do they still find threatening Korea and Japan so important?

At this point the NK government is there to keep it's own people inside, because their neighbors don't want them.

and tragically anti-humanitarian.

how willing is the US and other western nations willing to help take on such refugees? A lot of them would need significant support (ie., education, medical, mental health) to fully integrate into a host country.

China's big fear is that if the North Korean Regime Collapses there would be South Korean troops backed by the United States on their border.

Macarthur wasn't happy with just pushing North Korea back across the 38th parallel. He wanted to eradicate communism on the Korean peninsula. So he chased the Korean army north and was working on convincing the UN army to cross the Chinese border. The Chinese sent 100's of thousands of troops and pushed everyone back south. That foolish move by Macarthur kept the war going for 2 more years, before settling back down to the 38th parallel (thousands of lives later, and nothing changed). Macarthur wanted to nuke China, which is why Truman fired him.

He said there are two issues:

1. Politically communist party hardliners would be outraged, particularly by effectively facilitating the reunification of Korea. There is still a strong need to at least pretend to be a communist state.

2. There is no real benefit to China to doing so. He said that China and North Korea and South Africa and Zimbabwe are basically in the same situation. They could neutralize the respective regimes quite easily, but then they're stuck with occupying a failed state and a massive humanitarian undertaking. This serves no real strategic objective for China and would really only benefit the South Koreans.

There is no advantage for China to remove Un and allowing Korea to reunite.

1. China has regional influence goals in the area. And we already telegraphed our willingness to blunt it. So they will laugh their asses off at any reassurances we give about not having US Troops in Korea near the border. We won't abide by any such agreement and they know it. So its better to have a buffer state.

2. It would be an immediate refugee crisis. And neither China or South Korea is prepared to handle it, the drag on their economies will be quite painful. Nor would I be surprised if other surrounding nations haven't exactly offered a whole lot of help either.

3. What about the resulting power vacuum? Kim seems to kill anyone that shows any capability of replacing him. So even if NK stays intact, the replacement(s) may plunge things into a quagmire of feuding generals.

4. And if NK dissolves, who is going to face the music for the humanitarian crimes? Anyone thinking they may end up at the Hague isn't going to go quietly.

Wouldn't reunification mean that the current south korean government is in now in charge? They select a north korean to be governor of NK, send some of their own politicians to co-govern/advise, bring food to the people who speak the same language, and even share blood relatives... I'm sure things would be uneasy at first, maybe some hardcore NK military guys want to fight guerilla warfare, which is a big problem, but I don't see a power vacuum

NK maintains itself independent of SK. That being Kim is removed from power by China or within itself. We shouldn't assume that the rest of the ruling party up there want's to reunify. And if Kim does go off the deep end, he could "suffer a heart attack" or some other "illness" that "martyrs" him.

Problem is, how do you replace a "god". It appears Kim's purges may also be aimed at removing anyone who may be considered acceptable to replacing him. The exception being his sister.

I was coming from the point of view there would be reunification as part of this scenario. There have been high level NK diplomats that defected, maybe one of them is capable of governing?

...will go for a defector.

But if we're going to speculate, I suspect it would be Kim Jong Nam, Un's older brother who shuffles around China and other SE Asia nations.

He's already gone on record that NK would probably collapse under his brothers leadership and stated that NK needs to reform. Plus he's part of the family, so that maintains the "god aura". Granted he's stated he does not want to rule (probably knew he wouldn't be able to carry out any reforms under the current entrenched system), but if shit hit the fan in NK, China is not going to let the country completely collapse and would probably intervene and "nudge" Nam to take over with their full backing.

Its also already been established by SK intelligence that Kim Jon Un has tried to have Nam assassinated, but Nam (perhaps tipped off by the Chinese) left town before they could, since then, popped here and there around the world. Current whereabouts, no one knows for sure. There was a report that Un gave him a foreign ministry job last year...but that seems unlikely given what happened to their uncle and Nam's criticism of his brother and government, far cry from falling asleep in a meeting and getting shot for it (and could just be a cover report). But if true, then I would speculate he's DOA or he's got some serious foreign protection and not actually working in NK to where his brother has access to him. And Un was forced to give him the job off-soil by China.

But again, most of this is speculation, the nation is so secretive and given its relationship with China, hard to tell. But you can bet the farm, China has to have some sort of plan in place in case Un has outlived his usefulness.

Trump, Jan. 9: If you look at North Korea – this guy, he’s like a maniac, OK? And you have to give him credit. How many young guys — he was like 26 or 25 when his father died — take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden — you know, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it. How does he do that? Even though it is a culture and it’s a cultural thing, he goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss. It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one. I mean, this guy doesn’t play games. And we can’t play games with him. Because he really does have missiles. And he really does have nukes.

And #dipshitdonnie would love to have the same power here. All hail dipshit!!!

Welcome to DU!

There's one right here.

by Supreme Leader. Watch for cadre of generals to be lined up next in front of a firing squad. For disrespect of course.

If the Chinese were not so preoccupied with dominating the South China Seas, Asia, India and Tibet, there would be some hope.

Kim is just a puppet and symptom of a far greater threat to peace in this region and the world. As always, just my opinion.

Joseph Stalin murdered those surrounding him for years. How many of them, when facing a firing squad, wished they had killed the monster when they had the chance.

what a fked up country.

bad sitting posture ????


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Kim's been launching a purge over the years, getting rid of people suspected of being too close to China. Over the years there've been attempts within the government to try and normalize NK into an actual country instead of a totalitarian kingdom ruled by the Kim dynasty, but they've been ruthlessly suppressed.

down a poster of the dictator. Sometimes I think about him, and I hope he is being strong.... I hope that some negotiations are going on that we don't know about...... it must be horrific to be in jail in North Korea.

they have these "reeducation camps" (aka Torture camps) that are unimaginably brutal.

a Korean bobble head doll, did it?

on the continent of Korea.

She really schooled that Lyft driver.