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China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

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Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#41

Post by devdoomari »

MBCook wrote: post #16
athenot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China just wants peace in the area. It's not at all in their interest to see a conflict right next door to them. At the same time, I think it's not far-fetched that China would flex its muscle against the US if we escalate this conflict.

Not just a war, a massive humanitarian crisis. If the NK government were to disappear how many needy people would flood over their border and cause massive resource issues? It’s a weird situation where basically everyone hates NK (I imagine China would be more happy if that was just more of their normal territory) but everyone is terrified of what happens when the NK State dissolves. SK wants to reunite but that woul…

'humanitarian crisis' - isn't NK already the very example of 'humanitarian crisis'? just that NK gov. is good at 'containing' its people & let then starve...

Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#42

Post by tooltalk »

thevardanian wrote: post #30
gypsy_boots wrote: post #11

This makes me nervous and I fear that Kim Jung Un will have to do something big in order to save face. I hope we make him feel that he has a non-violent way to posture for his people as that's really what this is all about: posturing.

Honestly I don't get this sentiment. NK isn't some rationalistic actor. The NK problem can never ever be solved by diplomatic resolve. This goes beyond mere saving face, or diplomacy. This is simply about maintaining and expanding power. That is sometimes you need to be confrontational. Sometimes you need to stop being Chamberlain, and start being Churchill. Preferably before it's too late. What else is their develop…

I second oh_sigh's view on this matter. As FP notes, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/26/kim-jong-un-is-a-survivo..., they are doing what they doing to survive.

annex what? I don't think China's interested in maintaining a peaceful region, as much as they are scared of losing control of their country and desperately trying to keep their country in one piece, having witnessed the fall outs from the collapse of the Soviet.

Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#44

Post by thevardanian »

oh_sigh wrote: post #39
thevardanian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't get this sentiment. NK isn't some rationalistic actor. The NK problem can never ever be solved by diplomatic resolve. This goes beyond mere saving face, or diplomacy. This is simply about maintaining and expanding power. That is sometimes you need to be confrontational. Sometimes you need to stop being Chamberlain, and start being Churchill. Preferably before it's too late. What else is their develop…

> What they actually want is to win, and emerge "victorious" in the face of US "oppression". You don't think seeing what happened to Gaddafi has anything to do with it? Libya got rid of their nuke development plans in 2003. If Libya had nukes, would the Libyan revolution have played out as it did? Do you think Kim Jong Un wants to get dragged around, anally raped and murdered by an angry mob? Probably not. > Perhaps…

Libya was diplomatic failure of epic proportions.

Furthermore the value of NK isn't the people, but the geographical position. It is a well known fact that China is amping up its projection of power, and using it to claim territory. Doklam is the most recent example. Furthermore I don't think China gives two shits about forcing people into doing what it wills. 25 million people is basically a negligible amount for China to handle, it's >2% of their total population. If anything it is an opportunity to gain goodwill by "rescuing" them.

All I'm saying is that perhaps China has a vested interest in trying to provoke NK into increasingly irrational decisions so to open an opportunity for them to annex NK in the name of "maintaining order".

Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#46

Post by pdelbarba »

dingaling wrote: post #31
ihsw2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War? Please describe a scenario where Seoul doesn't get obliterated in the first 30 minutes of fireworks starting. If the DPRK doesn't achieve victory within 72 hours then yes of course they will be flattened, but nonetheless a DPRK victory is within the realm of possibility. Seoul may be reduced to a smoking heap, 20M dead and 10M having emigrated, and it will be a Pyrrhic victory, but it could be a victory nonethel…

Most North Korean artillery can't reach beyond the northern suburbs of Seoul. It would cause mass casualties but by no means would the metropolis be 'obliterated'. There certainly wouldn't be 20 million dead unless everyone within the Greater Seoul area rushed north and threw themselves into the beaten-zone. Assuming, of course, that the artillery troops follow their orders to fire.

I have a hard time believing that the artillery would ever get the chance. There's maybe ten square miles where they could place artillery to successfully bombard Seoul. The entire area could easily be destroyed or remotely turned into a minefield by a cruise missile salvo or judicious application of artillery fire from a handful of batteries. I can't imagine there aren't plans in place to handle this concern very rapidly should tensions rise to that point.

Even assuming that there isn't a concentrated effort to destroy these emplacements quickly, it seems the amount of damage they could cause would be fairly limited by operational constraints[1]

[1] http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/could-north-korea-...

Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#47

Post by stordoff »

devdoomari wrote: post #41
MBCook wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just a war, a massive humanitarian crisis. If the NK government were to disappear how many needy people would flood over their border and cause massive resource issues? It’s a weird situation where basically everyone hates NK (I imagine China would be more happy if that was just more of their normal territory) but everyone is terrified of what happens when the NK State dissolves. SK wants to reunite but that woul…

'humanitarian crisis' - isn't NK already the very example of 'humanitarian crisis'? just that NK gov. is good at 'containing' its people & let then starve...

It's currently a humanitarian crisis that China don't have to (and to a large extent can't) deal with.

Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#48

Post by ourmandave »

MBCook wrote: post #14
xir78 wrote: post #7

It seems like KJU needs an enemy to stay in power to justify his rule, so he can’t back down on his nuclear program. But now the options are narrowing even more for him, and if he abdicated it doesn’t have anywhere to go. So he may just force a war...

In any war he’d be destroyed. NK has to balance on the knife edge between being threatening enough to get concessions but not so much other countries give up and ignore them (or level them). KJU doesn’t seem to know how to walk that line, and didn’t have enough time to learn it from his father. I’d say ‘we’re getting close to the end’ but no one who has ever made that prediction has been right. It’s too unique (espec…

If it's a conventional war and China has his back there's no guarantee he'd be overthrown or even killed. Assad is alive and well after all these years.

That said, nobody wants a land war in Asia (one of the Classic Blunders) so it would take a lot of stupidity to get there.

Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#49

Post by ckozlowski »

pdelbarba wrote: post #46
dingaling wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most North Korean artillery can't reach beyond the northern suburbs of Seoul. It would cause mass casualties but by no means would the metropolis be 'obliterated'. There certainly wouldn't be 20 million dead unless everyone within the Greater Seoul area rushed north and threw themselves into the beaten-zone. Assuming, of course, that the artillery troops follow their orders to fire.

I have a hard time believing that the artillery would ever get the chance. There's maybe ten square miles where they could place artillery to successfully bombard Seoul. The entire area could easily be destroyed or remotely turned into a minefield by a cruise missile salvo or judicious application of artillery fire from a handful of batteries. I can't imagine there aren't plans in place to handle this concern very ra…

There are plans, yes. Lots of artillery, but it's aging, and as was pointed out earlier, the number of pieces they possess that can actually reach Seoul (the 203mm Koksan) is not very great.

As soon as they open fire, the counter-battery game begins. You can be sure the allies have photographed and analyzed every strip of dirt along the DMZ, looking for prepared positions so they can anticipate where the guns are and where they'd move to after a salvo. They'd be tracking the rounds as they come in and plotting where it originated from. 72 hours is a good estimate for how long that artillery battle would last; same estimate I've seen elsewhere.

But the concern of casualties are not necessarily from shells impacting, but the panic and disruption in order that comes from it. NK can cause enormous hardship just by flinging a few shells. They can hide many of their batteries and string out the battle by revealing pieces on day 3, 4, etc,. Even if they get destroyed, and even if they only get a few shells off, you'll have a news report saying shells are still falling on Seoul, and it will be a tremendous morale hit.

But the window is closing on how well the NK artillery will continue to be a credible threat, hence the rush for nuclear weapons.

Re: China orders N.K. firms to close down within 120 days

#50

Post by WillPostForFood »

thevardanian wrote: post #44
oh_sigh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What they actually want is to win, and emerge "victorious" in the face of US "oppression". You don't think seeing what happened to Gaddafi has anything to do with it? Libya got rid of their nuke development plans in 2003. If Libya had nukes, would the Libyan revolution have played out as it did? Do you think Kim Jong Un wants to get dragged around, anally raped and murdered by an angry mob? Probably not. > Perhaps…

Libya was diplomatic failure of epic proportions. Furthermore the value of NK isn't the people, but the geographical position. It is a well known fact that China is amping up its projection of power, and using it to claim territory. Doklam is the most recent example. Furthermore I don't think China gives two shits about forcing people into doing what it wills. 25 million people is basically a negligible amount for Ch…

Libya was failure of aggression. Where was there diplomacy happening? Hillary Clinton's quotation on the diplomacy was, "We came, we saw, he died."

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/3/the_libya_gamble_insid...

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