In town for an Uri Party-sponsored symposium, former U.S. special envoy to North Korea Charles Pritchard dropped this bomb:
He also said that while most people expected the two Koreas to reunify if the North collapsed, it was more likely North Korea would be absorbed by China. Pritchard said that since North Korea already depends on China for much of its fuel and life necessities, the process of absorption could be quite smooth and natural.
This is all academic, of course, because the Chinese ambassador to Seoul told the JoongAng Ilbo that North Korea won’t collapse anytime soon.
17 Comments
“…the process of absorption could be quite smooth and natural.”
Right, sort of like the “absorbtion” of the Baltic States, East Prussia, and eastern Poland by Russia.
Any nominations for what the Chinese might call it? New Balhae? New Koguryo? New Manchuko?
Let’s for argument’s sake, that that will happen as China absorb North Korea. Do you think Marmot, that China will inherit North Korea, and develop it as one of their provinces, like Gaungdong? Or will China throw North Koreans bones while keeping it poor and dependent, making sure they don’t compete with China and/or reuniting with S.Korea? I can see the pridicament of China, if they allow foreign investment and development of N.Korea and N.Korea becomes a direct competition for China, leading to a growing voice of nationalism against China’s occupation as prosperity grows…. or…. letting NK continue to starve, leading to NK discontent and protests from S.Korea? If you were China, and you just absorbed NK, which way would you go?
Marmot, Was the Korean version of the article any longer or more detailed? Any idea where anyone can get more details (even in Korean) than the very brief story we both read?
more talk about chinese as boogeymen. i’m begginning to think these are minions of bushco trying to scare the south into supporting it’s policies.
Pritchard, alert and informed readers will know, is a rather sharp critic of Bush’s approach who quit his job in disagreement over the policy with North Korea.
Arguably, there are cloven-hoofed animals, smarter rodent species and even manga characters who wouldn’t do any worse of a job of running northern Korea than the Kim Family Clan. 22 million hungry, abused and forgotten people could do far worse (hell they ARE doing far worse) than being run by China — not that I support a Chinese putsch that goes beyond deposing the Kims.
kimbob - I can answer you. China will do what it did (and continues to do) to Inner Mongolia, East Turkestan (Xinjiang), and Tibet - move millions of Chinese into the land and let them crowd out the native people. Then North Korea will become “ancestral Chinese homelands” … oh wait, China already says North Korea is its ancestral homelands!
China just has to claim it is helping North Korea for a few years while it moves Chinese in. Tibetans, Mongolians, and Turkomen are minorities in their own homelands today, by the way. Everytime I ask Chinese about this situation they say, “There are a few unhappy Tibetans, but China is trying to help them… these areas are richer now! And they get to have 2 children too! See, China is being so nice to them.”
thx1138 hit the nail on the head. China has 1.3 Billion people. It won’t be difficult to move 30 million or so to North Korea with economic incentives and extras like having 2 kids and their education paid for. It might take only a decade for Chinese to become the majority in North Korea and once that happens China will NEVER give the land back.
Thanks “thx1138″, I didn’t think of that obvious one!
Great observance and a very good point. I might want to add, they might move out the North Koreans or let nature take over (in this case, overwhelming in numbers, Chinese genes). There will be some who will say it’s Chinese are bogeyman syndrome. But just look at the records where China took over. The results have been the same.
Tibet and Xinjiang might be better comparisons, and the absorbtion strategy is slowly working there. But actually, I’m with (gasp!) nulji on this one; the North Koreans might fight back.
I wouldn’t be surprised if North Korea is absorbed by China, considering the stupid policies the South Korean government is currently following. If the South continues to be negligent and lacks interest in unification as it does then it is possible, but my belief is that the Koreans won’t stand idlely by as invaders march in. Not to mention, the world would condemn such an action in my opinion. The world wants to see another unification as in Germany.
I’ll bet that the Chinese government has contingency plans that elaborate how China would absorb North Korea if it felt that it needed to (such as keeping the U.S. at a geographical distance).
I doubt that China would simply invade. It might be ‘asked’ by a collapsing North Korea to ‘assist’ in stabilizing the country, then never leave. Something like the Syrians in Lebanon. It could ensure its control long term in some of the ways noted — such as offering jobs in other parts of China to North Koreans and moving Han Chinese into North Korean territory (something that I pointed out to the students in my history course last semester).
The initial cost even of entering because ‘requested’ would be high in terms of international relations, but that would pass fairly soon. Longer term would be the tensions here in Northeast Asia. South Koreans would be furious, Russia would be extremely nervous about losing some of its own territory, and Japan would worry about China’s military dominance in the region (which they’re already worrying about anyway).
The United States, of course, would object, but what they would do depends, in part, on relations with South Korea.
I suggest that it would be prudent for South Korea, Japan, and Russia to reach a mutual understanding now on a unified reaction if such a situation should arise in the future, and the understanding should be just vocal enough for China to ‘overhear’ it soon without loss of face.
Continuing a healthy alliance with the United States would probably also be in South Korea’s interests, it seems to me (though the Koreans would always have to worry about being asked to send troops to show its commitment to the Korean-American alliance).
One advantage of the Sunshine Policy was that it held out the possibility of making North Korea dependent upon the South, and any lessening of the North’s dependence upon China would be better for the Korean peninsula.
Jeffery Hodges
i agree with everything you said, jeffery.
these are not my original ideas as they’ve been posed to me before when the topic has come up but it’s worth asking to this crowd here: would china really want a million starved, depressed, brainwashed people on its hands with a dissolved NK rule? (ok, so maybe they would take the brainwashed but what about the others?)
secondly, how realistic is this? do you really think South Korea and the USA would just let China simply absorb North Korea without putting up a fight? even though the South seems to want to delay any reunification (and for good reason in my opinion), if the circumstances drove a sudden reunification, i doubt it SK would just let china take over. heads would surely roll…
and thirdly, if the North collapsed, wouldn’t China be more concerned about border issues as there are some areas which are sort of gray-zone in that regards?
i don’t see an NK collapse being so smooth for any side: china, south korea, russia or japan. in fact, should such an event happen, there most likely will be casaulties…
As one Korean commentator noted in the Korean article, this is a possibility we all knew. I look at Pritchard’s comment in the same vain that I looked at South Korea’s “accidental” admission of questionable nuclear research. In the latter case, No Moo Hyun seems to be warning US that if Bush doesn’t follow the No regiment there will be serious nuclear proliferation. In the former case, Bush seems to be warning No Moo Hyun that US may not back South Korea should China annex North Korea–if that is, No Moo Hyun does not follow the Bush regiment.
And round and round we go…
What do you mean, “the world would condemn?” This American would privately thank the Chinese for taking the problem off our hands, while publicly expressing “regret” — and urging our government not to do a single thing about it.
I think the whole ideology of North Korea is based on independence and racial purity, and because of that the North Koreans would resist.
?????????????????????????!!!
‘i would privately thank the chinese…’ mycroft
you’re the same person who talks about democracy in iraq, aren’t you? talk of freedom from folks like you just subterfuge, no. sickening.
nulji: I’m all for an improvement in the lot of people, generally. I don’t see how a Chinese occupation can be worse for the people of North Korea than their current government.