Simple Question of International Import

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

What are the odds that this gets a LOT worse by the traditional spring time offensive season when a young general's fancy turns to invasion?

Brief timeline:

North Korea is accused of torpedoing a South Korean warship.

South Korea fires at North Korean fishing boats crossing the maritime border North Korea refuses to recognize.

North Korea is revealed to have highly modern facilities for nuclear material enrichment.

Not to mention, North Korea is facing the challenge of passing along the regime to a third generation of the Kim family.

North Korea is known for rattling its sabre and demanding to have attention paid to it when it is being ignored, but this is looking like a very different than recent years -- South Korea really has to retaliate...and half of South Korea's population lives in the Seoul metropolitan area within artillery range of the DMZ.

So a question -- is North Korea suicidal or are they betting that this behavior can get them some more winter grain shipments?

Comments

[existentme.livejournal.com]

The latter, I would think is a much better bet!

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

DPRK is not suicidal in any way. All they want is to unite all Koreans under true democratic JUCHE idea. USA prevents them from integration by settling and protecting a puppet South Korea government of Lee Myung-bak and Co. This is undoutebly a South Korea provacation (see Reuters: "South Korea has been conducting military exercises this week but it was not clear whether there had been any drills near the island that could have triggered the incident.").

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait -- you're Russian.

Never mind the confusion. Cue the sarcastic macros.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Interesting perspective.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Please no.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the Juche idea but the way they're hoping to impose introduce it to all Koreans doesn't seem very democratic to me, how do you think? Sure, DPRK has "Democratic" in its name, but so does DR Congo, so...

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I lol-d hard.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Actually no.

North Koreans acknowledged that juche might not be appropriate for other countries, but they claim it provides a moral and philosophical basis that is highly appropriate for Korean society, given the history and culture of that country. North Korea does not seek to impose juche on any other country, but they also wish to be left alone to implement it in the DPRK without outside or foreign influence. The fact that they lack outside influence makes the concept of juche extremely incompatible with globalisation, seeing as its main driving force would be foreign trade. (http://socyberty.com/issues/north-korea-and-anti-globalization/)

I think you fail.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

I think I'm not. You cite is correct, except that North Koreans (AFAIK) belive there is only one Korea, with South part of it being occupied.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

It is of their Korean business, isn't it?
What if the people of South Korea will conclude that they want to drive Juche way one day? Democracy is just a buzzword with no real contents behind it for me.

[pattyoplenty.livejournal.com]

While I agree that the North wants Korea to all be one (which it probably should) the North wants it on their terms and have Kim Jong Il(and successors) be the leader of Korea as a whole. That's never gonna fly with the South for obvious reasons. If the Kim family were taken out of power, then it could become a reality...but I don't see them giving up the dictatorship there when the Kim family is living quite well, and everyone else is living in extreme poverty with no way to better themeselves.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

North Korea won't do anything because that would be going against China's interests and they know that China, unlike the US, has no scruples about killing every single one of them. No one will be wringing their hands about civilian casualties and international opinion in Beijing.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

It's too late... :)

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

I agree with you except that the USA, Russia, China, Japan has a lot of different geopolitical interests in this region. Kim Jong Il drives the country in truly independent way, while South Korea being exclusively American satellite and has no independence de-facto. That does matter for me. I never lived in Korea but I like the fact that still there is countries with independent nation-oriented way of life.
Google Special Measures Agreement ROK. South Korea in fact is occupied by foreign armed forces.

[ninboydean.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those Chinese are just subhuman. Only the specifically Western expression of political violence and genocide actually has within it a core of respect for human dignity.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My guess is a mixture of both.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

North Korea being the victim? Bullshit, they maintain a gigantic army and 1950s-style police state despite that destroying the state and sat passively by while their own people starved. Yeah, they don't *need* South Korea to provoke them any more than a hungry hyena needs a gazelle to provoke it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Then that will be their decision and they'll be having another rendition of North Korea massacring everyone who looks at them cross-eyed. It's not the old days of Kim Il Sung in the North and Syngman Rhee in the South, by now South Korea is actually a democracy where North Korea is a dictatorship akin to the Soviet Union under Joe Stalin the 21st Century. South Korea will do that the day Hell freezes over.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

"It is of their Korean business, isn't it?"

Indeed, it is. So why are you saying:

"All they want is to unite all Koreans under true democratic JUCHE idea."

Shouldn't this go both ways? I mean what if South Koreans don't want to be like North Korea, without having to be told by anyone else to think this way? Have you talked to any actual South Koreans on this issue, or you're just drawing conclusions from between your fingers?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's not what he said. He said China's a dictatorship and like in the USSR when it invaded Afghanistan prior to Glasnost they really have no means to tell what's true or untrue about their invasion.

[ninboydean.livejournal.com]

"China, unlike the US, has no scruples about killing every single one of them."

You chauvinists have a unique penchant for completely disregarding the substance of your arguments.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Who said they were subhuman? If the NorKs plunge the peninsula into war and threaten even nuclear war, then China will squash them like a bug. That seems to me to be supremely human. What has been subhuman is allowing North Korea to totter along in its increasingly sclerotic lunacy as a full on totalitarian nightmare. That inhumanity can be shared out among the major powers to various degrees.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

The usual suspects.