Kim Jong Il has croaked

[kimba1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea

according to wiki n.korea was hardly self-sufficent. quite alot of foreign aid going on.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Kimba....just think what North Korea would look like in a decade if the new leader came out and said "we need to unite with South Korea and become one democratic country....we will encourage corporations and free market business.....we invite foreign investment....we will be democratic...we want to be like East Germany when they threw away what was not working and reunited with West Germany to become a economic powerhouse....our people deserve this after all their suffering....it is a new day for the North Korean People and they will be allowed to reach their destiny and full potential.".

[Xavier_Onassis]

Kimba....just think what North Korea would look like in a decade if the new leader came out and said "we need to unite with South Korea and become one democratic country.
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Where is Mikhail Gorbachov today? A professor at an American university? Do you seriously think that Kim Jong Un would have any place at all in either Korea after unification?  I don't see him as a visiting professor of Korean studies anywhere.

Where would all the NFL players be if their sport was replaced by rugby?

Where would all those DPRK generals think they would be in a new united Korea if this happened?

They all know what happened to Rumanian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian Russian sympathizers. 

I'd say that it is very unlikely that any of those who have power and status in the DPRK today would be all that eager to commit social suicide. It would be like you moving your business to Harlem in the interests of improving the lot of the people there.

[Plane]

Where would all the NFL players be if their sport was replaced by rugby?

Where would all those DPRK generals think they would be in a new united Korea if this happened?

     That hits the nail on the head.
     If Rugby replaced Football NFL players would learn the new rules and flourish because they are athletes and the skill is translatable.

       North Korean Economic professors , Generals , instructors of communistic theroy and Juche government  would mostly become taxi Drivers ,and I doubt thay would be the best taxi drivers in Korea either.

       A lot of the government of East Germany is still in the government business , but they had useable skill, do the people of the government of NKorea feel as if they could compete ?

[Xavier_Onassis]

A lot of the government of East Germany is still in the government business , but they had useable skill, do the people of the government of NKorea feel as if they could compete ?
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I really doubt that this is true. A huge number of East Germans in all parts of society worked for the Stasi, the secret police. After unification, the list of former Stasi was published. Most of them were simply given small pensions and retired, as no one would hire them. They have skills, perhaps, but those they have would be mostly  unusable in South Korea.

What I was saying is that there are a very limited number of professional sport players. The supply is always greater than the demand. The football players would not likely be hired to join the professional rugby teams and would not get the necessary training. There is only a short time during which anyone can play most pro sports.

The fact is that the Generals have it better than everyone in the DPRK, and if unification were to occur, they would lose status immediately, as as all the many atrocities perpetuated by the Kim government in which they collaborated became public, they would come to be loathed quite deeply by everyone. Something like this occurred in East Germany.

The West German politicians that supported unification mostly did not last beyond the next election afterwards. The same would  likely happen in Korea.

Imagine what would happen if the US were to merge with a Canada with 150 million people to the political class here and in Canada. New people would emerge to replace those who failed to adapt to the many changes.

As for the North Koreans doing this out of patriotism or charity, I really doubt this would happen.

I do think that Korea will be united someday, but it will cause radical changes and several years of disorder and chaos as well as politically, culturally and economically. It is almost a sure thing that most politicians on both sides will lose out unless they are very adept and clever (as were Yeltsin and Putin).

[kimba1]

hmm
not really workable, but if s.korea is willing to support the north for five years and create and extensive conversion program to make an top notch technocratic state . think of that part of the country devouted to pure unrestricted production from food to tech. sadly I doubt you can get that many low tech people to that level . my mom can barely use the phone. the cell phone is asking too much.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It would be a long and difficult process.

China almost certainly prefers to have a border with an impoverished DPRK rather than a prosperous free market unified Korea on its border.

[kimba1]

the thing is we only see s. koreans. we don`t know what n. koreans are like. we``re talking over 30 years here. they gotta be radically different people. technology is just one factor. what i linked already showed physical difference

[Christians4LessGvt]

Do you seriously think that Kim Jong Un.....

Do you seriously think I have any illusions that doing
the right thing for the people will happen in Commi North Korea?

[kimba1]

the varience would be similiar to isreali / palistinian .interestingly I would expect a greater physical difference from the isreali/palestinian but for some reason that didn`t happen.

[BSB]

The immediate question, I understand, is can this new leader consolidate power within North Korea, and what will happen if he can't? If he can't, a potential danger is who will have control of their nuclear weapons? The threat when these countries like North Korea, and Iran, get nukes, is one of the nukes getting on the black market as much as these countries having possession of them themselves.


BSB

[Xavier_Onassis]

If Kim Jong Il cannot manage, the Army will move in and take over and leave him as a figurehead. No one wants chaos, especially the Chinese. I don't see any real problem with the nukes.

[BSB]

Your response has a few assumptions in it, XO.

I'm not too sure that "the Army" is of one mind. Neither am I too sure China would have all that much control over an internal power struggle. And while you may not see any real problem with the nukes, there are people who's job it is too think about these things who aren't so reassured. 


BSB

[Xavier_Onassis]

I really doubt that there will be any immediate change in North Korea. I am not opposed to people thinking about nukes: that is their job. But I don't think there is more danger now than there was before Dear Leader kicked the bucket.

[Christians4LessGvt]

lots of bad guys...croaking, killed by Special Ops, getting cancer, or leaving power this year!