You have a great deal of faith in China's ability to control the DPRK. Given that China is now part of the international community behind the latest sanctions (which this action is at least partly a response to), why do you think the DPRK leadership will require Beijing's approval for their actions?
Have you visited the North? When I was there last year the Juche philosophy was as much a part of everyone as the casual references to the Great Leader being the Sun of the World; the attitude amongst the people I spoke to was that China was, whilst a friendly neighbour, not necessary to the wellbeing of the DPRK (no comment on how true that actually is - just on what I gathered of people's attitudes).
As it is, I do agree this is just more sabre-rattling and it is to be taken as seriously as all the previous sabre-rattling. The real announcement of continuing the war will be troop movements and the like, which will be very easily seen in advance.
China has a huge number of affluent tourists in Seoul and Jeju island. If NK crosses the DMZ, it will put those tourists at risk - And if North Korea kills any Chinese tourists, you can rest assured China will breaze into the country through the undefended Northern border, dismantle NK's military, and select a new puppet regime from within the government.
North Korea knows this, so will not act without China's blessing or at least giving China time to recall Chinese citizens from Seoul. Otherwise, North Korea has to fight a war with the Chinese in the North and NATO/South Korea in the South. This is an obvious recipe for swift and utter defeat.
The alternate scenario is that China uses it's stooges in the NK government and military to stage a coup d'etat.
Doesn't really matter what the North Korean people think, they will believe whatever nonsense their government feeds them, and there is no lack of Il-Sung descendants to pick from to be the figurehead of whatever puppet regime they choose to back.
You should probably know that Kim Jong Un is entirely a figure head and all decisions are made by a faction within his government led by his uncle-in-law Chang. Not even the NK government itself is unified behind Kim Jong Un/Chang, and its likely that there will be plenty of factions happy to take the job of China's lapdog as soon as they decide NK is threatening rich Chinese citizens.
Is China really so big on tourists? I must say I find it odd that this comes across so strongly. Nothing about upsetting the political and military balance in the region, no inherent fear of what happens when US troops start running around the DPRK literally on the Chinese border. It's all about the the tourists.
Of course there are larger geopolitical issues at play... Economically, China has no reason to defend the DPRK and every reason to maintain trade relations with South Korea and the US.
And, China obviously does not want the US to have even more of a foothold, and they obviously do not want the burden of absorbing North Korea into China... Which is why I said the end-game for Chinese interference would be installation of a new puppet regime.
But yes, rich tourists are very very important. There is no better rallying cry for interference than affluent citizens being killed. Do you honestly think that the Chinese government would be able to brush off the hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese casualties in Korea?
I doubt that too. but as he mentioned >>rich Chinese citizens. this might be a catch because rich and influential people wield more clout in communist China than in pure capitalist nations like USA.
Given that they don't have real nukes or ways to deliver them the real worry is what happens when NK is run down and then China enters the stage, says NK was my cousin - I will take over of the family and house.
Yes, the qualifier was important. As I stated elsewhere, with affluence comes influence. If we were talking about factory labourers, China would obviously care much less about their fate. When you are talking about people that make up the upper echelons of government and industry - the people in control of the decision making apparatus - their fate becomes much more important.
>>why do you think the DPRK leadership will require Beijing's approval for their actions?
Well, food is one reason. China, NK being almost cut-off from most of world, practically feeds NK and some other nations keep sending ration in aid from time to time.
>>no comment on how true that actually is
China was one support that helped North Korean Kim family rule NK for so long and strategically keep the nation cut-off from rest of the world, effectively pushing it into a modern stone-age. Now, it's up to everyone to debate what was China's ulterior motive behind this. Maybe they wanted a loose cannon or a time bomb in the neighbourhood under their (virtual) control. But now, it seems the pumpkin prince has actually lost it and if China is true in its demonstration and expression that NK really doesn't listen to it anymore, it is a matter of grave concern.
You were there. Can you comment the lifestyle and standard of living of common people, middle class(if there's one) and the ruling elite(i.e. military elite)? Or in what conditions the majority of people live? I see one reason to keep the nation cut off from the world is that the ruling elite (other than the Kims) can retain their status and aristocrat like clout in the country while their kids studies overseas(current Kim probably studied in Switzerland/Europe) and prospers.
Whilst Western definitions of middle-class tend to involve our economy in some way, the best I could manage would be those living in the cities and towns. They get (not brilliantly reliable) electricity, access to healthcare, housing that varied from buildings genuinely I thought were abandoned up to blocks of flats that weren't in too horrific shape. In the cities there was some (overcrowded and often dark) public transport. Towns relied on bicycles and lots of walking.
The majority of people were those living in villages. I passed these over and over again on the roads (by which I mean, I could see them from the road - they were usually NOT on the road network themselves, presumably by design). Buildings were of brick or other such material. Vehicles extremely rare. Oxen extremely rare (and clearly prized as ploughing tools). Three-person ploughing teams depressing common (looked like a shovel and two ropes tied to the head - one person jams it into the field, everyone lifts it and turns the earth, everyone takes one step forwards and repeats, over and over and over again). I didn't see much evidence of electricity in these villages. They're effectively cut off; there's no way for Kim Citizen to decide to wander over to the next village. Rivers used for washing clothes. People walking a long, long way to the fields they were working. The number of people engaged in working the land was enormous. For someone from the West used to the idea that a very small percentage of the population need be engaged in actually growing the food, it's a shock to see people in the 21st century farming effectively by hand. The evidence of the famine and also massive deforestation is clear if you look. Every scrap of land that someone can can reach and might support crops is being farmed. There are vast, vast numbers of saplings with little white stone circles around them (presumably to mark it). In the last decade, they were clearly in a very bad way for solid fuel.
I agree that keeping the population in the dark is a very effective means of control. The locals I met were very keen to flick through what magazines etc I'd brought with me and wanted to know simple things about my life.
There was a famine before, and it didn't end the regime. There is a persistent myth that if a people gets hungry enough, they have a revolution, but it didn't happen in China and it didn't happen in the DPRK. I would be hesitant to think that simply cutting off the food would be so effective in quickly changing the DPRK foreign policy.
Oh dear. Everywhere I read the horror stories and every person who has been there says the same. The people their have actually no choice. That's the reason they won't even have their Korean spring. In comparison Africa and Arab is luxury then.
I guess the big emancipators ought to rather emancipate them first!
It's done in a number of small ways. I passed through military checkpoints every time I left a town, and every time I arrived at one. In one, we had a police escort to the hotel (although, to be honest, I suspect the policeman just really wanted to turn on his siren and ride in front clearing the pedestrians off the road - exciting day for him). If you don't have a mandated reason to visit another town (or even leave your own town), you aren't doing it. There will be no underground network of revolutionaries without the ability to find each other or communicate.
Food; food was allocated (in the towns, at least - I don't know about villages) by your official food distribution centre, which often seemed to be the ground floor of the building you were living on. You got a few days in advance at a time. If you ever decided to try something (be it make a run for the border or have a revolution), you'd have three days' worth of food to make it work. Speaking of running for the (north) border, you'd better be able to make it on foot within a few days. You'll have to stay clear of the roads (what roads there are) so it'll be yomping over fields.
The media is the state media. There are a number of smuggled radios etc on the country. It's very hard to get figures on this; they seem to be clustered towards the north border where they drift in from China, and in the cities. The government control of the airwaves is not absolute, but they do engage in jamming and so forth.
It is as people say. The country is to a large extent a prison camp. Some of it is an "open" prison, some of it is working three generations of a family to death, sentencing children alongside their grandparents because they upset someone with power (or had something the powerful person wanted - many Japanese of Korean origin who foolishly moved there found themselves stripped of all the wealth they brought with them and reduced to poverty or simply dispatched to a labour camp) or maybe just said the wrong thing (turning each other in does not seem to be uncommon).
A DPRK spring in the style of the Arab spring is not, in my opinion, on the cards.
> Well, food is one reason. China, NK being almost cut-off from most of world, practically feeds NK and some other nations keep sending ration in aid from time to time.
Even the DPRK has enough food reserves to last a few weeks, which is how long the war would last before they were destroyed from one side or the other.
> China was one support that helped North Korean Kim family rule NK for so long and strategically keep the nation cut-off from rest of the world, effectively pushing it into a modern stone-age.
That was all set by Mao and Stalin, who weren't exactly the most well meaning cookies in the jar. Recently the relationship between the PRC and DPRK has been less happy.
Have you visited the North? When I was there last year the Juche philosophy was as much a part of everyone as the casual references to the Great Leader being the Sun of the World; the attitude amongst the people I spoke to was that China was, whilst a friendly neighbour, not necessary to the wellbeing of the DPRK (no comment on how true that actually is - just on what I gathered of people's attitudes).
As it is, I do agree this is just more sabre-rattling and it is to be taken as seriously as all the previous sabre-rattling. The real announcement of continuing the war will be troop movements and the like, which will be very easily seen in advance.