North Korea - what the hell is happening?

[Richard Barrett]

I sometimes get the sneaky feeling that China's reason for backing its neighbour - apart from the historical ones - is that the one party apparatchiks have half a mind on thinking that were the capitalist road to collapse, the N Korea model might prove a necessary reversion model.

I wouldn't think of China's support fo DPRK in that way.

Here is a thorough and interesting recent article entitled "The Mindset of North Korean Elites" which might answer a lot of the questions posed on this thread about the nature and structure of North Korean society; and here, from the same online journal, is a concise account of relations between China, DPRK and the USA - opening with the contradictions we're now seeing unfold:

China’s influence on North Korea’s nuclear policy is minimal. The DPRK knows that the PRC values North Korea both as a buffer and as a profitable hinterland for cheap labor and raw materials that it is completely unwilling to cede to South Korea. Therefore, the PRC will not push the DPRK to the wall about its nukes.

It is understood both by the United States and the DPRK that, absent a regime implosion countenanced by the PRC, North Korea will never discard its nuclear weapons arsenal, given the negative examples of Iraq (no nukes) and, under the Obama administration, Libya (denuclearized completely in accordance with US demands but subjected to US backed regime change anyway).

However, beyond the genuine security risks of a nuclear North Korea and the theoretical US commitment to nuclear non-proliferation (the somewhat shaky basis for President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize) there are pressing and compelling geostrategic reasons why the United States finds it virtually impossible to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons power.

The author thinks it's within the US government's capability to negotiate the DPRK into abandoning its nuclear weapons, and China into acquiescing in this process, by offering some kind of meaningful concession to China, but points out that recent US actions in the area, by "exacerbating Chinese hostility", seem most likely to have exactly the opposite effect. So much for the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Resurrection Man]

.....
Here is a thorough and interesting recent article entitled "The Mindset of North Korean Elites" .....

Interesting in as much as reading the Guardian and hoping for an unbiased viewpoint free of leftwing cant.

[eighthobstruction]

http://jetsnation.ca/uploads/Image/Boring.jpg

....

[ahinton]

Interesting in as much as reading the Guardian and hoping for an unbiased viewpoint free of leftwing cant.

True to form, of course, you give no idea either as to why you would not expect such an unbiased viewpoint from The Guardian or what you feel does not come up to scratch in the article to which Richard Barrett provided the link; whilst I'm not especially interested in your view on the quality of The Guardian's journalism (not least because it isn't the subject under discussion here), it might have been helpful had you provided at least some clues as to what you find lacking in interest, accuracy or whatever else in the article concerned, although I have no idea whether you will oblige with that.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

interestingly none of the links above is to the Graun but this one is concise, intelligent analysis of a non ideological slant exactly what those of us who read it expect of the Graun

[Richard Barrett]

Interesting in as much as reading the Guardian and hoping for an unbiased viewpoint free of leftwing cant.

I'm sorry, I was assuming that members interested in this thread would be willing to use their intelligence to separate the factual content of the article from the opinions expressed therein. Not in all cases it seems. :erm:

[Resurrection Man]

I'm sorry, I was assuming that members interested in this thread would be willing to use their intelligence to separate the factual content of the article from the opinions expressed therein. Not in all cases it seems. :erm:

I suggest that you look up the words that you used, such as 'concise', in a dictionary. The whole tenor of your post suggests that this article should be read like the tablets of Moses. It would appear that you object to someone posing an alternative viewpoint.

[Richard Barrett]

I suggest that you look up the words that you used, such as 'concise', in a dictionary. The whole tenor of your post suggests that this article should be read like the tablets of Moses. It would appear that you object to someone posing an alternative viewpoint.

:yawn:

[ahinton]

I suggest that you look up the words that you used, such as 'concise', in a dictionary. The whole tenor of your post suggests that this article should be read like the tablets of Moses. It would appear that you object to someone posing an alternative viewpoint.

I suggest that you back off if this is the best up with which you can come. Firstly, I'm quite sure that you know well that RB knows the meaning of "concise" and all the other words that he used in his post. Secondly,the tenor of his post suggests nothing of the kind that you claim that it does. Lastly, it would hardly appear that he'd likely object to anyone pos(t?)ing an alternative viewpoint when it's clear that you haven't even been bothered to provide any viewpoint yourself.

This is getting exceedingly tiresome. RB and others take the trouble to research, provide links and discuss the subject seriously; all that you seem interested in doing is being rude. That's your prerogative, of course, but I feel sure that it would be better appreciated if you did so elsewhere.

Thank you.

[Richard Barrett]

interestingly none of the links above is to the Graun but this one is concise, intelligent analysis of a non ideological slant exactly what those of us who read it expect of the Graun

Indeed.

While I'm here: I just looked over the post I made with the two Counterpunch links in it and I see nothing that would make me think that the "whole tenor" of it "suggests that this article should be read like the tablets of Moses". I wonder why Resurrection Man had that impression. I described the second article as "concise" because, at less than 800 words, it is concise unless you're comparing it to a tabloid horoscope entry. (The other article is a more extensive 6000 words or so.) Also he replies that it would appear that I "object to someone posing an alternative viewpoint", but actually gives no alternative viewpoint. I encountered this very same sort of "reasoning" on the Thatcher funeral thread. Are Resurrection Man and An_Inspector_Calls the same person? Just wondering.

Anyway, Timothy Mo's Guardian article and Lee's and Leupp's in Counterpunch agree and disagree in some interesting ways. In particular the former seems to estimate the degree of China's control over DPRK as a lot higher, and to place the epicentre of the whole affair in an oilfield dispute between China and Japan. It would of course be interesting to hear an "alternative" view from an author who knows as much about the area as Timothy Mo, Peter Lee and Gary Leupp. I imagine though that what Resurrection Man means by "alternative" is "pro-American", although I wouldn't think any of the participants in this complex tangle of manoeuvring and posturing comes out of it with any credit.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

for me the key point is that N Korea is part of a very complex evolution of strategic interests and obligations; and that its apparently psychotic menacing of S Korea, the USA, and by implication, Japan, should not be seen as a form of pathology entirely of its own making ....and that the threat of a nuclear arms race in the region is real and growing ... Mo's comments on Japan's readiness in this regard are chilling ; and the prospect of miscalculation and /or accident even more so ... the military confrontations between China and Japan are as serious as N Korea's threats though less well reported ..

[ahinton]

Indeed.

While I'm here: I just looked over the post I made with the two Counterpunch links in it and I see nothing that would make me think that the "whole tenor" of it "suggests that this article should be read like the tablets of Moses". I wonder why Resurrection Man had that impression. I described the second article as "concise" because, at less than 800 words, it is concise unless you're comparing it to a tabloid horoscope entry. (The other article is a more extensive 6000 words or so.) Also he replies that it would appear that I "object to someone posing an alternative viewpoint", but actually gives no alternative viewpoint. I encountered this very same sort of "reasoning" on the Thatcher funeral thread. Are Resurrection Man and An_Inspector_Calls the same person? Just wondering.

Anyway, Timothy Mo's Guardian article and Lee's and Leupp's in Counterpunch agree and disagree in some interesting ways. In particular the former seems to estimate the degree of China's control over DPRK as a lot higher, and to place the epicentre of the whole affair in an oilfield dispute between China and Japan. It would of course be interesting to hear an "alternative" view from an author who knows as much about the area as Timothy Mo, Peter Lee and Gary Leupp. I imagine though that what Resurrection Man means by "alternative" is "pro-American", although I wouldn't think any of the participants in this complex tangle of manoeuvring and posturing comes out of it with any credit.

Very well said. There really seems to me to be no point in trying to reason with some contributors here, but don't let that discourage you from providing interesting information for the rest of us (as indeed I feel sure that you won't!)...

[Simon]

...what you feel does not come up to scratch in the article to which Richard Barrett provided the link; [...] it might have been helpful had you provided at least some clues as to what you find lacking in interest, accuracy or whatever else in the article concerned, although I have no idea whether you will oblige with that.

I will, if I may.

Firstly, Leupp himself is notorious for his views even at Tufts. To his credit, he doesn't try to hide them, but he's one of the last people that many people would go to for an unbiased political opinion!

Secondly, the organ in which this report is placed is of the same order - very leftist, highly supportive of ACLU and all their works, neo-lib, quasi-anarchist... Which, of course, is why Leupp's article is there.

Now, it doesn't surprise me that RB would link to such a page, and I expect there are a couple on here who will swallow it all. But it really isn't very courteous, in my opinion, to expect most of us to be fooled by such stuff. There are far better-argued and more perceptive texts about North Korea than this, if you look for them!

[Resurrection Man]

....

Thank you.

That's quite alright. Think nothing of it.

Do you speak for everyone?

Must remember to stick you back on Ignore.

I do loathe self-appointed 'prefects'.

[ahinton]

Do you speak for everyone?

No. Never have done. Some people here give quite a good impression of doing so, but they do not include me.

Must remember to stick you back on Ignore.

Sorry to hear that your memory appears to be letting you down; would you like me periodically to remind you to do this, just in case it happens to you again?

I do loathe self-appointed 'prefects'.

As do I. Sorry to disappoint you (as no doubt I am doing) by agreeing with you on at least one matter but, in case of any doubt on your part, I seek to speak only for myself. You should try it sometime.