North Korea Part 4
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North Korea Part 4
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Scrooge McDuck  Send message Joined: 26 Nov 99 Posts: 681 Credit: 1,674,173 RAC: 54 
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While I fully agree with SciManStevs's detailed analysis on North Korea's [EDIT:]intentions and threats[/EDIT:], one party is missing, in my opinion: China! What is the Chinese interest in North Korea? Does China influence North Korea? Why do people in North Korea have to starve? The Communist East Germany (GDR) had the same function for the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The GDR served the Soviet Union as an outpost, bulwark and staging area against the West. But we were never isolated in the Communist bloc. We didn't know hunger. Why does China seem uninterested in incorporating North Korea into its economic space to make life easier for the average North Korean? China could at least force food deliveries to Kim's regime. Isn't China afraid of an eventual food riot in North Korea sweeping away the Kim regime? [EDIT:] starvation in North Korea: North Korea's climatic zone and geography do not allow for adequate agriculture for millions. It's far too mountainous for that, too dry, and very cold in winter. Just like in |
 SciManStev     Send message Joined: 20 Jun 99 Posts: 6652 Credit: 121,090,076 RAC: 0 
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While I fully agree with SciManStevs's detailed analysis on North Korea, one party is missing, in my opinion: China! What is the Chinese interest in North Korea? Does China influence North Korea? Why do people in North Korea have to starve? The Communist East Germany (GDR) had the same function for the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The GDR served the Soviet Union as an outpost, bulwark and staging area against the West. But we were never isolated in the Communist bloc. We didn't know hunger. Why does China seem uninterested in incorporating North Korea into its economic space to make life easier for the average North Korean? China could at least force food deliveries to Kim's regime. Isn't China afraid of an eventual food riot in North Korea sweeping away the Kim regime? That is a valid point. From my understanding, North Korea has also been a thorn in China's side. North Korea's missile tests, nuclear tests, and otherwise belligerent behavior have put a bad light on China's connection with North Korea. China has actively tried to distance themselves from North Korea, partly because of international pressure. It doesn't look good for China to constantly be supporting such a belligerent country. China needs trade, and inter-country connections. They are also eyeing Taiwan very closely, and watching what Russia is doing in Ukraine, and how the world responds. What happens with Russia and Ukraine will shape what happens throughout the world, and how China handles the Taiwan issue. To China, at this time, and other than China buying North Korean coal, North Korea is dead weight to China. Warning, addicted to SETI crunching! Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group. GPUUG Website |
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SciManStev Send message Joined: 20 Jun 99 Posts: 6652 Credit: 121,090,076 RAC: 0
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To elaborate on my earlier post. China usually has a large amount of influence on North Korea, but in recent years, that influence had little effect on North Korea's behavior. That didn't sit well with Xi. That could possibly be another reason why China is reluctant to help North Korea. Warning, addicted to SETI crunching! Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group. GPUUG Website |
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Scrooge McDuck Send message Joined: 26 Nov 99 Posts: 681 Credit: 1,674,173 RAC: 54
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Cuba is just off Florida. It's still sanctioned by the US, does not cooperate with the West or the US. It has neither ballistic missiles nor nuclear weapons to deter its "powerful, aggressive, and capitalist hereditary enemy" nearby. Cuba does not threaten neighboring countries in the Caribbean. Cubans have a much higher standard of living than, i.e. Haiti, much more personal freedoms than North Koreans. It's a popular travel destination for Europeans, Russians. Nowadays, no one would want to violently remove this quasi-communist regime. The dangers of spreading communism no longer exist. So North Korea exists solely as not to have to change its 70-year-old propaganda narratives.... 'the evil US'. On the other hand, compare Vietnam's transformation, its position in relation to the US, its current standard of living. Vietnam started from the same ideological antithesis after a long war against the West. North Korea's oversized military and defense industry needs the ongoing confrontation with the US. Its generals and apparatchiks want to keep jobs and influence. I don't think North Korean nomenklatura is wealthy or owns property in the West (the Kim family maybe, but not generals, apparatchiks) like Putin's gang. One might have expected that a head of state, Kim, who spent his youth in a private school in Switzerland, who knows life in Europe, would be willing to initiate change, as Mikhail Gorbachev, for example, did in the USSR given the economic situation in the late 1980s. But no... North Korea retains all hallmarks of Stalinism. The only hope: Such regimes can collapse very quickly caused by its inherent contradictions, which are only kept under the rug by force. Until then Kim's 'paradise for the working-class' remains a mystery, a tragedy for its 25 million inhabitants (or prisoners?). |
Gary Charpentier  Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30651 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32
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Kim is a religion. Not unlike the dark ages. You are born into Kim. You are taught Kim from infancy. You are taught Kim in school. Your adult life you work for Kim. If you goof you are punished Kim. You can't think any way but Kim. You must report any non-Kim thinking and you are tested to see that you do report. Kim is a religion of paranoia. |
Wiggo  Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 34763 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 
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Little well overfed Kim shows off his banned rockets to the PooTin's top brass. Kim Shows Banned Missiles to Russian Defense Chief. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un showed off his banned ballistic missiles to Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu on Wednesday in a sign of just how closely aligned the two countries are becoming. Delegations led by Shoigu, the first Russian defense minister to visit North Korea since the fall of the Soviet Union, and Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Li Hongzhong are in the country for Thursday's "Victory Day" celebrations, marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. China and Russia's predecessor, the Soviet Union, supported North Korea during the war. The three countries now "align over another very contemporary conflict—Russia's devastating invasion of Ukraine," per CNN.....But will it feed his starving people? I very much doubt that. |
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Wiggo Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 34763 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489
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I wonder how he'll pull this off when most of the population is starving. North Korea's Kim Jong Un rallies nation to address falling birth rates. |
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Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30651 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32
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I wonder how he'll pull this off when most of the population is starving. Prohibit contraception? Make the religious right wingnuts delirious all over the world. |
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Wiggo Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 34763 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489
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Little overly well fed Kim is playing with his rockets yet again. :-( North Korea launches possible ballistic missile: Japan's Defense Ministry. There are betting ways of getting the world's attention Kim, like feeding and looking after your starving downtrodden people is just an example. ;-) |
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Wiggo Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 34763 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489
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The little overfed Rocket Man has plans. Kim Jong Un announces his nuclear resolutions for 2024. Just another idiot that suffers delusions. |
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Wiggo Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 34763 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489
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The well overfed little rocket man is at it again this year. :-( North Korea launches a ballistic missile toward the sea in its first missile test this year. |
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Scrooge McDuck Send message Joined: 26 Nov 99 Posts: 681 Credit: 1,674,173 RAC: 54
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Images show North Korea sealing its border with China wrote: Focusing on satellite images, it shows authorities in North Korea constructing 482km (299 miles) of new fencing in the areas it investigated, and enhancing another 260km of fencing which was already in place. Along with the border infrastructure has come a more authoritarian enforcement of rules - including a shoot on sight order for border guards. One escapee, who spoke to her relative back home, said rice and wheat could no longer be smuggled into the country. "My [relative] said now people are more worried of starving to death than of dying of Covid-19," they said. |
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Wiggo Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 34763 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489
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Well Kim will need his starving peasants to produce arms and ammo won't he. Wartime footage, anger with Seoul, and a gift from Vladimir Putin: Is North Korea (actually) planning to go to war? Beyond firing artillery rounds into the sea and launching spy satellites, North Korea has been busy removing references and images of reunification with South Korea from its state-run websites, creating alarm among experts. |
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Scrooge McDuck Send message Joined: 26 Nov 99 Posts: 681 Credit: 1,674,173 RAC: 54
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Well Kim will need his starving peasants to produce arms and ammo won't he.I think the articles statements, Kim prepares for war, is totally wrong. On the contrary, Kim fears nothing more than a military conflict because his large but outdated military, like the Russian Forces in Ukraine, would quickly be destroyed. Yes, a nuclear power, anyway... The North's narrative of a desired reunification was pure propaganda since many decades. It was based on the assumption that North's society (Kim religion) is superior to that of the South and therefore they will be unified by the South joining (voluntary or forced). Even the best propaganda will become grotesque; unbelievable, if it deviates too far from the truth. Kim re-adjusts the propaganda and admits: reunification impossible; warmongering South became our evil enemy mislead by their puppet master: USA. It was the same in Germany after WWII. Until roughly the 1960s, communist propaganda preaches a reunification, of course under autocratic rule. In 1949 communists founded the East German Republic and they decreed a separate "national" anthem, different from the much older Republican anthem used (again) by the West German state. This novel East German state anthem (*1949) contained the verses: Auferstanden aus Ruinen ----> [Rising from the ruins] und der Zukunft zugewandt, ----> [and turned toward the future,] laß uns dir zum Guten dienen, ----> [Let us serve you for the common good,] Deutschland, einig Vaterland. --> [Germany, united Fatherland.] Alte Not gilt es zu zwingen, ----> [Old distress must be overcome] und wir zwingen sie vereint, --> [and we shall overcome it together] denn es muß uns doch gelingen, ----> [we shall surely succeed,] daß die Sonne schön wie nie ----> [that the sun, more beautifully than ever,] über Deutschland scheint. ----> [Shines over Germany] In 1970 the hymn text suddenly was abolished. It disappeared from official use. From school textbooks and everywhere else within less than two years. The state's "national" anthem no longer had a meaning. From then on, the Communists began to define an own East German nation, apart from the West German one. From then on there were either "citizens of the German Democratic Republic" (always in the full wording) or "citizens of the BRD" (always pronounced with this disrespectful abbreviation). There were no longer "Germans" or a "Germany" in the official language. It was the same in newspapers, TV, radio. It was the expected "language" in public, in schools, in the economy, in "companies, possessed by the people". Still today, more than 34 years later, the language in Eastern Germany is somehow "different", that is, some words, invented by communists still live on, many taken from Russian, toughtlessly said by the older generations. The younger ones will forget them. At some point the Kim religion will collapse: because of the rising mountains of lies and untruths. But Kim is not as stupid as Putin to risk his reign in a war. |
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