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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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On the other hand wrote:
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How? If Korea stopped all shipments to the north, do you think China would be happy to pick up 100% of the slack? I really doubt that. What you would see is China coming down hard on North Korea to shape up.
Shape up in what way, exactly? I doubt that China really cares about political liberalization in NK. So I don't think you'd see them saying "more freedom or no goodies for you". And even if they were to try something like that, the North would just turn around and say "if we can't feed our people, the regime will collapse and you'll have a civil war on your border". Then China would just pony up the extra dough to keep KJI afloat.
The only thing I could see China doing is prodding the North into some sort of long term economic reforms, so as to make them a little more self-reliant at some unspecified point in the future. But the Chinese have gotta know that NK is so effed up that that's not gonna happen overnight. And anyway economic reforms would most likely involve the participation of South Korean buslnesses, which in your scenario would(I assume) have already pulled out of the North.
You think so? Heres what I think would happen. if KJI ever threatened China, he would be removed quicker than he can kidnap a Japanese citizen. |
I didn't mean he would threaten them in the sense of "give us money or we'll blow you all to hell". I meant he would threaten them in an "apres moi, le deluge" sort of a way, ie. point out that if his regime collapses, the result will be chaos and violence on a massive scale. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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North Korea has been abducting South koreans steadily for the past 50 years! Fishermen taken from boats and islands..and so on. Its been going on for a long time, in a steady trickle, while the south Korean Govt has played it down and done nothing.
"South Korean statistics claim that 486 Koreans have been abducted by North Korea since the end of the Korean War. Most of them were captured while fishing near the DMZ, but some were abducted by North Korean agents in South Korea."
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Since most(if not all) of these abductions must have occured in the pre-Sunshine days, it doesn't really back up the idea that the "hard line" is the best way to get NK to change its behavior. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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And there's gotta be elements of the South Korean government that feels their john thomases gain a full inch every time a brother Northerner acts like a petulant school child before the mighty USA.
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And the prime suspect lives in the Blue House. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 1:45 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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North Korea has been abducting South koreans steadily for the past 50 years! Fishermen taken from boats and islands..and so on. Its been going on for a long time, in a steady trickle, while the south Korean Govt has played it down and done nothing.
"South Korean statistics claim that 486 Koreans have been abducted by North Korea since the end of the Korean War. Most of them were captured while fishing near the DMZ, but some were abducted by North Korean agents in South Korea."
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Since most(if not all) of these abductions must have occurred in the pre-Sunshine days, it doesn't really back up the idea that the "hard line" is the best way to get NK to change its behavior. |
Well there was that rather high profile case of a minister in China that was kidnapped for helping North Korean refugees. That was during sunshine policy times. I'm not sure whatever happened to him. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 3:31 am Post subject: |
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| They kidnapped a Chinese minister? |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 5:06 am Post subject: |
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They kidnapped a Chinese minister?
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I believe he was a South Korean religious minister, active in helping North Korean refugees.
MMT:
Point taken, though it still remains the case that these things also happened back during the "get tough" days, which was the basic point of my original argument.
And I'd like to know more about this minister's activities. Did they somehow involve him abetting activities that are illegal in North Korea? Not that that justifies kidnapping him from outside of NK, but it does make his abduction slightly less of a tragedy than that of(let's say) some fisherman whose only "crime" was sailing too close to the North Korean border. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 5:54 am Post subject: |
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On the other hand wrote:
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| Since most(if not all) of these abductions must have occured in the pre-Sunshine days, it doesn't really back up the idea that the "hard line" is the best way to get NK to change its behavior. |
It seems that most abductions were in the 60's, 70's & 80's.
90% of the confirmed cases or 435 out of 486 abductees - are fishermen who were taken to the North with their vessels
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/GB26Dg01.html
Between 1955-1987, South Korea had its own version of a Bermuda Triangle near the 38th parallel, a place where ships and planes would mysteriously disappear. In this version, the vessels and their crews would reappear in North Korea after a few days, victims of abductions the North Korean government has become notorious for.
As many as 3,790 South Koreans, most of them male, have been abducted by North Korea since the Korean War, according to data provided by an association of abductee families. The association claims 487 are still being held against their will. A lucky few have been repatriated, a few have escaped to North Korea and many others have since died in captivity.
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/north_korea/2005/10/lost_in_purgatory_the_story_of.html
Kim Jong Il's regime has steadily denied abducting even one citizen from the South and using them to train spies. In recent years, those denials have been so absolute that Seoul has stopped even raising the question with Kim Jong Il, fearing it might upset the progress of the Sunshine Policy.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0923/p06s02-woap.html
The website of the S.Korean abductees association appears to be unavailable>.. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 6:05 am Post subject: |
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Rapier:
Interesting stuff. Thanks. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
I think you are short-changing the Chinese on patience and 'generosity'. They, along with the Soviets, subsidized the North all during the Cold War. And that was when the Chinese were broke. Now they ain't.
I do agree that the Dear Leader will not threaten China. It is not in his interest to do that.
Nor is it in China's interest to a) have collapse and chaos on their border; b) subsidize the Norks any more than they have to to prevent 'a'; c) slap the North in to line as long as the US supports Taiwan; or d) encourage or discourage reunification as long as the South is allied to the US.
The South is no longer willing to have a confrontationist policy. Not only didn't it work before, the South is too comfortable to risk war to change things. The only alternative is some form of Sunshine Policy. |
Risk war? I disagree. North Korea is too weak for war. They are pathetic. The only one more pathetic than NK is Roh Mooooooo Hyun. Do you remember when "all and any sanctions" imposed on NK were going to be taken as declaration of war? The US slapped a bunch of sanctions on a bank in Macau that was helping NK launder money. Sanctions that didnt turn out to be war. What NK is doing is pushing things as far as they can. Too bad this spineless president is just taking it. I think its time for serious sanctions, and its time SK got in on it. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:47 am Post subject: |
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| Risk war? I disagree. North Korea is too weak for war. They are pathetic. |
I didn't mean that the Norks would start it. I mean that the South doesn't want to risk the US starting anything...Seoul is within range of the North's artillery. A quarter of the country's population lives in the Seoul area. Half of Seoul could be flattened and a couple million dead in just the first few hours of a Northern response to a US 'surgical strike'.
If you were KJI sitting up in Pyongyang and became convinced the US was serious about a regime change, wouldn't you think, "Hey, guys. If I'm going down, I'm taking as many down with me as I can. What do I have to lose? Remember all those threats about turning Seoul into a sea of fire? That wasn't just hyperbole. So shall it be written; so shall it be done." |
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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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On the other hand wrote:
But detaining the tourists only keeps the story in the news for a few more days, whereas if they just had just let the wording pass the whole thing would have gone largely unnoticed.
But I think that's what drives them- any publicity is good publicity.
The last thing they want is for anyone in the world to forget about them and look at other problems.
Not only internationally with their "crazy nuke man" strategy, but regionally too.
The whole abduction 'issue' is a hot button with Japan.
They don't care about the ROK or what the ROK thinks because they know the ROK their little beyotch- the ROK doesn't call the shots, the US, Japan, and China do.
Be nice to the ROK to get what they want? Why bother, when acting crazy and figuratively slapping the ROK around gets them what they want 9 times out of 10?
Does anyone in the DPRK regime really give a crap about reunited families or how the DPRK might be viewed in newspapers? (rhetorical question)
Anyway, that's my take on it. I could be wrong.
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No, I think you're basically correct that South Korea is a bit player in the North Korean saga, and that the starring roles are being played by China and the USA(I'm not sure how important Japan really is). But still, I don't think that KJI would consider it in his interests to have the GNP ascend to power in the south. And yet his every move these days seems calculated to discredit Uri.
One theory I've been tossing around is that bullying South Korea serves to bolster KJI's own position in the NK power structure. I'm specualting that right now his supposed ability to call the shots with at least one other country in the neighbourhood is part of the appeal he holds with his fellow elites. If he started backing down from fights with the South, there might be grumblings from would-be palace conspirators that he's losing his iron touch. |
Yes, and North Korea chooses to bully South Korea because it knows it won't do a thing about it. Kind of like the South Korean government putting its soldiers on Dokdo. They know the Japanese constitution prevents them from raising a finger (but don't tell that to all the young Koreans who seem to think Japan will invade Dokdo). |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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They kidnapped a Chinese minister?
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I believe he was a South Korean religious minister, active in helping North Korean refugees.
MMT:
Point taken, though it still remains the case that these things also happened back during the "get tough" days, which was the basic point of my original argument.
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But consider, during the '80s North Korea always had the backing of the Soviet Union and during the '90s it had the backing of a hard line communist China. Get tough or sunshine would not have changed anything. Without their power backers, the North can't act with impunity anymore.
In fact, I'd argue now that they don't have a soviet nuclear umbrella to hide under or a China that would send 800,000 screaming Chinese over the Yalu river, get tough would work. Didn't it work with Reagan and the Soviets? The Soviets were on the verge of economic collapse, Reagan upped the ante in the cold war, the Soviets realized the cold war had bankrupted them, and changed.
So you've got the North Koreans starving, bankrupt, and depending on food aid. What do you do in your classroom with the screaming petulant child? Do you give him more candy to shut him up? Or do you send him out of the classroom, isolate him? |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
Several Japanese were kidnapped as well. And almost certainly some Thai nationals, if information from Charles Jenkins is correct. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| On the other hand wrote: |
| Quote: |
They kidnapped a Chinese minister?
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I believe he was a South Korean religious minister, active in helping North Korean refugees.
MMT:
Point taken, though it still remains the case that these things also happened back during the "get tough" days, which was the basic point of my original argument.
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But consider, during the '80s North Korea always had the backing of the Soviet Union and during the '90s it had the backing of a hard line communist China. Get tough or sunshine would not have changed anything. Without their power backers, the North can't act with impunity anymore.
In fact, I'd argue now that they don't have a soviet nuclear umbrella to hide under or a China that would send 800,000 screaming Chinese over the Yalu river, get tough would work. Didn't it work with Reagan and the Soviets? The Soviets were on the verge of economic collapse, Reagan upped the ante in the cold war, the Soviets realized the cold war had bankrupted them, and changed.
So you've got the North Koreans starving, bankrupt, and depending on food aid. What do you do in your classroom with the screaming petulant child? Do you give him more candy to shut him up? Or do you send him out of the classroom, isolate him? |
Isolate and if need be, destroy. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
Isolate and if need be, destroy. |
For someone who takes such peaceful photos, I would have never guessed deep down there's a war monger!  |
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