If Kim-Jong-Un Dies Without a Son Who Will lead North Korea

[binary solo]

phaedruss said:

Kongfucius said:

 

The Chinese back them to hedge American influence in East Asia - they're not massively supportive but so long as they're there,  their threats discourage a stronger military presence or other measures which the Chinese may not be very keen on - basically they ratchet up the tension and stop the west or Japan from getting hasty just in case they do have viable nukes or other WMDs

I don't normally support interventionism and that kind of policy, but in the case of North Korea I can make an exception lol. I really don't get what China has to gain from antagonizing the west and Japan at this point, especially over some two-bit military dictatorship that has nothing to offer them.

Speaking to a US academic while I was in Viet Nam last week, economic analysts reckon that a unified Korea would, within a relatively short space of time, become the biggest economy in Asia. And clearly a unified Korea would be one that brings North Korea into the South Korean fold, much like East Germany came into the West German fold. Clearly China has a great interest in seeing that not happen. Just as China is set to become the new world power, stepping over the USA in the not too distant future, they do not want to see a western aligned neighbour rapidly rise to rival them in power and influence. Apparently North Korea is pretty resource rich, it just lacks the investment and technological capability to extract them. In that respect China might be keeping North Koreas recources aside for a rainy day. Much better to roll in to North Korea with economic aid and infratructure investment to exclusively get to those resources and consolodate power as and when China needs it, than to release those resources on the global market to benefit others and especially South korea and the West.

It makes a great deal of sense to keep a neighbour with untapped potential down and isolated from the world so that your own strategic position can be maintained and, when the time is right, increased through the exploitation of that neighbour's untapped potential.