On Apr 30, 2012, at 10:02 AM, [email protected] wrote: > * What if the governments of China and North Korea both implode in the next > decade? > > Ernie, I cannot begin the guess. That would be a "game changer" like nothing > else > in geopolitics since some of the major crises the Cold War era. Or even > since the immediate post WWII era.
So why isn't anyone talking about that? It seems obvious that the current Chinese government is dependent on high growth to sustain their legitimacy, and that it is literally impossible to sustain that for more than a few years. This will surely lead to them cooking the books to delay the inevitable, which will make the correction even worse that it needs to be. What happens next? THAT is the $64 question for our economic and political future. Compared to that, Afghanistan is child's play. -- Ernie P. > > Billy > > ----------------------------- > > > > 4/30/2012 9:39:20 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] > writes: > A great point. We tend to live in the present. > > As a counterpoint to your very well-thought out future scenario, Billy: > > * What if the governments of China and North Korea both implode in the next > decade? > > Both seem inevitable; the only question is whether it will be gradual or > sudden. > > -- Ernie P. > > On Apr 30, 2012, at 9:31 AM, [email protected] wrote: > >> >> >> NY Times >> >> The Day After >> By BILL KELLER >> >> Published: April 29, 2012 >> >> THE one thing everyone knows about North Korea is that we know very little >> about North Korea, except that it is miserable, totalitarian, nuclear and >> erratic. It is the hermit kingdom, the dark side of the moon. >> >> But thanks to many thousands of refugees who have reached freedom by way of >> a long underground railroad through China, we know a lot more now about the >> grim reality. We understand better how the government sustains its dreadful >> power, and where that power could be faltering. Among people who follow the >> country closely, there is fresh discussion of whether this most durable of >> monster-states could be nearing its end days, and what we should do about it. >> >> In recent weeks the news spotlight has focused on the 29-year-old novice >> tyrant Kim Jong-un, performing his family’s time-tested repertoire of >> bellicose bluster. Like a lunatic waving an assault rifle as he dances on a >> high window ledge, Kim galvanizes our attention. >> >> But the more interesting story is down below. >> >> I’ve just read Blaine Harden’s “Escape from Camp 14,” the harrowing story of >> a young man’s flight from one of the slave labor camps where as many as >> 200,000 political unreliables — a category that includes not just those who >> run afoul of authority but their relatives for three generations — are sent >> to be starved, tortured and ultimately worked to death. The political camps >> are just part of a larger network of detention sites designed to crush any >> spark of free will. Harden’s story of Shin Dong-hyuk differs from the >> best previous refugee narratives — “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” by Kang >> Chol-hwan, Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy” — because Shin was in every >> sense a product of Camp 14. Born in captivity to a pair of inmates picked by >> camp commanders for a loveless bit of procreation, Shin grew up with no >> awareness of anything beyond the electrified fences. He is like the >> boy-narrator of Emma Donoghue’s novel “Room,” whose entire world is the >> backyard shed where he and his kidnapped mother are held captive. Except >> that the boy in “Room” knows love. >> >> Harden’s book, besides being a gripping story, unsparingly told, carries a >> freight of intelligence about this black hole of a country. It explains how >> the regime has endured longer than any of its bestial prototypes: longer >> than Hitler, longer than Stalin, longer than Mao, longer than Pol Pot. The >> tools are enforced isolation, debilitating fear, dehumanizing hunger and >> utter dependence on the state. By the time he was a teenager, Shin had >> watched a teacher beat a 6-year-old girl to death for hoarding five kernels >> of corn; worse, he had betrayed his own mother and brother, and had >> witnessed their public execution without remorse. >> >> Yet Shin, who is not exactly a master escape artist, manages to evade the >> state’s controls, and along his stumble to freedom he encounters many others >> who — not in words, certainly, but in practice — are defying the system. >> What strikes you is how the shackles of totalitarianism are being corroded >> by bribery, barter and black-marketeering, including a thriving cross-border >> trade with China. It’s still a crushingly oppressive regime, arbitrary and >> brutal. But more often than you would imagine, need trumps fear. >> >> Harden’s narrative is reinforced by more systematic studies. When David Hawk >> of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea researched the first >> edition of his camp exposé “The Hidden Gulag” in 2003, some 3,000 North >> Koreans had found asylum in the South, including several score of former >> political prisoners. When he returned for the second edition, just >> published, the pool of refugees was 23,000, and included hundreds who had >> endured detention. The updated report is a vivid chronicle of horrors, >> illustrated by crisp Google Earth photos that make the slave camps as >> palpable as suburban real estate on Zillow. >> >> And yet, Hawk told me, “The numbers who want reform and opening, and the >> numbers of people outside the state system, are growing.” >> >> Fifteen years ago, when many Korea scholars were predicting that — with the >> end of life support from the former Soviet Union — the Pyongyang regime >> could not survive, Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International >> Economics wrote a contrarian piece in Foreign Affairs explaining “Why North >> Korea Will Muddle Through.” He was right at the time, so he is worth >> listening to when he says that these days he suspects the regime is as >> fragile as it has ever been. Many of the most watchful experts agree. The >> obvious reason for doubt about the regime’s stability is the new leader, who >> seems even less qualified than his father and grandfather to manage his >> threadbare police state. His first attempt to prove his manhood by firing >> off a long-range rocket ended in an emasculating misfire. >> >> More important, Kim Jong-un inherits a system whose legitimacy, such as it >> ever was, is being rotted away from below. Korea-watchers have an expression >> to describe what seems to be happening, as a lawless commerce undermines >> central control. They say “the market is eating the state.” >> >> Along with food, clothing and tools, the border trade has brought the North >> Korean populace information about the world outside. North Korea has almost >> no Internet, but smuggled radios, TVs, DVDs and cellphones have become more >> common, circumventing the propaganda monopoly. >> >> “North Korea has not discussed the Arab Spring,” Noland told me. “But in the >> marketplaces, people were talking about Egypt.” >> >> >> Don’t expect a popular uprising of that kind in North Korea. There is no >> Twitter-equipped youth brigade, no Muslim Brotherhood. As one Korea hand >> told me, “People surviving on 800 calories a day literally don’t have the >> energy to confront the regime.” The more likely scenarios involve some kind >> of collapse, sparked by Borgia-style infighting, an army coup or a military >> exchange with one of the neighbors. >> If the regime is truly tottering, we may have been focused on the wrong >> questions about North Korea. >> >> The engagement camp asks: How can we lure them back to the table so that we >> can persuade them to disarm? I’m all for diplomacy, and would be overjoyed >> by a verifiable peace deal. But the North Korean leaders have established to >> all but the most wishful thinkers that they have no intention of shedding >> their weapons programs, and that they cannot be trusted to keep a bargain. >> >> The regime-change camp asks: Where can we squeeze to hasten the collapse? We >> can tighten sanctions aimed at the elite and amplify the honest information >> we broadcast to the populace. And let’s stop soft-pedaling the truth about >> the slave camps. But there’s no strangling the Kim regime without the help >> of China; and China has legitimate fears that a bursting North Korea would >> spill over its borders. >> >> The big question we should be asking is: What about the Day After? If the >> regime’s days are numbered, the end is likely to be messier than anything >> we’ve seen in the Arab Spring. Why aren’t we sitting down with the Chinese, >> South Koreans, Japanese and Russians and making a plan to prevent nuclear >> material from being sold to the Russian mafia or the Chinese triads; to keep >> some panicky general from incinerating Seoul (minutes away as the artillery >> shell flies); to dissuade China or Russia from sending in troops to take >> advantage; to prevent Nuremberg-minded prison commandants from bulldozing >> the evidence into mass graves; to fend off an even more monumental human >> calamity than the famine of the mid-90s? Then, how do we reunify Korea >> without bankrupting the South? These are the questions we and North Korea’s >> neighbors should be asking, together and urgently. >> >> Because when North Korea goes, the Day After is likely to last 20 years. >> >> >> -- >> Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community >> <[email protected]> >> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism >> Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
