I think a major aspect of this is that China is a powerful dictatorship, and most of the nations in the Middle East seem to have a cultural hard-on for that sort of thing. Dunno why, but most of the world seems to deeply respect and admire raw, naked power used stupidly and brutally. Even the most heart-felt victim-sympathizers in the West seem to have a secret love of tyrants.
I’ll need introduce you to my in-laws then, and my wife’s friends, including the Taiwanese ones. I will grant you that there are many people in Taiwan who have “wandered off the reservation” regarding independence especially the people who were there before the Goumindang influx in 1949, specifically the Fujianese speakers. But almost all will say that they are in favor of reunification “under the right circumstances” by which they mean they should have the relatively free Taiwanese-style government. Any concept of independence for Taiwan is regarded by all, including the Taiwanese as a temporary state.
I have heard Chinese from Indonesia and Singapore who are very jingoistic about Korea and North Vietnam. Interestingly both use the term “ungrateful” to describe the Koreans and Vietnamese seeking independence from Japan and France instead of “reunification” with the motherland.
Remember we are talking about people who take a very long view of history.
If only China would take it upon itself to annex North Korea. 
you can stop right there, actually. It’s more beneficial to protest a democracy than a dictatorship because the democracy is more likely to listen to you.
I know you said this tongue in cheek, but not a chance this would happen. I’m not even sure it would be a desirable outcome. Hopefully when NK goes finally folds it will do so in at least a quasi-peaceful way (instead of kicking and screaming, which is what I expect) and they can be re-absorbed into South Korea to form the unified Korea that was originally envisioned, a la West/East Germany back into a unified Germany. It will set the SK’s back a few years to have to integrate that dog into their own economic system, but I think that would be the optimal outcome for everyone…especially the Korean people.
Not that I expect to see this in my life time. Then again, I didn’t expect the Soviets to up and fold their hand when and how they did either, so you never know…
-XT
Well it would be nice. The stage seems to be set. When an ideological state loses its ideological stance and stands on nothing more than brute force intimidation its days are numbered. I do not think that North Korea in its current incarnation can withstand the loss of Kim Jong Il, just as Iran is having trouble in the absence of Khomeini and Cuba is peacefully and quietly doing away with some of Fidel’s narcissism via Raul Castro. The Soviet Union collapsed precisely because no one was a true believer anymore, it became a thug state and had little ability to maintain itself as such. Of course we owe a great debt to the Afghan Mujahideen for that.
I just don’t see China as being the one to annex North Korea…I think that both internally and internationally (as well as from the perspective of Korean’s in general) there would not be a lot of traction for such a thing. I agree that it seems unlikely that they will survive the death of 'lil Kimmy (may that day happen soon), but am unsure of how quickly they will start to fall apart once he snuffles off this mortal coil.
-XT
Right, I am in pretty much 100% agreement with you. But a girl can dream can’t she? *
*No for the hundred thousandth time I am not actually a girl, I just think that phrase works better with the word girl.
This is the first time I’ve heard that even the pro-independence Taiwanese consider an independent Taiwan to be only a temporary state. But since I don’t have any in-depth knowledge of Taiwanese politics, I’ll just leave it at all.
I grew up in Hong Kong myself, but both of my parents, along with many relatives, are Chinese Indonesians, and I’ve never heard of this kind of jingoistic view towards Korea and Vietnam. Perhaps there are some who feel that way, but I don’t think that is how the majority feels. In Indonesia certainly, the younger generation has been highly assimilated, and most them can’t even speak Chinese anymore. I don’t see many of them would get worked up over Korea and Vietnam.
There are also terrorist incidents in China that you don’t hear much about because the state media doesn’t report them (bus bombings, etc.)
Normally I’d agree with you. A Stalinist state needs its Stalin. But North Korea may be an exception. I predicted that the regime was going to collapse after Kim Il-Sung’s death back in 1994 and that Kim Jong-il wasn’t going to be able to take over. Obviously I was wrong. So the North Korea appears to have developed a government where you have a cult of personality with a system of switching Beloved Leaders as needed - “Meet the new Kim. Same as the old Kim”.
The number of available Kimmy’s is, fortunately, highly limited. I’m unsure if there is a real successor in the wings this time around. Even if there is, I don’t know how much more gas is in their tank at this point. Of course, this debate really isn’t about NK, so apologies to the OP.
-XT
No, I just think your timeline was off. A state can survive the loss of its ideological figurehead, but it doesn’t just suddenly vanish. If North Korea in its current incarnation topples within the next 25 years it will have been an incredibly rapid decline. You have unrealistic expectations if you expect change that change to occur within 30 years of the loss of their leader. In Cuba it is happening rapidly because Raul Castro is shepherding the change. It’s obvious that North Korea is imploding, a huge proportion of its population lives in a state of perpetual famine while Kimmy focuses on rattling his butter knife. The Soviet Empire didn’t collapse until long after Stalin disappeared. Kruschev did ok, but it started to come down with Brezhnev and beyond, like Cuba we were blessed with a Gorbachev who shepherded the changeover.
But if we are going to discuss the collapse of ideological revolutionary states, maybe we should start another thread. It’s an interesting topic. To my limited understanding of history the United States is pretty anomalous in its longevity as a revolutionary state.
I started this thread to cut off the hijack
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11339353#post11339353
You have to remember the Muslim groups are organized. Too often people think radical elements like Al-Qaeda, Hamas or gangs you’d find in Chicago or NYC or even the pirates off Somalia are just crazy fringe people who don’t think.
It helps us as humans to think of others like that. But it’s not true, the Nazis, the Communists, the KKK are well organized groups of people with definate goals. If they were half crazed people with no organization they wouldn’t last.
Yet we think of groups like this as mentally unbalanced because it helps us because we refuse to believe that otherwise normal people can be really awful.
That said, being well organized, these organizations, know how to pick their battles.
It’s no small wonder that Hamas goes to war with Israel, but ONLY on its terms. Israel fights a war on Hamas terms.
If a authorative regime like China was challanged by Hamas, that regime would simply wipe the floor up with them, whether innocent people were harmed, they wouldn’t care.
Israel is subject to the media and scrutinay, China isn’t, or rather they don’t care.
If Hamas hides weapons in Mosques and Israel bombs or goes into the Mosques the world cries out and Isreal is like “Oh, oh, we didn’t mean to…And spends the next week trying to salvage a media victory.” If Hamas did this to China, the Chinese government would say bomb the Mosque and if Hamas took that violated mosque to the world stage, China would say “SO?”
They don’t bother with China 'cause there’s no advantage to it. Terrorists and Gangs and other fringe elements are out to prove an agenda. They aren’t just half crazed people going off in any direction.
They know what they are doing and where to fight their battles, to give them not only a military victory but a poltical victory too.
A few years? The economic fallout from German reunification is still ongoing, and the Korean divide is significantly worse than the German case ever was.
Hamas is one of the most powerful factions in their “nation”. I’m not sure what point you are trying to make exactly.
Maybe because it was the Muslim mobs who started going around murdering people.
‘A few years’ is my non-specific way of saying the equivalent of ‘forty days and forty nights’…a.k.a. ‘some long but unspecified amount of time’.
-XT
North Vietnam? Can I presume you’re speaking geographically about the ethnic Chinese living there? 'Cause North Vietnam is now just plain 'ol Vietnam.
Why would China want Vietnam? A 50 year war for independence against the West would strike me as a region that is, for the best part, left alone now, and in the future. Even a 100 years from now, when I presume the PRC will be a superpower.