31–40 of 52 posts
China tolerates North Korea because NK acknowledges that China's the big boss in the region, and restricts most of its bad behavior to places where China doesn't have to care.
If the US seeks to "pressure" China into reigning in North Korea, it'll backfire, because that threatens the air of authority that China was trying to get in the first place.
Lastly, China doesn't want a unified Korea which is in the US' pocket.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The North Korean threat is all bluster, no action. Nothing is ever going to happen. All that bluster is a very dangerous game and I don't understand why Kim plays it. It would be Mutually Assured Destruction without the Mutually, unless China joined in. My thought is he wants The Bomb so he doesn't go the way of Sadam, Gaddafi, or Noriega if he's considered "no longer useful." I think we're on a very short path to a…
> All that bluster is a very dangerous game and I don't understand why Kim plays it. It is not difficult to understand. They consider the US and South Korea a threat to their existence and, as you pointed out, he doesn't want to finish like Saddam and Gaddafi and NK the new Iraq or Libya.
1. The United States and South Korea are indeed an existential threat to Kim's government.
2. Nuclear weapons will guarantee that North Korea won't see a regime change anytime soon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, China would take an invasion of a bordering ally as an act of war on them. It wouldn't be a risk of war, it would be the US declaring war on China, and much of the world's favor would go to the defender. And yeah, the UN resolution is incredibly unlikely. That's why it would work, if China consented to the move it wouldn't trigger WWIII.
No it wouldn't, because China doesn't really consider NK an ally worth fighting over, especially against USA, because unlike with NK China and USA are very strong trading partners. Of course China strongly prefers a buffer between South Korea and itself, but if some action did happen, likely China would just not participate in the war and then help with the cleanup and new government since they are a border state and…
Strong trading ties doesn't stop war. This is one of the largest lessons of WWI, and why an isolationist leader of the US is terrifying. It's sold as putting America first, but its scarily similar to the mad dash for guaranteed access to necessary resources before WWII.
As a Korean American, this conflict has always been so strange to me. My family members fought in this war, my grandfather ran from his village, in the middle of the night, to join the US-led Korean Army so that he wouldn't be conscripted by NK as they moved south. My mom's father joined as an intelligence officer and later continued on to work in the middle east for the US gov. That left his wife (my grandmother) to…
The North Korean threat is all bluster, no action. Nothing is ever going to happen. All that bluster is a very dangerous game and I don't understand why Kim plays it. It would be Mutually Assured Destruction without the Mutually, unless China joined in. My thought is he wants The Bomb so he doesn't go the way of Sadam, Gaddafi, or Noriega if he's considered "no longer useful." I think we're on a very short path to a…
> It was in 1956 that Beijing realized it had to go easy on Pyongyang, despite Kim’s maddening obstinacy, because the alternative was to surrender the country to the Soviet influence. Well there is no Soviet influence anymore, so how does that have relevance today? > Like Mao in 1956, Xi is tired of North Korea, but he is keen to emphasize that China won’t crack the whip on anyone’s behalf. So they would prefer the U…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US was facing a direct nuclear threat. Risking nuclear war with the USSR was hardly an escalation. Also, there's a large difference between "risking"and "acting." China has much more to lose than gain (economically and militarily) by warring with the US over NK.
Serious wars between evenly-matched participants always result in said participants losing more then they gain. Somehow, though, we never learn from history. If the US invaded North Korea, and China did nothing, it would be the equivalent of China invading Canada and Mexico, and the United States doing nothing but issuing nasty diplomatic protests. Even if it did not threaten its interests directly, the loss of face…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it wouldn't, because China doesn't really consider NK an ally worth fighting over, especially against USA, because unlike with NK China and USA are very strong trading partners. Of course China strongly prefers a buffer between South Korea and itself, but if some action did happen, likely China would just not participate in the war and then help with the cleanup and new government since they are a border state and…
Losing the buffer state would be seen as a direct threat on their land and people, and the UN would be powerless in a conflict between two security council members. Strong trading ties doesn't stop war. This is one of the largest lessons of WWI, and why an isolationist leader of the US is terrifying. It's sold as putting America first, but its scarily similar to the mad dash for guaranteed access to necessary resourc…
Also, understand that the US has the backing (and mutual defect agreements) of South Korea, Japan, and NATO, and India would possibly join in a conflict against China as well. China wouldn't want a US backed state on its doorstep, but it would not want war against the US significantly more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US was facing a direct nuclear threat. Risking nuclear war with the USSR was hardly an escalation. Also, there's a large difference between "risking"and "acting." China has much more to lose than gain (economically and militarily) by warring with the US over NK.
Serious wars between evenly-matched participants always result in said participants losing more then they gain. Somehow, though, we never learn from history. If the US invaded North Korea, and China did nothing, it would be the equivalent of China invading Canada and Mexico, and the United States doing nothing but issuing nasty diplomatic protests. Even if it did not threaten its interests directly, the loss of face…
While China ostensibly supports NK because it's preferable to the US, the relationship isn't nearly as close as US with other NAFTA nations. This is supported by the original article. It isn't as much of a face loss as you're supposing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US was facing a direct nuclear threat. Risking nuclear war with the USSR was hardly an escalation. Also, there's a large difference between "risking"and "acting." China has much more to lose than gain (economically and militarily) by warring with the US over NK.
China has went to war with the US over North Korea before, at a time where they didn't even have a nuclear option. Saying things won't happen due to economic and military losses is the exact rhetoric you heard before WWI and a WWII.
In addition, the primary fear for the CCP was that the US would try to march all the way to Beijing. There's no way that would happen today, so China has much less to fear from a modern Korean War than it did in the first.
As a Korean American, this conflict has always been so strange to me. My family members fought in this war, my grandfather ran from his village, in the middle of the night, to join the US-led Korean Army so that he wouldn't be conscripted by NK as they moved south. My mom's father joined as an intelligence officer and later continued on to work in the middle east for the US gov. That left his wife (my grandmother) to…
1. North Korea ceased to be an "existential threat" to South Korea a very long time ago. According to Wikipedia, South Korea's GDP is 1.4466 trillion USD; North Korea's is estimated to be 25 billion USD. That's a factor of 58.
For comparison, USA's GDP is 17.95 trillion USD. Cuba's is 77.15 billion USD. That's a factor of 233.
So, see how much Americans feel threatened by Castro these days, and multiply that by four.
2. The only way they could be a major threat is if they go suicidal. However, they are not ISIS: Kim Jong Un has no intention of becoming a martyr. (Of course, he has a lot to gain by looking like a crazy, unstable dictator who could start a war any day: North Korea is the master of this mode of "crazy diplomacy".)
However, in the extremely unlikely case that Kim decides to go full nuclear, ironically, all these nuclear missiles would make little difference to South Korea. North Korea has millions of soldiers and enough conventional weapons to burn Seoul down to ground. Adding one Hiroshima-size nuke or two will be... well, like adding one Hiroshima to the whole Pacific War, I guess.
This makes about half of South Koreans go "meh" at the news of yet another nuclear test. They can already kill us, and if they do, they will be killed, too. Everybody knows that. Nothing has changed.
Of course, America does not like having such a "rogue" nation with a nuclear missile that can hit San Francisco, so all this posturing is basically targeted advertisement for the US. I think they are saying, "Look at me, we have nukes now, so you will be sorry if you attack us!" They're trying to cut some kind of deal with the US. (Of course it may actually provoke US into some "preemptive strike," so it's a very risky gambit, for them and also for the whole East Asia. But when did they ever care for human lives anyway?)