Though it has not been played up in the media in the absence of confirming its authenticity, an article appearing in the Internet recently stirred up ripples. Written by an anonymous person, the story is said to have rearranged a lecture given by a professor of politics at Beijing University, which plays the role of academic adviser to the Chinese government. Its gist is as follows.
“The North Korean regime cannot survive more than 10 years. If a pro-Chinese military faction grasps power following a collapse of the regime, China intends to incorporate North Korea into its military federation and eventually make it a subordinate state. The Northeast Asia Project now in progress is aimed at accumulating a historical basis for it…“
Hat tip: Duophony
China’s territorial ambitions have typically focused on areas that they have considered historically theirs viz. Tibet and Korea certainly falls into that category. China ruled Korea intermittently from abou 108 BC to about 313 AD. They’ve invaded the peninsula every so often since then.
What should be the U. S. position on this? How should the U. S. react? I can see several different options:
- We can oppose it since we don’t like expansionist countries (and we have historically supported the status quo).
- We can support it because nearly anything would be better than what’s going on there now.
- We can tacitly accept it because our trade relationship with the Middle Kingdom is too important to us to upset the applecart by opposing China’s desires on nearly anything.
- We can be indifferent to it because we don’t have a dog in that hunt.
I can see arguments for any of these positions.
For the PNM fans out there would this action accelerate or retard Korea’s integration into the Core? China’s? If you believe that it would accelerate either or both of these, can you formulate the applicable changes to the prevailing rule-set?
A small note: the territorial ambitions actually go both ways, with S. Korean policy recently being revealed as regarding the Gando Convention signed between China and Japan in 1909 to be null and void.
There is no way in hell that S. Korea would be pissing on the PRC’s leg like this unless they have reasonable confidence that when the inevitable escalation reaches the “don’t forget we’ve got nukes” phase, they’ll be able to pull some of their own out of their pockets.
I think the ROK is making the same mistake that Romania made in not regularizing its border with the USSR before Stalin did it for them in a secret protocol attached to the Molotov Ribbentrop treaty. It’s a very high stakes game over how N. Korea is absorbed into the Core.
I can’t imagine the US staying out of it as so much of world manufacturing is tied up in PRC factories these days. The ROK only has to ensure mutual commercial disruption for long enough to create a PRC economic collapse so there’s a scenario for it to win against the much larger PRC.
Eventually the rest of the Core is going to step in because of the chaos that a shooting war would provoke and either prevent it or quickl end it but it’s a lot more uncomfortable in NE Asia than most people think and aggression is multidirectional.
These are all points very well-taken, TM Lutas. I sometimes wonder, however, if the rest of the Core merely plans on holding our coat while we do whatever heavy lifting is to be done.
Chinese control over North Korea might not be such a bad thing, especially if it came with acknowledgement of South Korean independence. After all, China already has better nukes than North Korea. Plus China has to think twice about passing WMD to terrorists – it has too much to lose. Assuming responsibility for North Korea’s nukes subtracts an avenue of ‘plausible deniability’ for passing such to terrorists.
Of course one has to ask, and believe me the US would be, would the Chinese be satisfied with just the northern part of Korea over the long term?