Korean Job Discussion Forums

[decolyon]

China is warming to the idea of having a unified Korea. They see that having a buffer state is less important that having a country of nearly a hundred million that guy buy cheap Chinese goods by the truck loads. Also, if Seoul was the capital and government seat, there would be little reason to have 30 thousand U.S. military here. The reason the Chinese wanted a buffer state was because there were so many military. Without the military, no need for a buffer state.

While the Chinese are coming around to it, the South Korean population on the whole isn't wild about the idea. You can't blame them really. They spent the last generation building a pretty nice place for themselves and with a rushed reunification like Germany saw, it could bring the whole show to a stop and there'd likely be an economic "step back" as it were.

Christopher Hill, who was the lead US negotiator here and spent several years in Korea wrote how it might happen. First, a UN government would rush into Pyeongyang and try to salvage any kind of infrastructure they could within the government. A quick regime change and government restructuring like in Iraq is not the goal. China would be asked (or eventually paid) to secure all the nuclear material. They know what and where the NoKo's have it and heck, probably helped them get it in the first place. The Chinese have the ability to round the stuff up and dispose of it properly. It may take the UN paying them outrageously to do it, but lose nukes is just as big of a problem for them as it is everyone else. Once the government is stable and the weapons are locked up, then you'd see a gradual reunification, province by province. The borer would stay up for several years. They would literally take it one province at a time. Assessing the infrastructure and population. Gradually introducing a new currency and representative democratic principals to a town. You might see something like one province every 6 months or so become part of the "South" Korean system. All the old heads of the military would be paid to retire and they'd promote up democratic officers from the North to take command. They don't want any generals going rogue. But they wont be pursing anybody for war crimes like we did the Nazis. It'll be more like the Taliban. Paying them to be our friends until they die off.

There goals would be to go dead slow reunifying. The border provinces will be the last ones in the club. It would probably take 10 or 15 years from the time the nukes are secured to the time the country is whole again. Within a generation after that, Northern cities will look similar, maybe even bigger and newer than Southern ones. And then the game changes totally. A unified Korea would rival Japan for economic and military power in the region. With Japan's expected recovery in the next few decades, East Asia will be the power house economic region in the world. Without major reforms in the West, the next century really will belong to them. With China, New Korea, and Japan all working together, an East Asian Union would effectively balance out the EU and the inevitable North American Union. And there you'd have it folks. A New World Order ruled by the economic blocks of the Northern Hemisphere. It could all happen by the time most of us here are old folks. It would be amazing to see. These really are exciting times to live in.

[Steelrails]

Speaking of a NE Asian economic union. With NATO, NAFTA, and the NE Asian Union, might we see a return of the Soviet Union, minus the Communism?

[Junior]

[jvalmer]

[Steelrails]

[comm]

[Yaya]

One thing strikes me: would China want yet another export competitor (South Korea) who could use cheap labor in a country (North Korea) whose people are starving?

Another thing for thought is that most South Koreans don't want reunification and the big expense it will bring. Just imagine if millions of starving North Koreans start trying to cross the DMZ.

The price tag will be $2 trillion to $5 trillion over 30 years, says Peter Beck, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council in Washington. A South Korean presidential committee puts it between $322 billion to $2.1 trillion, but come on. The costs of German reunification -- about $2 trillion and counting -- suggest even $5 trillion is optimistic.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-01/buyers-pass-up-5-trillion-bargain-of-future-commentary-by-william-pesek.html

[legrande]

[young_clinton]

[comm]

[Yaya]

[Steelrails]

[ThingsComeAround]

The Chinese have no problems with doing the opposite of what the world expects

[Panda]

[legrande]

yaya wrote: