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> China would never get rid of such a powerful way to annoy everyone else. I've mentioned this in another comment, but you're severely underestimating the rea
by baron_harkonnen 5y ago
> China would never get rid of such a powerful way to annoy everyone else.
I've mentioned this in another comment, but you're severely underestimating the real relationship between North Korea and China. For the government, maybe it is only a strategic relationship, but if you talk to anyone who grew up in China there is a real feeling of kinship with the people that live in NK.
For a long time there has been a lot of cultural exchange between the nations and many Chinese near the border are indistinguishable culturally from North Koreans.
An attack on North Korea, even if a justifiable retaliation, would feel like an attack on the Chinese people for a great many everyday people in China.
The closest analog to the US would be Canada. Most American's, especially in the North, feel that Canadians are very culturally similar. Many people in far Northern states have friends and family in Canada. Overall the bond is much closer than with Mexico, which has more culture, ethnic and linguistic differences.
Imagine if Canada were ruled by a despot, who then irrationally launched a nuclear strike on another country. Even if American's were to feel that that was wrong, we would also still likely strongly defend Canadian people from aggressive retaliation. And this analogy is far from perfect, the sense I've gotten in conversations with Chinese about North Korea is that they're much closer.
- qeternity 5y ago> An attack on North Korea, even if a justifiable retaliation, would feel like an attack on the Chinese people for a great many everyday people in China. I lived in Beijing for a while and I can’t say I agree with this. For sure, China is an enormous country with much cultural surface area, so I could be wrong. But this does not strike me as an obvious conclusion.
- arcanon 5y agoThe Korean War: USA afraid of communisms spread. Sends MacArthur to Korea. He crushes the Korean communists. USA believes it to be a clean sweep. Mao surprise s USA with massive army encirclement of USA forces. USA forced to flee south and hold the line that became demarcation between north and south. There is a 0% chance China would allow the USA to take NK. They also love provoking Japan. Their entire origin story is about fighting against the Japanese in the 30s.
- stickfigure 5y agoI'm not entirely sure that lessons from 70 years ago are strictly applicable today. Sure, there is some memetic carryover, but all the people in charge then are dead now. If NK actually launches an attack on a "western" country, full war will begin. If China decides to get involved, that's really on them. I wish it were otherwise, but that's how it is.
- arcanon 5y agoHere is a movie from 2020 in China that did equivalent of $173 million in RMB: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacrifice_(2020_film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacrifice_(2020_film) It is not stale in their psyche.
- stickfigure 5y agoHere's a movie that grossed $482.3 million, and was the highest grossing film in the US that year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Private_Ryan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Private_Ryan Yet I don't think anyone here is interested in war with Germany.
- arcanon 5y agoGermany as portrayed doesnt exist anymore. The CCP and USA does. Also, have you noticed how in the US there arent really any “Saving Private Ryan”s about the Korean War?
- qeternity 5y ago> There is a 0% chance China would allow the USA to take NK. Agreed. This, however, was not the substance of my comment. The US would not tolerate an attack on Israel/Taiwan/others. That doesn’t mean that if China attacked Taiwan, the average American would feel like they had been attacked.
- arcanon 5y ago
- RC_ITR 5y agoEhhhh, maybe this is true but I think you’re overselling in the other direction. North Koreans don’t speak Mandarin, they would be loath to consider themselves as Han, they have a totally unique food culture, etc. I honestly think it’s closer to US / Taiwan style connection than what you claim. To go even further on the Han point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han#Historical_revisionism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han#His...
- dfsegoat 5y agoAnd China has a history of returning North Korean defectors to NK, where they await death by labor camp, etc: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/03/china-redoubling-crackdowns-fleeing-north-koreans# https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/03/china-redoubling-crackdo... I've seen this mentioned in a documentary about people fleeing North Korea via China and Thailand as well, and they need to hide themselves from the Chinese as much as they do the DPRK border guards.
- jchonphoenix 5y agoYou're way overselling this. This commentary is true maybe for the northern part of China close to the Korean peninsula. Southern China doesn't give a rats ass what happens to Korea.
- arcanon 5y agoNope. See Korean War.
- elefanten 5y agoI don’t think the delicate feelings of Chinese nationalists would hold much sway if NK struck someone. And they damn well shouldn’t.
- livindub 5y agoNot to mention the free worker slaves that NK provides for China and Russia.
- labster 5y agoAs an American, I’m absolutely sure the Canadians would greet us as liberators. They’ll finally be free to listen to great American musicians like Justin Beiber and Neil Young!
- temp8964 5y agoNo. Chinese people don’t have strong or any empathy towards North Koreans. Old generations (70+ years old) maybe, for young people this is laughable.
- Redoubts 5y ago> For a long time there has been a lot of cultural exchange between the nations Thats one way to call it...
- arcanon 5y agoHeh, NK exists because the CCP pushed the USA back from the Chosin reservoir.
- masteruvpuppetz 5y agoReplace Canada with Israel and your argument will be 100% believable.
- phtrivier 5y agoTo be clear : first, this is only a theory from a YouTuber I did not bother to provide it as a source, because I just found the theory entertaining, and at the same time more realistic than "we're permanently on the verge of ww3 because of a small country with nothing more than nuisance power" I tend to agree with you that a unilateral attack on NK would cause a terrible reaction from China ; the point of the PAA theory is that such an attack would never occur, until China, for some reason, has drop support to the NK régime ('Big countries dropping support on some protege' does not look like an impossible occurrence - I'm pretty sure there are précedents.) The NK situation is one of the many that will not be solved on a social network.