I've heard of the S. Korean nuke programme - the benefit of the North's nukes would not be techoological, but political as the North has more or less declared that it is a nuclear weapons state. Once the closet is opened it is much harder to close (the only sucess being South Africa & Ukraine (the 'stans don't really count as they never had the expertize))- by not taking action, a united Korea gets recognized in the nuke club an can claim it as self-protection. It's clear that having nukes pays dividents, I don't see a united Korea giving up such major political factor. What's your take one my point about future stregic threats (real or percieved), i.e. China much more of a threat than Japan?
VRN
China had not annoyed Koreans with the comments of their forays into the Korean War or other previous encroachments while Japanese political establishment has always made a point to show their view that the Japanese occupation of Korea was OK. So China has a slight advantage now. But that could disappear if Chinese would become overbearing. If a Korean is left with 10 Chinese, Chinese usually get bold and say things like, "Korea should have been part of China a long time ago. Why are you still holding out ?" Their overexpansive nationalism is something to worry about.
I do not think that China would keep growing as she is now. Both Chinese and Japanese economies will collapse at some point in the near future. Japan will turn more aggressive. China could turn aggressive but she could be also split up in the ensuing chaos. If these happens, Korean economy would suffer, too.
Who will be the more threatening to Korea will be difficult to tell. If neither is particularly stronger, Korea may stay neutral.
China had not annoyed Koreans with the comments of their forays into the Korean War or other previous encroachments while Japanese political establishment has always made a point to show their view that the Japanese occupation of Korea was OK. So China has a slight advantage now. But that could disappear if Chinese would become overbearing. If a Korean is left with 10 Chinese, Chinese usually get bold and say things like, "Korea should have been part of China a long time ago. Why are you still holding out ?" Their overexpansive nationalism is something to worry about.
I do not think that China would keep growing as she is now. Both Chinese and Japanese economies will collapse at some point in the near future. Japan will turn more aggressive. China could turn aggressive but she could be also split up in the ensuing chaos. If these happens, Korean economy would suffer, too.
Who will be the more threatening to Korea will be difficult to tell. If neither is particularly stronger, Korea may stay neutral.
Sorry for the double post of the previous reply. The network was slow.:)
Well, the slow progress on the construction of nuke powerplant is also partly due to problems at the N. Korean work site. For example, S. Koreans had to feed N. Korean workers from their pockets because they were poorly fed and could not work effectively. The delay could have been addressed properly if everything else was alright politically. But they continued to break promises and deadlines on many matters. They were also busy developing nukes in a place like Paskistan just as Germans did in the Soviet Union after WWI. I heard it was in the Soviet Union where Germans perfected the Blitzkrieg tactics. They also have a few suspected sites which they never allowed outsiders to inspect. I doubt that they all did this to press Americans/S. Koreans on the delay in building the nuke powerplant constructions.