how to better brand communism and make it more attractive.
North Korea will not “rebrand” itself overnight to accommodate a reunification that benefits all. Communism is to benefit itself. The South Koreans will be so screwed if they allow it to happen.
Everyone is thinking about it the wrong way. Job one is the elimination of Communism in the North. After that the humans who understand free markets will build whatever is needed in NK and it won’t be a cost to the government, it will be an income generator to the government.
I didn’t mean the government, I meant the mining companies. I’ll bet they’d bite on that in a New York minute. There’d be shiploads of rice, cabbage, wheat and hog carcasses on the way to North Korea before the ink was dry.
OTOH I was listening to a video interviewing North Korean defectors and the woman said there was gold laying around in her back yard.
That’s what my aunt mentioned but she will not get into much details and understandable so he wont get into trouble. Man, I pray for him everyday..
negotiation ploy and cover for the SK gov with their citizens
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