If China is bothered by the idea of a unified Korea under SK leadership on their border, then they’re not nearly as forward thinking as they think they are.
If they treat the Koreans like ‘cousins’, like they have claimed with North Korea, and don’t abuse them or make stupid territorial claims or shit like that, then long term, there is absolutely zero need for US troops on the peninsula. Korea would gradually, naturally evolve into what it has more or less always been, a small nation in the shadow of it’s larger and more powerful neighbor.
Oh, yeah, that’s another thing. Right now there is a strip of territory in China, on the NK border, with a Korean-majority population. NK never has made any irredentist claims on that territory . . . but a United Korea might well.
Is anyone really as forward thinking as they they think they are?
Getting beyond that last sentence of semi-snark, not being surrounded by hostile powers is still a big issue for loyal citizens of the People’s Republic of China. That’s why a third of the People’s Liberation Army sits right across from Taiwan, almost continuously threatening invasion. That’s why China last month expanded its air defense zone to include what are defacto Japanese islands. Having a pro-American Korea right on their borders is, to their mind, something out of the unequal treaty era. So, yea, it would be a big issue.
Maybe they would be OK with a demilitarized North Korea economically and politically tied to the South. Experience in Hong Kong shows that today’s China can compromise so long as it doesn’t look like they are losers.
I seriously doubt China cares about sharing a border with South Korea. What China does care about is stability. They want the status quo to, well, remain the status quo.
Oh, another thing they certainly would care about is that little dictator (or whoever it is who’s really in charge there) in North Korea launching an all-out attack on South Korea without China’s blessing.
Full war on the Korean peninsula simply is not going to happen.
I don’t see Kim starting an all-out war because his prime objective (as with all communist regimes, much less dynastical communist cults) is to stay in power ― something he would all but sacrifice if he finally waddled the waddle of his bellicose rhetoric.
I think all we’ll (ever?) see are missile launches and sporadic ship sinkings. I don’t know how this regime could be toppled without some internal revolt (near unimaginable) or dire natural catastrophe that forces Li’l Kim to open the nation up (again, hard to conceive). I can’t see what would goad the U.S. and co. into engaging the nation preëmtively. With the waxing of the Chinese’s jostling in the region and Japan’s unease, I think any move could lead to a much wider, perhaps ‘world’ conflict.
IMHO, only some radical shift in the Chinese politburo thinking towards their retarded cousins could foreseeably elicit change in the DPRK. Something that looks more and more unlikely with each Moon landing / aircraft carrier christening / supercomputer innovation.
If North Korea ever sinks another South Korean ship or bombs another South Korean island, killing more South Koreans in the incident, it’ll be all over for North Korea. China won’t support them. Russia, besides not actually giving a tinker’s damn anymore about North Korea, can’t support them. And South Korea’s population would topple their own government if there’s not swift and comprehensive retaliation against such a North Korean attack.
China, as always, is interested in stability. If North Korea were to make such attacks, then China would recognize that no longer having that unstable government in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula is no longer tenable. The new situation–a unified Korea–would be the stability that China would support. As it is now, North Korea’s government isn’t attacking the South and thus is not threatening the stability China loves so much.
I’ve seen a number of posts that support the premise that China wouldn’t care all that much if NK is unified with the south, and that China values stability over all else. But don’t the recent issues with China, Japan and the US relative to the Senakaku Islands fly in the face of that? If China values stability over all else, why are they risking confrontation over these rocks? (I understand the potential mineral/oil/fishing issues.)
I just can’t image that China is going to allow a close ally of the US to share a border with them. I think many posters are underplaying Chinese reaction here.
It’s a good question. My take is the China is in the process of asserting their power over their immediate region atm, and attempting to test the limits that the US is willing to push back…and also attempt to intimidate the other regional powers, and, again, see what the US is willing/able to do in response. They are only going to push so far, though, but they are like a kid testing their parents (I’m sure they don’t see it that way ;)) to see how far they can go and what they can get away with…and to see if they can bully or intimidate the other kids on the block.
WRT Korea, though, I don’t think that China is going to be overly worried about a unified Korea under a South Korean government. They are more worried about the war that would be part of that process, and the fact that during the collapse of North Korea there would be a literal flood of refugees (starving, poor and frightened refugees) from the collapsing North Korea. THAT would be a major issue for them, and an unwelcome one as well. Once the North Korean government is swept away, however, I doubt they would care much, since for one thing it would actually make things a lot better for them on a number of levels. I doubt that the US would continue to permanently station troops there, since there wouldn’t be a DMZ anymore (we would be there through the conquest of the North and subsequent falling out of the situation, of course)…which would, eventually, lessen our influence in South Korea by a small but noticeable amount. In addition, the trade potential is huge for a unified and (eventually) prosperous Korea to China…and that would also have the potential of moving Korea more into China’s sphere of influence in the region. Finally, China wouldn’t have to be propping up a failing North Korean government indefinitely, nor periodically (hell, continuously) dealing with floods of North Korean refugees trying to find food and employment. It’s almost a total win/win for China, once the nasty war aspects are over with and the huge humanitarian crisis is done.
Another possibility could be that the US and/or China could occupy NK and try to annex it. The US has annexed conquered territory before, but hasn’t done so in a few decades as it has preferred to simply invade countries to do “regime changes” where it topples the existing government and then encourages locals to try again with a new government. Maybe after the war is over, SK and China might look at the horrifying devastation and the potential catastrophic effects on their economies associated with unification and simply say “DO NOT WANT”, leaving the US to try to swallow it.
Wait a minute, aren’t class distinctions antithetical to the foundations of Communism? I thought that Marx more or less wanted to eviscerate the idea that certain people were to be favored.
Land grabs are old fashioned. Modern powers prefer economic imperialism. All the benefits of making the money without the mess of taking care of people.
You seriously believe North Korea is a communist nation?
North Korea is not a Communist nation, although they use all of the various buzzwords equally (Democratic Republic when it is neither, Socialist, Communist, etc).
Been kinda sealing the Holy Monarchy bit for years now with talk of the Kim “Baekdu” bloodline.
Funny thing that: every time we see another failed communist country, with all the waste, destruction and misery that entails, someone comes up with the “they aren’t really communists” crap.
So Russia, East Germany, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc, etc are/were not communist. But they all have two things in common: they are all failed states, and the trendy left wingers all say that “they are not communist”.
I wonder what the reaction of the civilian population in DPRK would be to a military invasion by the US/SK. I am thinking in particular of Japanese civilians in WW2 and how many were told that GIs would rape and kill. It’s only because the Japanese Government formally surrendered that a wide-scale self-inflicted massacre of the Japanese people was averted. Would there be many DPRK civilians left alive?
NK are so trendy they make the claim that they aren’t communist themselves*. They currently have Juche to thank for their life of luxury. Which is pretty much ultra-nationalism, but they didn’t come up with that name, so they had to come up with a new one. Can’t have your ultra-nationalist ideology described by foreign words, after all.
*Really, they probably got tired of all the “But if we’re communist, why don’t we…?” questions. I know I would.
I’m not so sure that China and Vietnam count as failed states. Nor do I think that a state needs to be communist to fail- there are a few sub-Saharan African nations that I would count as failed.