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WorldsStrongestNerd posted:It doesn't matter whether or not China wants to be in charge of NK. In the event of a collapse backing the strongest warlord may be China's only option. The alternative may well be to shoot several million starving refugees swarming the border. I don't know about this. North Korea's population is a rounding error compared to China's population. Think about that. North Korea's population is what, 23 million, 24 million? China's population is usually given as 1.3 billion. Even if 20% of North Korea's population fled to China, that would be 5 million people. That's 0.005 billion. A rounding error compared to China's population.
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Oct 15, 2014 15:05
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Arglebargle III posted:I don't know about this. North Korea's population is a rounding error compared to China's population. Think about that. North Korea's population is what, 23 million, 24 million? China's population is usually given as 1.3 billion. Even if 20% of North Korea's population fled to China, that would be 5 million people. That's 0.005 billion. A rounding error compared to China's population. Why then why doesn't the US pay for the rounding error.
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Oct 15, 2014 15:48
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They might? Handing SK a stack of money to reunify would be a pretty neat solution for the US, especially compared to fuckery with making Korea neutral and withdrawing troops or cutting a deal with China or w/e
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Oct 15, 2014 16:37
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whatever7 posted:Why then why doesn't the US pay for the rounding error. We will if it's in our interest. But dumping billions into a backwards country just so that we can watch the Chinese reap the benefits is something that we got pretty tired of after Afghanistan.
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Oct 15, 2014 16:44
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Arglebargle III posted:I don't know about this. North Korea's population is a rounding error compared to China's population. Think about that. North Korea's population is what, 23 million, 24 million? China's population is usually given as 1.3 billion. Even if 20% of North Korea's population fled to China, that would be 5 million people. That's 0.005 billion. A rounding error compared to China's population. I don't know much about the logistics of refugees but does it really work like this? Considering how tightly some western countries are shut against just thousands/ tens of thousands. And it's not as though the refugees would be divvied out evenly across the Middle Kingdom; Liaoning and Jilin (just for everyone's reference, the Chinese provinces that border North Korea) combined have a population of about 70 million, so they'd take a much bigger hit from that five million, and probably from even less than that. And even if the slack gets picked up farther in, I think a mid-sized Chinese city's worth of relatively worthless and starving refugees is going to take a much bigger toll than you're suggesting.
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Oct 15, 2014 16:53
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icantfindaname posted:They might? Handing SK a stack of money to reunify would be a pretty neat solution for the US, especially compared to fuckery with making Korea neutral and withdrawing troops or cutting a deal with China or w/e There won't be any "neat solution" for any of the nations relevant to collapse and reunification. WorldsStrongestNerd posted:It doesn't matter whether or not China wants to be in charge of NK. In the event of a collapse backing the strongest warlord may be China's only option. The alternative may well be to shoot several million starving refugees swarming the border. Arglebargle III posted:I don't know about this. North Korea's population is a rounding error compared to China's population. Think about that. North Korea's population is what, 23 million, 24 million? China's population is usually given as 1.3 billion. Even if 20% of North Korea's population fled to China, that would be 5 million people. That's 0.005 billion. A rounding error compared to China's population. First, like I said, the average DPRK soldier is in pathetic shape. Poorly-equipped, poorly-trained, and chronically hungry. For men entering their compulsive military service, part of the process is their family using any political influence they have to get them an assignment where they will actually be fed. Even worse, NIC estimates that 17-29% of KPA conscripts are rejected due to cognitive impairment stemming from the famine. If a military dictatorship is rejecting a large fraction of its conscripts because they're too mentally handicapped to serve, imagine the state of the soldiers who are conscripted. Speaking of the famine, during that time soldiers often got into armed clashes with the police while foraging for food. For this and other reasons, I'm doubtful that any "warlord" could actually maintain discipline over a large number of troops, keep them fed, and exercise control over any significant amount of territory. I know that this is an unthinkable suggestion, but is it possible that China will actually try to work with the US and SK to police and rehabilitate the country, rather than arming warlords and engaging us in a pissing contest? Just a thought.
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Oct 15, 2014 17:12
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^^ Its going to be a long negociation process. Same reason Iran is not going to actively help Iraq until the Nuclear talk is over.
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Oct 15, 2014 17:17
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Halloween Jack posted:South Korea's military is small and continues to shrink.  Even with the planned restructuring and reduction of troop numbers over the coming decade, this is not an accurate characterization of the size of the ROK military.
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Oct 15, 2014 18:53
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You're right, I was only thinking of the planned reductions and not their current level of support.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:28
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Patter Song posted:Even barring an actual coup, it's not hard to imagine a situation where Kim found himself cut out of the day-to-day running of the country for the past month or so due to medical factors. By which I mean someone may have been taking advantage of the time Kim's been out cold for ankle surgery and recovery. Not sure what medical care is like for NK elite, but it's not far fetched he was in some big deal Chinese hospital getting his tendons fixed (or whatever complicated leg surgery he may have needed).
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Oct 15, 2014 19:52
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Oldsmobile posted:Not sure what medical care is like for NK elite, but it's not far fetched he was in some big deal Chinese hospital getting his tendons fixed (or whatever complicated leg surgery he may have needed). There is no high level China-NK communication since Kim3 killed their "China guy", I think his uncle-in-law?
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Oct 15, 2014 20:46
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I'm not sure what you mean by high-level, but NK certainly still has trade partnerships with China. I had meant to say earlier, in regard to the idea of China seizing NK, that even their mining rights in NK probably wouldn't be worth the cost of unilaterally occupying and securing NK.
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Oct 15, 2014 21:21
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I dunno why you all think that having North Korea be a part of South Korea is against the interests of South Korea. Consider turning the entire North into resource extraction and cheap factory laborers. It's not like they'd consider making it a truly equal part of the country, like extending South Korean minimum wages there or something. You'd be far more likely to see the entire north set up as a sort of Chinese special economic zone where you'd have South Korean rule of law and leadership allowing investment in the north to the benefit of South Korean businesses, with some level of Northern leadership bought off. The economics of it isn't the big problem unless you're thinking this will go like Germany where they try to uplift the entire region to the Southern level in a decade. The politics is much more problematic...
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Oct 15, 2014 21:28
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not sure what you mean by high-level, but NK certainly still has trade partnerships with China. I had meant to say earlier, in regard to the idea of China seizing NK, that even their mining rights in NK probably wouldn't be worth the cost of unilaterally occupying and securing NK. High level as in KJU going to China to beg for more food.
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Oct 15, 2014 21:48
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WorldsStrongestNerd posted:It doesn't matter whether or not China wants to be in charge of NK. In the event of a collapse backing the strongest warlord may be China's only option. The alternative may well be to shoot several million starving refugees swarming the border. It's honestly quite debatable that they'd be able to reach the border. It's terrible terrain, almost no one has vehicles, people who are starving can get very far on foot, and even if people tried to jump on the trains to get out, most of them are run by electricity and the grid that remains is sure to get cut. And all these problems for getting to the borders will be tripled during harsh winters. Most of the starving refugees are going to be stuck pretty close to where they live now.
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Oct 15, 2014 22:17
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Is it fair to say this is the worst shape they've been in yet? They're never exactly paragons of stability and I have read about the soldiers barely having enough to eat...god, what a catastrophe.
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Oct 16, 2014 00:00
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NK is such a deluded shitstorm of a country that it's almost impossible for it to improve its situation on its own. I'd say its fair, and I'd say it is just going to get worse. If their collapse wasn't such a massive problem for everybody involved I'd say it would have already happened...I mean it has been subsidized throughout it's entire existence, first by USSR/China, now USA/China/SK. One of the famines would probablly resulted into a revolution without external aid.
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Oct 16, 2014 00:08
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Maybe China and the US can BOTH pay SK to reintegrate with NK. 40% overlapping interest is enough to make that work out, right? 
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Oct 16, 2014 00:31
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Ditocoaf posted:Maybe China and the US can BOTH pay SK to reintegrate with NK. 40% overlapping interest is enough to make that work out, right? Prop up some sham unity government filled with Chinese and South Korean suits, and break up the country into zones of interest. Chinese companies gets to mine and have slave factories in this zone, while South Korean companies gets to mine and have slave factories in that zone. Give people a tad more food than they're receiving now and give them access to Chinese and South Korean media, and they'll be happy for a few decades at least. Just imagine the hilltop removal and strip mining that will follow 21st century technology discovering a whole country worth of natural resources to exploit. When the whole thing comes falling apart in 20-40 years it'll be someone else's problem.
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Oct 16, 2014 00:52
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Fall Sick and Die posted:I dunno why you all think that having North Korea be a part of South Korea is against the interests of South Korea. Consider turning the entire North into resource extraction and cheap factory laborers. It's not like they'd consider making it a truly equal part of the country, like extending South Korean minimum wages there or something. You'd be far more likely to see the entire north set up as a sort of Chinese special economic zone where you'd have South Korean rule of law and leadership allowing investment in the north to the benefit of South Korean businesses, with some level of Northern leadership bought off. The economics of it isn't the big problem unless you're thinking this will go like Germany where they try to uplift the entire region to the Southern level in a decade. The politics is much more problematic... This sounds nearly as hellish as what exists now.
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Oct 16, 2014 00:57
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Badera posted:This sounds nearly as hellish as what exists now. It'll be a much more stable Hell. It's in the best interests of the South Koreans to keep the North fed (if only for labor purposes), along with extensive investment in infrastructure. Jobs probably won't be much of a problem (be they mining, or de-mining in the case of the DMZ), and it's highly likely that you'll see some North Koreans venture into the South to work lower class jobs at higher wages than they could get back home (so domestic servants, janitors, etc). There will probably be severe ethnic tensions for a while but that's probably unavoidable for any unification.
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Oct 16, 2014 01:03
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Pretty sure South Koreans are big enough fans of their democracy and human rights that they'd rather not unify at all then have some weird inferior part in their nation. I don't know why there couldn't be a transitional period of decade or two where NK is still a separate entity under international observation during which US/China/SK bring it up to bare minimum of infrastructure/economy for it to actually be a viable other half of unification.
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Oct 16, 2014 01:13
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Full Battle Rattle posted:Is it fair to say this is the worst shape they've been in yet? They're never exactly paragons of stability and I have read about the soldiers barely having enough to eat...god, what a catastrophe. No. The 90s famine was definitely the worst in their time. Despite how bad things are now, it actually marks an improvement from the 90s (though it's still a massively worse place than the 80s and especially than the 70s).
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Oct 16, 2014 03:16
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DarkCrawler posted:Pretty sure South Koreans are big enough fans of their democracy and human rights that they'd rather not unify at all then have some weird inferior part in their nation. I don't know why there couldn't be a transitional period of decade or two where NK is still a separate entity under international observation during which US/China/SK bring it up to bare minimum of infrastructure/economy for it to actually be a viable other half of unification. That transition period is basically what I'm describing. East Germany is still behind the rest of the country in a lot of metrics today, and that was 25 years after unification (and it wasn't as bad absolutely or relatively as North Korea either).
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Oct 16, 2014 03:28
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Badera posted:This sounds nearly as hellish as what exists now. The difference is that at least in a generation or two wages will rise because the population of South Korea is getting smaller and demand for labor is going to rise. North Korea may well be second world under a unification scenario.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:30
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Fall Sick and Die posted:I dunno why you all think that having North Korea be a part of South Korea is against the interests of South Korea. Consider turning the entire North into resource extraction and cheap factory laborers. The only parts I agree with you on is that there's no feasible plan for reunification that doesn't have North Korea as a special economic zone for a long time to come, and that yes, it will be difficult to convince South Koreans that they should spend an entire generation eating poo poo so that they might benefit from Korean mining operations in two or three decades. Full Battle Rattle posted:Is it fair to say this is the worst shape they've been in yet? They're never exactly paragons of stability and I have read about the soldiers barely having enough to eat...god, what a catastrophe.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:48
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Typo posted:The difference is that at least in a generation or two wages will rise because the population of South Korea is getting smaller and demand for labor is going to rise. North Korea may well be second world under a unification scenario. Speaking of the demographic crisis- would that be something reunification could help with?
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Oct 16, 2014 03:53
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Koramei posted:Speaking of the demographic crisis- would that be something reunification could help with? Not really. The demographics are a consequence of the way high income societies work. If you bring NK up to SK standards the birthrate will become the same. A unified Korea could be a significantly bigger economy, more on the order of Japan in total size, but that's a theoretical number and would take a long time to achieve.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:59
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Halloween Jack posted:You're talking about a serious drain on the South Korean economy that will last at least a couple decades. The notion of South Korean businesses making big profits by exploiting cheap labour is as fanciful as it is cynical. Chronic starvation is, quite literally, a severe handicap to the North Korean workforce, and its infrastructure has been crumbling for decades due to a lack of basic maintenance and replacement parts. You're assuming that they will give the North Koreans a standard of living or services equivalent to their own. There's no way that's going to happen, it would bankrupt the state and ruin their industry. Do you really think they're going to rush in and build schools, hospitals, start providing welfare at some kind of equivalent rate? Starvation as a problem would be easy to solve in a year, but I think it's far more likely that North Korea would become an economic colony of the South than anything else. They're not going to want to eat poo poo whatsoever, and I seriously doubt the USA is going to pony up more than a few billion in cash, China even more-so, they don't give a poo poo about anyone without getting something back.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:09
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icantfindaname posted:Not really. The demographics are a consequence of the way high income societies work. If you bring NK up to SK standards the birthrate will become the same. A unified Korea could be a significantly bigger economy, more on the order of Japan in total size, but that's a theoretical number and would take a long time to achieve. I guess in theory if integrating the younger generation goes well it would at least delay the demographic crisis for another generation or two. Every single society outside of maybe Africa will be facing demographic crisis of this variety in the next 1-2 generations anyway.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:11
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Fall Sick and Die posted:You're assuming that they will give the North Koreans a standard of living or services equivalent to their own.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:23
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DarkCrawler posted:Pretty sure South Koreans are big enough fans of their democracy and human rights that they'd rather not unify at all then have some weird inferior part in their nation. I don't know why there couldn't be a transitional period of decade or two where NK is still a separate entity under international observation during which US/China/SK bring it up to bare minimum of infrastructure/economy for it to actually be a viable other half of unification. You clearly know nothing about South Koreans if you think this. The jaebeols would be delighted to have a cheap labor colony of 22-odd million to exploit.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:30
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Halloween Jack posted:No, I don't think that's required for the endeavour to be incredibly expensive. In seriousness all they need is a stable food supply (south korea has this without relying on the very labor intensive ag that North Korea's poor soil requires) and shipping in mining equipment to get the resources that North Korea is loving full of. poo poo, North Korean schools would be delighted to accept South Korea's old textbooks et cetera, really all the current government services stuff that South Korea is scrapping as they go on (much like any modern country) could be easily recycled for use in NK.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:41
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Halloween Jack posted:You're talking about a serious drain on the South Korean economy that will last at least a couple decades. The notion of South Korean businesses making big profits by exploiting cheap labour is as fanciful as it is cynical. Chronic starvation is, quite literally, a severe handicap to the North Korean workforce, and its infrastructure has been crumbling for decades due to a lack of basic maintenance and replacement parts. Right. South Koreans will not tolerate a significant drop in living standards. There are significant numbers of South Koreans alive who remember when their living standards were on par with Bangladesh. Many in older generations are stunted due to childhood malnutrition, while teenagers today have problems with obesity. South Korea is a very materialistic society. Disagree with the bit about jaebeol though. South Korean business culture is as cutthroat and exploitative as I've seen in the developed world. There's no way they wouldn't see a highly-literate, Korean-speaking, and docile population a short distance from Seoul as ripe for exploitation. One of the biggest issues Korean business has with competitiveness is lack of language ability. North and South Korean have diverged somewhat since 1948, but are still very mutually intelligible.
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Oct 16, 2014 06:04
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TheImmigrant posted:teenagers today have problems with obesity. say what I'm willing to trust you on this but this is news to me, Koreans have very pridefully told me that they're the thinnest nation, and their insane appearance and 'health' culture kind of corroborates with that. Unless you mean just relative to a few decades ago?
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Oct 16, 2014 06:58
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Koramei posted:say what I taught English to teenagers in South Korea, 2002-3. It's really striking to compare the average physique across generations in South Korea. Grandparents at the time were very short and gaunt. Grandmothers would often be stooped over due to childhood malnutrition, especially calcium deficiency. Parents were comparable to what I saw their contemporaries Japan, if a bit more robust. (Koreans tend to be relatively robust (big-boned and busty, not fat) for Northeast Asians.) The teenagers I taught, many were obese. They've grown up on pizza, McDonald's/Lotteria (local equivalent to McDo's), and other Western-style junk food. Koreans will tell you all kinds of crazy things about Korea. I remember hearing that homosexuality doesn't exist in Korea, that Korean food is the healthiest in the world (the high rate of stomach cancer belies this), that Koreans have different respiratory systems and are subject to "fan death"*, etc. etc. *Fan death is the belief that sleeping in an enclosed room with a fan on will kill you. Korean newspapers report on fan deaths every summer. I taught a private lesson to a Korean doctor who swore that it existed, and that my Western lungs were differently equipped to handle it. A few other expats and I developed the theory that it's a media euphemism for death from alcohol poisoning.
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Oct 16, 2014 07:13
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Koramei posted:say what South Koreans have the lowest obesity rate in the OECD, but they have much higher obesity rates among children and teenagers.
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Oct 16, 2014 07:20
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TheImmigrant posted:*Fan death is the belief that sleeping in an enclosed room with a fan on will kill you. Korean newspapers report on fan deaths every summer. I taught a private lesson to a Korean doctor who swore that it existed, and that my Western lungs were differently equipped to handle it. A few other expats and I developed the theory that it's a media euphemism for death from alcohol poisoning. I recall hearing, I think on these very forums, that it was a euphemism for suicide. Although I suppose one can argue alcohol poisoning is a form of suicide.
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Oct 16, 2014 07:31
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I recall hearing, I think on these very forums, that it was a euphemism for suicide. Although I suppose one can argue alcohol poisoning is a form of suicide. That's plausible. A while back, someone on one of the Korea megathreads here jumped all over me for being amused by "fan death" and how insistent Koreans can be that it exists.
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Oct 16, 2014 07:39
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I think it's just used as an explanation for any nonviolent death that happens at home, like "natural causes". When someone dies with a fan in the room, the media can blame fan death before the autopsy results are in. When Mama Cass died of a heart attack with a ham sandwich in the room, the media speculated that she'd choked to death on a ham sandwich.
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Oct 16, 2014 07:41
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