So far the Monday releases from WikiLeaks have been few in number (indeed less than 60 cables have been leaked since this morning), but they reveal a belief among South Korean diplomats that they will inevitably seize control over a collapsed North Korea within 2-3 years after the death of Kim Jong-il.
According to South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Chun Young-Woo, the Chinese government is also resigned to this fact and unnamed officials had told him they were ready to “face the new reality” of South Korean hegemony over a reunited Korean Peninsula.
Indeed, the Chinese officials were said to be keen on the idea, seeing North Korea as a growing liability and a united Korea as a potentially valuable trading partner. Their only apparent concern was for the US not to use Korean unity as an excuse to move its troops northward and along the Chinese border.
Indeed, Chun predicted that the only real sticking point for reunification would be Japan, who he said had a preference to see Korea divided. He dismissed this as a serious problem, however, saying Japan lacked the leverage to stop reunification.
Reunification is a bad idea, because it would upset the balance of power in the region. It is one thing when a pacifist Germany reunited, it is quite another when a militant South and North Korea reunite. There is no guarantee that a unified Korea will disarm or de-nuclearize, and it would boast one of the strongest military's in the world .
This source should be taken with a grain of salt, since it is South Korean, and the Chinese quoted may be double-talking, telling the South one thing, and the North another. The North will not collapse for a while at least.
So what exactly is a reunified Korea going to do? Launch a ground invasion of China with its 1.4 billion people? Launch an amphibious invasion of Japan? C,mon James..
A nuclear armed unified Korea does cause problems for China. The Chinese will still have to keep troops on their Korean border, keeping the PLA at least distracted from Taiwan/US issues. Likewise for Japan, a unified Korea causes problems for it. Do you know how many wars have been fought over the peninsula? Think about history my friend.
The USG does not want nor will it allow a unified Korea as it would create another nuclear power in the north western Pacific which the USG wants to dominate.
It also gives the U.S. even less reason to be in the Korean peninsula.
So how does that deal with the possibility that Sung wouldn't 'go Zionist' and use his nukes rather than face defeat? China going to 'nuke him back'?
Besides that the reverse might be what they're really after, a friendly little forward-looking red industrial giant across the Yalu. And the American 'presence' rebased to Japan. That would require a little 'war of aggression' started by the south.
One of the few instances where the political establishment is speaking the truth: North Korea IS bad news. It is absolutely insane. People have almost no food, and they are kept from starving in the millions only by food from South Korea, Japan and the U.S. Workers actually have to PAY their WORKPLACE, in the factories they are forced to work in, so that the managers will look the other way and let them go fishing or work in the marketplace trying to scrape up a few coins.
Some years back a small amount of private trade was allowed. This meant a lot to the peasants who could sell a bit of the rice they grew. As usual any private trade leads to more and better work, and minds being put to good use. But then some of the communist leaders got angry. They declared all the old money was void, and people had to get new money. They were only allowed to trade in a small sum of their old money for the new kind. People lost all they had worked for.
A peasant family can try to survive by growing some vegetables secretly and selling it in the town. The soldiers might let them in to the town for a bribe. But they might also take the bribe and the vegetables.
It goes on and on. The concentration camps occupy vast areas. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions, have been killed there. They are tortured in the camps just for the hell of it. You can be arrested for practically anything. Party bosses meanwhile ride high. They are the only ones with electricity 24/7, while most areas even in the cities have only a few hours of electricity a day.
Imagine that South Korea could have been like this, if the invasion had succeeded. Of course, North Koreans are told in school that it was they who were invaded. Anyone who would speak against this, such as veterans from the Korean War, would be sent to a concentration camp.
Funny thing: most Chinese are also told in school that it was the U.S. and South Korea that attacked in the Korean War. They are shown on maps how far north the U.S. reached before China attacked. The little detail about North Korea invading South Korea FIRST is not mentioned. Even with today's market economy in China, there is this kind of freaky stuff going on in the schools; they have to read about glorious Marx, but none of the students believe a word of it.
Even If I accept everything you say here, North Korea is NOT and NEVER has been any threat to the USA. And the 'saving' of South Korea in 1950 wasn't worth the loss in American blood. In any case we should have left about 20 years ago.