Expert: NKorea-to-US nuke strike possible from next year

[laklak]

I'd imagine the first thing we'd do in the case of war is repudiate the debt. Without us the Chinese lose the biggest trading partner they have, which they absolutely need. Plus, China only backs NK so far. I don't think they'd go to war over it, and if they did how would they do it? Sure , they have an absolutely enormous army, but its in China and we're over here. Logistically they couldn't invade if they wanted to, no massive military force is crossing the Pacific without U.S. permission. From a nuclear perspective we've over 10 times the active warheads, and 80 times the "inactive" weapons. They would literally not stand a snowballs chance unless Russia came to their aid, which I doubt would happen, Russia would be happy to see China and the U.S. slug it out, leaving them as the predominate nuclear power.

[Robert_S]

What good does NK do for China?

[Svartalf]

buffer state, if nothing else... China finds that the US troops in Japan and SK are faaaaar too close for comfort, let alone if there was an actual direct land route from a US base to Chinese territory.

[Warren Dew]

Objectively, bombing the shit out of North Korea might be a good idea.
But the US has got itself stuck in a sticky spider's web.

China backs North Korea. And not only does it have a huge military, built with wealth from US trade, it also owns most of the US debt. So the US is relatively powerless. It is already dancing to a Chinese tune, and it had better get used to it, because that spider's web gets more sticky every day.
.

If the U.S. bombed North Korea, China would do a lot of posturing but probably not a lot else. They want a buffer state, yes, but from their point of view the nuclear armed madman is highly optional.

[FBM]

I thought the same thing about China until more recently. It appears that they're not so worried about having a reunified Korea next door, even if it means that KJI's regime gets dusted: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia- ... 24560.html

China 'backs Korean reunification'

Chinese leaders privately support a unified Korea and would not stop the North's collapse, according to leaked US cable.



Chinese officials increasingly doubt the usefulness of neighbouring North Korea as an ally and would support the reunification of the peninsula if the communist state were to collapse, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.

The latest documents released by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks on Tuesday detail conversations between US officials and Chinese diplomats, as well as a senior South Korean official's discussion with his Chinese counterparts.

Cheng Guoping, the Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan, was reported to have told Richard Hoagland, the US ambassador, that "China hopes for peaceful reunification in the long-term, but he expects the two countries to remain separate in the short-term".

The remarks were made during a three-hour dinner in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital, in June 2009, according to documents published on WikiLeaks website.

Cheng was quoted as telling Hoagland that China's objectives in North Korea were to ensure they honour their commitments on non-proliferation, maintain stability, and "don’t drive [Kim Jong-il] mad".

Pyongyang's protector

The cable said that Cheng suggested that Kim Jong-il's decision to anoint his youngest son as his successor was driven more by Kim's deteriorating health than any carefully planned strategy.

"They had no time to plan for this," he was quoted as saying, adding that Kim Jong-il's announcement was designed to send a message to the military that he held the power.

Beijing has long been considered Pyongyang's protector, as seen during the recent crisis over the shelling of a South Korean island close to a disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea.

In the aftermath of the incident, which left at least four people dead and saw both nations increase their military readiness, Washington appealed to Beijing to rein in the North. China responded by calling for a meeting of world powers to diffuse tensions.

But in another cable from Seoul, South Korea's capital, the country's then vice-foreign minister was quoted as telling Kathleen Stephens, the US ambassador, that two high-level Chinese officials told him they "believed Korea should be unified under ROK [South Korea] control".

Chun Yung-woo, now the national security advisor to South Korea's president, said that the younger generation of Communist leaders in Beijing did not regard North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk a renewal of armed conflict on the Korean peninsula, the cable said.

Those younger leaders, Chun said, "would be comfortable with a reunited Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the United States in a benign alliance".

He reportedly dismissed the prospect of Chinese military intervention in the event of North Korea's collapse, noting that China’s strategic economic interests now lie with the United States, Japan, and South Korea, not with North Korea.

Chun was quoted as saying that he believed that the North would cease to function as a state within three years of Kim Jong-il's death and said Beijing had "no will" to use its economic leverage to change the country's political policies.

Chinese 'conundrum'

Andrew Leung, the chairman and CEO of International Consultants Limited in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera China was in a "conundrum" over the future of North Korea.

"China doesn't want to cause an immediate collapse of the regime and force reunification because a divided Korea could at least provide a possible buffer against encirclement," he said.

"An immediate collapse of North Korea could also not be good for South Korea. If you look at the unification of the two Germany's, you have got to wait until the conditions are right and it could drag down the economy in South Korea quite dramatically."

The diplomatic memos were released as North Korea announced details of an expanded nuclear programme, saying it has thousands of working centrifuges in a new uranium enrichment plant.

In the cable from the US ambassador to Kazakhstan, China's Cheng described the North's nuclear programme as "very troublesome".

He said that China "opposes North Korea's nuclear testing and is working to achieve peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," the cable said.

Choe Tae Bok, the chairman of North Korea's parliament, left Pyongyang on Tuesday for a diplomatic visit to China , but neither country has announced the purpose of the trip.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

[Ian]

buffer state, if nothing else... China finds that the US troops in Japan and SK are faaaaar too close for comfort, let alone if there was an actual direct land route from a US base to Chinese territory.

What are 28,500 troops going to do against China and the PLA?

[Svartalf]

Not much I guess, but it's kind of a NIMBY thing.

[FBM]

Judging from the news story I posted, I don't think it's even much of a NIMBY thing any more. Sounds like that in the past, when China was much more anti-capitalist, they wanted to keep NK going as an ideological ally. Now that China is reforming their economy and NK isn't going along with the game plan, they're becoming more and more expendable. I don't think anyone in China seriously fears a military invasion by the West.

[Ronja]

Digestives / Cookies / Crackers / Biscuits related derail thread moved to the Pub: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... =2&t=28389


Edit: Done. As you were...

[FBM]

Thanks, Ronja.

Hope this news is a little more on-topic.

I think things are getting a bit tense in these parts:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13820124

South Korean troops mistakenly shoot at passenger jet

South Korean troops have fired at a passenger jet after mistaking it for a North Korean aircraft.

Soldiers on Gyodong island, off South Korea's west coast, fired 99 rifle rounds at the Asiana flight, which was out of range and landed undamaged.

The incident took place early on Friday close to the tense border between the Koreas.

The airliner, which had 119 people on board, was descending at the time to Seoul's Incheon International Airport.

The plane had flown from the south-western Chinese city of Chengdu, an aviation controller told AFP news agency.

Two marine guards fired their K-2 rifles at the civilian flight, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

"The firing continued about 10 minutes but the plane was too far off the rifle's range and it did not receive any damage," Yonhap quoted an unnamed Marine Corps official as saying.

"When the plane appeared over Jumun island, soldiers mistook it as a North Korean military aircraft and fired."

The BBC's Lucy Williamson, in Seoul, says the West Sea - which contains the disputed maritime border between North and South Korea - has been especially tense since two attacks on South Korea last year.

Relations between the two nations have been frosty ever since, with North Korea recently vowing to break ties with the South in retaliation for what it called "psychological warfare" against it.

plane_shot_200.jpg (12.71 KiB) Viewed 284 times

[Warren Dew]

I thought the same thing about China until more recently. It appears that they're not so worried about having a reunified Korea next door, even if it means that KJI's regime gets dusted: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia- ... 24560.html

It seems to me that article just confirms what I said. Sure, in the longer term the two Koreas might be reunified, but in the longer term, united Korea might well be expected to be neutral rather than a U.S. ally.

[FBM]

I thought the same thing about China until more recently. It appears that they're not so worried about having a reunified Korea next door, even if it means that KJI's regime gets dusted: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia- ... 24560.html

It seems to me that article just confirms what I said. Sure, in the longer term the two Koreas might be reunified, but in the longer term, united Korea might well be expected to be neutral rather than a U.S. ally.

I agree. A reunified Korea's interests would seem to lie equally between the US and China, seeing as how they're among Korea's biggest trading partners, and without the national division, Korea has a very reduced need for an expensive US military presence. Expand the South's economic practices northward, shake the American military monkey off its back and, Step 3: profit.

[MiM]

Everybody wants to get rid of DPRK and most want a unified Korea, but nobody wants to go through the process.

[FBM]

I do, but the powers that be aren't asking for my opinion.

[MiM]

I do, but the powers that be aren't asking for my opinion.

Ah, yes. I can believe that there is even a strong opinion, that knows and understands that this process is inevitable, sooner or later. But then there is also NWIIP. The NIMBY transferred to a temporal axis "Not while I'm in power".