CBC is reporting that "North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for the second time in a month on Saturday to discuss carrying out the peace commitments they reached in their first summit, as well as Kim's potential meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Moon's office said." Giving Trump a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering this treaty is a bit of a stretch. Moon Jae is the real hero in this scenario.
Kim is making progress. The Agency is holding Trump back. As always.
Would the signing of a peace treaty in Singapore that formally ends the Korean Ware and paves the way for reunification of the Korean Peninsula be worth a Nobel Peace prize? It would be far more than Obama ever did (ie. nothing, Mr. "Audacity of Hope", which he didn't even write) to get his....seriously, I would hope you would not let your personal dislike of the man (I actually never liked him all the years he was just a loudmouth egomaniac from NYC either) blind you to what he's actually accomplishing. The man has grown into the position he now holds, the Presidency is known for doing that to some, not so much for others. Like I told you early on how much of a train wreck Justin Trudeau was going to be, I'll tell you now that in 2020 Trump is going to be re-elected in a landslide even after the "establishment" types in his own party do their best to torpedo him, just like they did in 2016.
ReplyDeleteThe reunification of North and South Korea is somewhat problematic. One is Communist the other is a free republic. Getting rid of the trade embargo is a positive step.
DeleteOh, you know it....I didn't say it was going to be easy....but it is inevitable. Authoritarian regimes always look like they'll be around forever....and then when that invisible tipping point is reached, all of a sudden they collapse into their own blueprint at free fall speed. :biggrin:
DeleteNorth Korea is actually not communist and never has been, although they have identified as such for the purposes of support from China and Russia. They are more correctly described as a militarist oriented Fascist dictatorship/personality cult (the Koreans on both sides are really susceptible to the personality cult thing for whatever reason, remember "The Moonies"?) modeled almost exactly along the lines of the WWII era Japanese, from whom they learned it and who occupied them for 40 years 1905-1945.
For an awesome, detailed and scholarly explanation/analysis of this, I cannot recommend strongly enough "The Cleanest Race - How the North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters" by B.R. Meyers. The author has a PhD in North Korean Studies from the University of Tuebingen in Germany and is himself a University professor resident in South Korea for many years.
The Kim family has been able to pass inheritance of leadership due to the personality cult aspect of the regime, which of course with the Japanese and their God-Emperor ended post WWII with the Emperor not being executed for war crimes but being removed as the head of state as part of the surrender terms and in the interests of post war stability. Going on that historic model which proved successful, we should probably attempt something similar this time around. Much as Fat Boy richly deserves to have his plane shot down by the US Navy while returning from Singapore (apparently a major concern of his) in the long run I believe it would be counterproductive. Brainwashed as the Norks truly are, I think it's better to let them decide his fate, and they will.
The reunification of the Korean people is as inevitable as that of the Germans, the tricky part is when, and how. There's definitely a lot more potential for bloodshed with this one, the East Germans never though Erich Honecker was God, far from it. Hopefully that can be avoided here, but I do expect to see a lot of suicides post regime change, and not just on the part of top leadership types. If you read that book I recommend, you will understand why. Again, there is a parallel with the Japanese and the end of WWII, but the potential here is if anything, even uglier. Let's hope for the best.
North Korea is Communist. That is why China backed them. The problem is that Fascism and Communism are virtually the same once they take over Democracy.
DeleteCorrect, they are virtually the same. B.R. Meyers does a better job of explaining it than I did, but in the end, it's a bit of hairsplitting....
ReplyDeleteChina's interest is as much in North Korea being a buffer state as anything else.