More thoughts on NoKo: Time to hermetically seal the Hermit Kingdom
North Korea’s nuclear test is a policy failure – for everyone.South Korea has failed. South Korea’s “sunshine policy” has been called appeasement, but there was more to it than that frightened pay-off. North Korea has 23 million people, South Korea almost 49 million. In 1990 West Germany had roughly 65 million people when it began to absorb East Germany’s 17 million. 16 years later, Federal Germany has not quite “digested” the East. Compared to North Korea –an artifact of the agricultural revolution now possessing nuclear weapons –East Germany was Beverly Hills. South Korea’s absorption of North Korea might take four decades; it would certainly entail a huge sacrifice by the South Koreans, in GDP and in their individual economic expectations. The “sunshine” policy sought to nudge North Korea toward long term development.
But it didn’t work– – because North Korea’s leaders are paranoid criminals who care about their regime, not their country.
Japan has failed. Until Kim’s July missile volley, in regards to North Korea Japan pursued a policy of public quiescence and private uneasiness. Japan’s leaders know Japanese rearmament will set off political alarums in Asia. Japan, I think, has intended to expand its military capabilities, but do so slowly, so it minimized political reactions. North Korea has forced Japan’s hand.
China has failed. North Korea’s July missile volley embarrassed China. Chinese security specialist Shen Dingli said last week that North Korea “considers its national interests (in acquiring nuclear weapons) to be greater than its relations with China.” In Shen’s words, China’s diplomacy has also “been a failure.”
Kim’s nuke test publicly exposes China’s failure –a major power’s failure on its own border.
No one likes to lose face, but “face” is particularly important in North Asian social relationships and diplomacy. China has lost face once again.
Likewise US diplomacy, aimed at ending North Korea’s emerging nuclear threat, has failed. The Clinton Administration attempted to buy the nukes with economic carrots, the Bush Administration (with its six-nation talks) tried to pry the nukes loose using a diplomatic “squeeze.” Neither gambit worked, because both strategies to be effective relied on steady Chinese cooperation. And that has not (yet) occurred.
Of course the biggest failure is North Korea.
While North Korea starves and slips deeper into poverty, South Korea has become a world-class economic and political success. South Korean diplomat Ban Ki-moon has just been nominated to serve as UN Secretary-General—and don’t underestimate Kim’s dismay. Mr. Ban will have a global podium. Every time Kim sees Mr. Ban his Dear Leader ego will take a hit. Secretary-General Ban sends the message that South Korea is a leader, North Korea a criminal rogue which meets day to day expenses by counterfeiting cash and smuggling drugs.
The nuke test appears to have galvanized China—suggesting it may politically and economically boomerang on Pyongyang.
It’s time for China to make a choice– to defend the wealth-producing global system that is modernizing China or continue to propo up a nuclear-armed failed state that ultimately threatens Chinese economic health.China needs to propose a land and maritime embargo of North Korea, one that hermetically seals the Hermit Kingdom’s borders. And then help enforce it.
Was your post button set to “three-round burst”?
j/k The only questions are: 1. How much will Japan re-arm? 2. Will Japan go nuclear?
Comment by Harold C. Hutchison — 10/10/2006 @ 2:19 pm
Global fury at N Korea nuclear test claim… The major powers united in their condemnation of North Korea’s claim to have tested a nuclear weapon…
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — 10/10/2006 @ 2:53 pm
With respect to hermetically sealing them off: would it not be both moral and practical to accept North Korean refugees? It would ease the eventual cost of unification for the South Koreans, it would allow the Chinese to save some face, and it would save some North Korean lives. It might even help to strip some of the managing elite from the North Korean government, and it might save some Chinese and South Korean souls (I mean that in the secular sense). It would be costly, but a lot cheaper than the alternatives?
Comment by Cliff Styles — 10/10/2006 @ 5:09 pm
Does ANYONE have this little trolls (KJI-DPRK) mailing address? I’ve got some lettuce I wanna send him for his BLTs.
Comment by Frank Morris — 10/10/2006 @ 5:15 pm
After North Korea collapses, perhaps it would be best for South Korea, the US, China and Japan to leave North Korea as a separate political entity until they can be brought up at least near to the South Korean standard of living. Pour in the aid, advisors and the pointy-headed intellectuals, but leave them separate. Build up their agrarian infrastructure. It might take forty years, but the shock to South Korea would be much more manageable.
Comment by Mark — 10/10/2006 @ 5:17 pm
Sorry to disagree - my opinion is that the West is being “played.” I just read a report that it is business as usual at the NK/China border - trucks going into NK and so on. This tells you what the Chinese really think. The Norks are the “bad cop” and the Chicoms are the “good cop.” The Chinese have not lost face, this is part of “unrestricted warfare.” When the Norks sell nuclear materials to Iran and that material gets into a dirty bomb, delivered by deniable methods then what the hell are we going to do?
Comment by RKV — 10/10/2006 @ 5:26 pm
Does it make sense to have the UN invite China in? That way they could stave off a refugee crisis, change the regime for one more rational- it would be a terrible idea for them to take over any other country (tibet, mongolia), but in this case, would it be worse? It would certainly piss off the South Koreans- but isn’t their sunshine policy at least somewhat to blame here?
Comment by Jenkin Sear — 10/10/2006 @ 5:28 pm
Austin Bay: Up to China… Austin Bay gets it (meaning he agrees w/ me) It’s time for China to make a choice– to defend the wealth-producing global system that is modernizing China or continue to……
Trackback by Gibbie's Bioscience World — 10/10/2006 @ 5:41 pm
Now that N. Korea has joined the nuclear pissing club, perhaps the US can now take opportunity to sit and talk with this “leader.” As embarrasing as it may be that N. Korea has forced our hand, it is something that should have been undertaken in the present US administration as it was tried, allbeit unsuccessfully in the Clinton administration. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.
Comment by Larry Mayer — 10/10/2006 @ 5:43 pm
The policies failed for one reason and one reason only, communists lie. To stop NoKo we have to squeeze China, dancing around with this isn’t accomplishing anything. I would bet a 500% tarrif on Walmart goods would wake China up. China can stop the NoKo and it’s weapons trade with Iran any time they want to, but they believe it’s in the best intest of China to have NoKo and Iran tweaking the U.S. What happened here is the unstable NoKo went too far too fast. Winter is coming and it’s going to be cold in NoKo land.
Comment by bill — 10/10/2006 @ 5:44 pm
The problem w/ a NK collapse is that at that point their citizens will be starving. So unless there is immediate aid from SK and China millions will die. It would truely take a national effort on the part of SK. China can absorb NK no problem, but Chinese citizens are not so much better off.
Comment by Rob — 10/10/2006 @ 5:44 pm
NK is actually a country where, if we remove the leader, the country would progress quickly. Unlike Iraq, the average North Koreans are interested in suicide bombings or becoming religious fanatics. They have shown that in the case of SOuth Korea, the same people can do much metter under a different system. There is not quite a similar example for Arabs. Here is an article on the perception of the Korean War being less of a failure than the Vietnam war. That is aharder case to make given the troubles with NK today, vs. no troubles with VietNam.
Comment by Twok — 10/10/2006 @ 5:50 pm
I think that South Koreans will continue to see North Koreans as their brothers, even if they despise the NoKo leadership. I lived in West Germany for some time in the 70’s and they tended to think of East Germans as family even though they were strategic enemies.
Comment by NeilS — 10/10/2006 @ 6:23 pm
Sitting down with Kim is the worst idea I’ve ever heard of, especially now. Lesson to all failed states if we do so is “ignore our admonitions,threaten us, lie to us, continue to destroy your own people, and we’ll meet you half way.” I like the idea of pressuring — really pressuring — China right now. Threaten all trade with China and see what NoKor does. Fred
Comment by FSO(r) — 10/10/2006 @ 6:32 pm
One man starving many. Anyone sitting down with a despotic, paranoid, criminal mass murderer is morally bound to try and kill him immediatly on the spot, even if they fail. IMHO, of course. Other folks might think that talking, bargaining, explaining, negotiation, et, is the way to go. I think its time to spit on our hands and kill the little bastard.
Comment by Robert — 10/10/2006 @ 6:48 pm
Robert, Careful. Left-wing anti-Americans are actually on Kim’s side.
Comment by Twok — 10/10/2006 @ 7:01 pm
[…] More thoughts on NoKo: Time to hermetically seal the Hermit Kingdom […]
Pingback by FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Michael Ramirez on Nuclear North Korea — 10/10/2006 @ 7:05 pm
Is it just me or am I the only one who thinks the Chinese gave their (unpublished) approval? Now will we see China get Kim to shape up and won’t we all be grateful? Taiwan in exchange for shackling that crazy Kim, why that’s a deal!
Comment by RicardoVerde — 10/10/2006 @ 8:02 pm
Ricardo, I do think you have it. NK for Taiwan. A bad bargain for us.
Comment by RKV — 10/10/2006 @ 8:14 pm
I have an additional question. After Japan and South Korea build nuclear weapons, will Taiwan follow suit?
Comment by Mark in Texas — 10/10/2006 @ 9:27 pm
This latest episode with The Gargoyle should serve as a wake-up call to fully examine just where we are in relation to China. Economically, we have borrowed staggering amounts of money from China to help stem the flow of our national debt. This has served to effectively tie our hands in relation to any financial pressures we might ever have been able to put on them. They have us by the Ben Franklins. Ours is an uneasy alliance with them. You can’t call them allies, yet they are not outright enemies. Politically, they seem keen, as indeed Russia is, to do everything in their power to hamper us at every turn. Anything that will weaken us is an absolute plus to both nations. One only needs to go back and look at the UN records to prove this conclusively. Would it surprise me to learn that they are actually calling the shots behind N. Korea’s actions? Hardly. It would seem that the ongoing situation would be to their liking. Their feigned outrage would look good to the outside world, yet they retain the position of final arbitor to any possible recriminations proposed by the world community. This is a perfect opportunity for the Chinese to clandestinely force us to show our weakness yet again to the world at large. The Chinese like to play games like these. One only needs to go back to the incident with the Pueblo in 1968 to see that N. Korea has always been a willing proxy to take the heat for what was originated in Beijing. I simply do not believe that N. Korea acted unilaterally in this confrontation. And I believe that assuming so is naive. If I had any say in the matter, I would instruct the Pentagon to immediately send the Pacific Fleet to the international waters offshore of N. Korea and prepare for a total naval blockade as the first step. Nothing in, nothing out. Then let us see how the Chinese really feel. I’m willing to bet that they would raise hell. Next, I would let it be known that we are seriously considering giving Japan nuclear weapons to counter-act the Korean threat. China would have a fit. Too bad. But I would imagine that truly serious bargaining would begin. And pigs will fly.
Comment by Curt Matern — 10/11/2006 @ 12:20 am
I welcome our North Korean friends to the nuclear club. Maybe they’ll now become as dithering, hogtied and afraid to act as we are. It’s always been easier to be a pain in the butt than lead. Maybe that’s why nobody else wants to get involved in anything that’s badly needed, such as toppling Saddam Hussein. I think we ought to advise China and SoKo that if they don’t deal with this creep, we will, and we aren’t in the path of his fallout. They all must understand what’s going on better than we do. We’re just the Sugar Daddy who gets blackmailed every time Kim gets tight for money. I’d rather bomb every military site in the country along with every government building, than waste breath talking to them or time listening to them lie.
Comment by AST — 10/11/2006 @ 1:29 am
North Korean Crisis, 5 (October 11, 2006): 2nd test denied; quake in No. Japan the likely explanation… [This constantly updated post is bumped up; scroll down for more stories — ed.] News A quake, not a 2nd test: “A strong earthquake in northern Japan on Wednesday may have led the Tokyo government to suspect that North Korea……
Trackback by Pajamas Media — 10/11/2006 @ 4:46 am
Why should South Korea absorb the North right away? Much better to keep the nations seperate for awhile, the South could set up a colonial government under the UN Mandate system, and try to bring North Korea up to the point that merging can happen safely and properly. I think you’d find aid flowed in to the new, sane, North from nations as well as from citizens in the south. The army of the North could be kept intact and put along the Chinese border and used to rebuild the infrastructure and help with the farms and distribute food throughout the north until proper jobs could be found for them. I think this would also help with ‘face’ problems shown by the German merger where the East Germans got tired of being treated like the idiot little brother because the merger was so uneven.
Comment by rjschwarz — 10/11/2006 @ 8:38 am
China, like DPRK, (like any nation) will do exactly what it wants. All we can do is change what we do in order to influence their decission in what they want. The best way we can influence China to “encourage” them to influence DPRK is to clearly state that we will support Japan in whatever steps they may feel necessary to ensure their national security in the face of a potential DPRK nuclear threat. More here.
Comment by submandave — 10/11/2006 @ 8:56 am
[…] Courtesy of Austin Bay: […]
Pingback by NoisyRoom.net » Blog Archive » More thoughts on NoKo: Time to hermetically seal the Hermit Kingdom — 10/11/2006 @ 4:40 pm
I have a problem with describing our policy (or SOKO’s or anybody else’s for that matter) as having “failed.” What does success look like? We want NoKo’s Dear Leader to cease and desist with the nukes, stop starving his own people and join the civilized world. That is not under our control. We can’t make him do what we want. We can try various inducements, carrots and sticks. But if he continues to act as he has pretty much always acted, I don’t see that this makes our policy a “failure,” nor should it surprise us. He’s a creep. He has always been a creep. He will continue to act like a creep. When the cost of his behavior gets too high for a sufficient number of countries to bear, we’ll force the issue. But until we are ready to take him out, with military force and all that that implies, we shouldn’t be surprised that he keeps behaving as he always has. I don’t think President Bush should keep saying our policy has failed, as if the US has done something wrong or is at fault. Each step has been a reasonable attempt to deal with an unreasonable person. The strategy now has to be to get enough people on the same page that everyone squeezes at the same time and no one bails NoKo out.
Comment by Jennifer Roback Morse — 10/11/2006 @ 7:39 pm