I had recently made mention of China’s attempt to re-write Korean history as a pretext for intervention in North Korea and of how China is want to do such in places that it occupies such as Tibet but now it seems that the PRC is not above killing women and children or Chinese Government media claiming that armed Chinese soldiers “defended” themselves against what must have been very dangerous women and children who were trying to flee Tibet attacked the Chinese soldiers (video footage here).
What should Koreans expect of a government that would wantonly kill civilians and then lie and try to cover it up? Perhaps Korea needs to worry more about what happens after nuclear testing ceases to become an issue and they have such a neighboring country on their northern border.
21 Comments
Motherf…
I’d really like to know if it is Chinese policy to kill these people, or it’s the case of sadistic soldiers doing it because they know they will get away with it. Either way, the Chinese governement obviously has a policy of covering up such murders.
Watch what happens in Korea when a pedestrian gets hit by a car (as long as it’s not a foreigner’s car). Watch in Korea how the drivers will yield right-of-way to a tow truck but not to an ambulance. North Korean defectors tell their death camp stories predominantly to foreign reporters because the South Koreans really don’t care.
Obliviousness to human pain and suffering is not a unique Chinese trait.
Mark,
Couldn’t agree more. 6 South Korean sailors die at the hands of the North Koreans not so long ago and today everyone has forgotton. Millions have died at the hands of the North Korean government since the end of the war. Mao killed millions and upon millions yet his picture still hangs in China. Life is cheap and dictators get away with murder in Asia it seems.
“Mao killed millions and upon millions yet his picture still hangs in China. Life is cheap and dictators get away with murder in Asia it seems.”
It’s not strictly an Asian thing. For example, Native Americans could say the same about the American presidents.
SomeguyinKorea,
Of course you are right.
Oh, please. It’s not that simple. Custer got his orders from President Grant.
The government wanted the Indians to be moved from the Black Hills because gold had been found there. The US government issued an order that all natives would have to move by a set date, or be considered hostile.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/g.....uster.html
Read up on the Indian Removal Act of 1830, while you’re at it.
Some of you guys are off topic and miss the point of the thread almost entirely.
China has attempted to re-write the history of Tibet as as to justify its aggression and occupation of that country — not to mention this killing of unarmed civilians or other such events that have undoubtedly occured before now. Now China is seeking to selectively re-write Korean history and flood areas of land that contain Kogureyo artifacts — artifacts that clearly refute China’s historical revisionism, thus one should be concerned, especially if they are Korean.
And so how would China’s annexation of North Korea be any worse than the situation there now? Seems to me it’d be a step up, seeing as the KJI regime shoots people for trying to leave all the time. At least China has an economy to speak of.
And to think the Roh government wants closer ties to China at the expense of ties with the U.S., how f*cking stupid can you get?
Zonath–China’s annexation of North Korea could involve a whole new round of purges, so it could certainly get worse, although one would hope some of KJI’s cronies would get a bullet in the head during the transition for outliving their usefulness.
It seems the Marmot is big on censoring so my response is even more difficult. Grant did not order Custer to kill women and children. My posting was satirical and I was of the mind that this was a place a soul could express oneself as such. Oh well my point is Cambodia does not have statues of Pol pot nor murals of Hitler in Germany. China still thinks Mao was the cats pajamas, even though he exterminated them too.
Annexation by China would be a distinct step up for North Korea — and the North Koreans’ status as second-hand citizens in the country which gobbled them up will be easier to take when there is no consanguinity between masters and servants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL0itMps9XY
I uploaded this to YouTube, it will get a much wider audience there, I hope. It pisses me off how this stuff is always streamed with no way of saving it. That is the surest way for it to be forgotten. So, if anyone wants to download the video to keep it on their computer, the link to download it is here
So, we seem to agree that North Korea conducted the test for the affects it will have on its internal politics, to stave off the threat of a Chinese invasion, and to cause a rift between SK, Japan, and the US.
This is true, but on the other hand, who else really has the ability to do much about a collapse of the Kim regime? South Korea certainly has a potential stake there, but I really question whether, once the chips were down, South Korea would be willing to ruin their economy in order to absorb North Korea. Just about the best they could do would be to close off North Korea completely for years (if not decades) while trying to disarm the remaining North Korean military and pump untold amounts of resources up North to keep people from starving and hopefully make things better. Sure, the IMF and other countries might try to help through making loans and the like, but that’s a heck of a lot of debt to take on.
China, on the other hand, has a much larger economy (which is spread out amongst many more people), so wouldn’t take quite as much of a hit by absorbing (or propping up) North Korea. They could even claim that they’re ‘reunifying’ Korea (or rather, Goguryo), by merging North Korea with Gando.
But Brendon, Koreans are one of 56 official nationalities in the PRC. The North Korean Autonomous Province will be allowed to send delegates to the National People’s Congress, provided they dress up in hanbok as only Han Chinese are allowed to wear modern clothes to the grand annual puppet show known as the NPCC.
‘being oblivious to human pain and suffering is not unique to the chinese.’ mark in reference to koreans
‘hundreds of thousands of iraqis dead as a result of bush war.’ headline
‘those reports about hundreds of thousands dead is biased and wrong!’ expat who claims to care about human suffering
Someguy, your point that dictators don’t just get away with murder in Asia is, of course, valid. Native Americans could also have said the same thing, with far more accuracy, about Moctezuma, and the Aztecs and Maya in general. Your question in post #1 is quite pertinent. It may not mean much to the victims, but a government that has not clearly enunciated a policy of extermination can open itself to internal and external pressure to discourage de facto massacres.
“It may not mean much to the victims, but a government that has not clearly enunciated a policy of extermination can open itself to internal and external pressure to discourage de facto massacres.”
Yes, but China has often ignored criticism of its policies in Tibet. The few times it hasn’t, it did so to lash out at the West, accusing us hypocrisy. Besides, China has been caught in its lies before.
In all likelihood, it will conduct a cursory investigation to defuse the situation…it might even arrest a few of the soldiers involved, charging them of disobeying orders to save face. But, I seriously doubt that the publication of the video will have long-lasting affects on Chinese policy–well, other than preventing foreigners from entering the region.
I don’t know if China wants the hassle of the Norks, just the real estate.
“Re-writing Kogureyo History”? Does Kogureyo even have a written history? Is not most of what is written about Kogureyo pure fantasy, a product of conjecture about a dead civilzation?
Nope “shakuhachi”, there are artifacts, there is a history (not KBS history).
It is the only the interpretation of that history that is questionable, especially if such a history is used to justify actions that are otherwise unjustified.