6 ms·

Regardless of how unhappy Beijing may be with things Pyongyang does, North Korea is of such obvious strategic importance to China that they are unlikely to ever

• the_af 1y ago
  What's surprising about this? It's not dissimilar to how the US behaves towards their less than savory strategic allies (or, historically, towards dictatorships as long as they were US-aligned).
  • wrp 1y ago
    Not saying it should be surprising. Just trying to answer the question.
  • thisislife2 1y ago
    Exactly. It's the equivalent of something like western Five / Nine / Fourteen Eyes, that also share intelligence within the alliance.
• chasd00 1y ago
  Anything happens to North Korea and all those starving people flood into China. I think that’s why China supports North Korea.
  • moomoo11 1y ago
    How did they manage to brain control millions of people like that? I mean it’s so ludicrous to an outsider.
    • stogot 1y ago
      Less of brain control, and more like slaughter of anyone who disagrees or rolls their eyes. Read accounts of those who escaped
    • ryan-ca 1y ago
      Empiricism in the face of a totalitarian regime is difficult.
    • rtpg 1y ago
      In the initial era of the split between North and South Korea, South Korea both was run by a bunch of people who had a history of outright killing leftists, and the United States was involved in similar actions. The lack of serious offramps to reunification, along with not as huge a delta in quality of life between north and south for a long time (aid from other countries sure helps!), allowed the DPRK to establish itself as its own nation. Now there is the surveillance state apparatus allowing the DPRK to exist in its current form in perpetuity. And even if tomorrow they showed up and said "let's unify Korea", South Korea (even ignoring all the ideological reasons it might not want to) would likely be unwilling to absorb an extremely poor country and pay for it (see the painful experience of Germany's unification). There is probably no off ramp that exists unless people are willing to let the elite walk away clean from the situation in one way or another, and it seems hard to imagine such a future. And if you are a north korean elite and you are allowed to travel to northern china, you will see a place where things are running more smoothly, but you're still going to see places with massive amounts of internal controls and restrictions. So who's offering the upside to some regime change here?
      • brabel 1y ago
        > see the painful experience of Germany's unification I had thought that Germans from both sides were overwhelmingly supportive of re-unification, even if it would cause short-term pain??
        • jonasdegendt 1y ago
          It's my understanding there were plenty of USSR nostalgics in the east given how long it took for the free market to "trickle down" and the east to catch up economically. They never did catch up all the way anyway.
          • ViktorRay 1y ago
            Today the areas that were previous controlled by East Germany overwhelmingly vote for right wing parties though. I believe the AfD political party in Germany won significant support in those areas of Germany that were once behind the Iron Curtain.
    • doikor 1y ago
      For the first couple decades while it was ahead of South Korea economically (in large part due to support from China/USSR) it was not that bad but during that time the system of absolute control by the Kim family was setup and once it was up it is too late to really do anything due to how absolute/brutal the control is (you say anything wrong and you and your whole extended family end up in a prison/death camp) Basically people are willing to put up with a lot if their lives are getting better (economic growth). Problem with that is what kind of system of control an authoritarian government can setup in that period of growth.
    • madmaniak 1y ago
      It's funny to say that because we're living in a bubble too.
    • forgotoldacc 1y ago
      Nearly every authoritarian country starts with people promising good things. A lot also start with rebels fighting against a group that led a massacre. They're underdog groups with popular support. Then those underdogs take over. They become paranoid about the possibility of being killed themselves, so they repeat the massacres they fought against. A lot of people who supported the new regime think it's just a few remaining enemies being taken out. It won't happen to them. Then the government starts laying out methods to solidify their control. The list of things seen as traitorous and against national interests grows. It becomes a frog in a boiling pot situation. By the time people realize they might be a target, the system is too complicated and widespread to take down alone, and a new generation of youths have been raised knowing only the current system. And to those youths, things are stable. The most terrifying thing to people raised in stability is the idea of losing that stability. So keeping your head down and following the law is much better than absolutely anything else. And with the absolute control of information that NK has, a significant portion of people really don't even know a better world exists out there. And they're terrified of anyone that even talks about shaking things up.
      • immibis 1y ago
        Not limited to non-Western countries btw. We are also vulnerable.
      • Ray20 1y ago
        It looks like a liberal fantasy. The truth is that along the rivers that run on the border with China there are posts with machine gunners every 100 meters. Brainwashing is obviously nearly zero-effective, since they have to resort to machine guns.
  • bfg_9k 1y ago
    I mean, same could be said about South Korea. It would instantly drag their GDP per capita down by more than half, and that's not even counting how much money would need to be spent to re-develop NK.
    • djtango 1y ago
      Genuine question that I'm trying to learn about - the industrialisation of Japan and South Korea led to huge wealth creation and increases in quality of living. I know some of that is stagnating now and especially in South Korea things are difficult, but why isn't North Korea ever spoken of in those terms rather than always the GDP hit to South Korea?
    • alexey-salmin 1y ago
      If both counties sustain their current trajectories, in 50 years it will be NK re-populating and re-developing SK. And the "if" here is mainly about NK, chances of SK getting out of the death spiral are very thin.
      • the_af 1y ago
        I recently read/watched videos about the "population time bomb" in South Korea and how it's almost irreversible now. It really surprised me, it's one of those things that's hard to visualize. And it's not even long term!
        • wkat4242 1y ago
          They can always allow more immigration. National populations don't grow only by births.
          • the_af 1y ago
            Apparently, due to cultural, political and economical issues, South Korea cannot/won't do this. I suppose it theoretically could, but in practice it would mean it would cease to exist as it is now. Due to the scale of their population collapse, the influx of immigrants would have to be massive. Which country does that? It would completely overtake its native ethnic population... which unlike a country built on immigration like the US, is surprisingly homogeneous. I'm no expert, I encourage you to read on the matter. It apparently truly is something that cannot be stopped now. It surprised me as much as it (apparently) does you. By the way, countries that are better off, like the US, are largely helped by immigration indeed. Which is why anti-immigration policies would be like shooting themselves in the foot.
  • mytailorisrich 1y ago
    China did not, and still doesn't, want US troops at its border. That's why it originally intervened and why it supports North Korea. At the time there was also a further risk that the US might invade China.
    • wkat4242 1y ago
      That doesn't have to be the result of it. A more humane regime in NK doesn't mean reunification has to happen. And, part of the reason those US forces are in South Korea is the threat of the North. By threatening US involvement in case of an attack.
• energy123 1y ago
  China kept backing Khmer Rouge despite the millions dead and even invaded Vietnam to protect them. Amoral, self interested actor at best. There's nothing North Korea could do to their own people to change the support.
  • hetman 1y ago
    In fairness, the US kept indirectly funding the Khmer Rouge even after evidence of their atrocities came to light for their own strategic geopolitical reasons. The realpolitic of international relations very often follows the words of the British prime minister, Lord Palmerston: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
    • fluoridation 1y ago
      So there is a universe out there where the US would have supported/allied with Nazi Germany had it been convenient?
      • dboreham 1y ago
        Hardly difficult to imagine when you look at when WW2 began vs when the US became involved, and why.
      • arrosenberg 1y ago
        Sure. If Smedley Butler has been less disillusioned by his work history and successfully carried forward the business plot it’s pretty easy to imagine.
      • AngryData 1y ago
        I mean the US had no problems selling Nazi Germany arms at the start of the war. The US only really took a side after Germany told the US to stop also supplying war materials to their enemies, which Germany viewed as merely prolonging the war and deaths, and when the US ignored them because they were making too much money Germany stopped buying and doubled down on blockading material support to allies.