Posted on 02/10/2020 1:08:04 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
SEOUL - North Korea’s not saying a word about deaths or illnesses from the coronavirus, but the disease reportedly has spread across the border from China and is taking a toll in a country with a dismal health care system and scant resources for fighting off the deadly bug.
One sure sign of the regime’s fears is that it failed to stage a parade in central Pyongyang on Saturday, the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the country’s armed forces. Last year, Kim Jong Un himself presided over the procession that displayed the North’s latest missiles and other fearsome hardware along with goose-stepping soldiers in serried ranks.
This year, nothing about the nation’s nuclear warheads, much less the “new strategic weapon” that Kim has vowed to unveil. Rodong Sinmum, the newspaper of the ruling Workers’ Party, merely cited the armed forces’ supposed success combating “severe and dangerous difficulties”—and said nothing at all about the parade.
But reports have filtered out about Kim’s subjects falling prey to coronavirus despite the country’s decision to seal its 880-mile border with China, most of it along the Yalu River into the Yellow Sea to the west, and its 11-mile border with Russia where the Tumen River flows into the Pacific.
Among the first to report fatalities in North Korea, the Seoul-based website Daily NK said five people had died in the critical northwestern city of Sinuiju, on the Yalu River across road and rail bridges from Dandong, which is the largest Chinese city in the region and a key point for commerce with North Korea despite sanctions.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
NORK will NEVER move to our side over the Chinese.....At best, we could hope for the ability to lightly influence NORK and get the Chinese to support our position....
Total Regime collapse is a far better option.....especially if we had nothing to do with it and it was the Chinese....
A total regime collapse means millions of refugees pouring over the South Korean and Chinese borders, which neither wants.
More pressure on China....not so much SK.....NORK will stop most fleeing to SK....
Overall, will give us a better negotiating position with China.....
Puts us in a White Knight position with China.......
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