5 ms·

Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either. Koreans have shown already that they sometimes still think of themselves as on

by speeder 14y ago

Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either. Koreans have shown already that they sometimes still think of themselves as one people, with north and south koreans being friendly toward each other and wanting a reunion of the country (the way of the reunion that is the disagreement). North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world. South Korea also has a huge army. Also both of them have huge amounts of military equipment. And finally, Korea in general (both from north and south) and very belligerant, or was at least, in the past, Korea history is filled with wars that they caused, and crazy conquest attempts. Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship. The united Koreas, maybe will just awesomely advance the world technology... Or maybe they will start another crazy war and attempt to conquer Japan or China. There are several countries that don't want to risk the second option, and thus every time one Korea is losing advantage in the stalemate, that Korea gets some sort of clandestine or official help, in a way to force the stalemate to continue, and the biggest army of the world divided in half and turned into itself. I am not saying I agree or condone that, but this is how it works.

guard-of-terra 14y ago
I think South Koreans don't want the united Korea either (not on the words but in practice). It will pose a huge burden of organizing and assimilating a huge and a very strange country. Regular North Koreans will be eager to join but then they won't be so happy in fifteen years seeing how their life quality won't nearly match the "historical south" and only jobs available to most of them will be of low prestige and pay.
- gosukiwi 14y ago
  South Koreans just want to keep playing Starcraft and League of Legends.
  - guard-of-terra 14y ago
    I can't blame them for that. I'm sitting on the couch in a warm room with new year tree and 47" TV right now and I certainly won't want to go outside in the snow and cold to fix the agriculture or restore the order of some remote and unhospitable land. Also won't want to have my lifestyle degrade because my country suddently have 20 million unproductive mouths to feed.
- silencio 14y ago
  South Korea has already sunk billions of dollars into trying to help the people of the DPRK without even considering unification, and is promising even more than that in exchange for certain concessions from the government. There are still many families that have yet to be reunited with each other across the border, including parts of my extended family. The Korean War hasn't ended so long ago that there aren't still plenty of people that remember what it was like before this split, or even back to WW2 and earlier. Nobody is saying unification will be easy for anyone, but they're family members. They were friends. They were neighbors. They are not strangers just because the burden is a lot to shoulder. Not to mention it's not South Korea blocking the development of North Korean workers at the moment.. there have been attempts to work together (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region) but between the batshit crazy government up north and everyone else scared shitless of what they can do it's not possible to manufacture and import/export a lot of technology instead of just mass-manufacturing clothing with cheap labor. Pretty frustrating.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Part of what makes the "wait it out" solution particularly troublesome is that as generations pass, the "hey're family members. They were friends. They were neighbors. They are not strangers" thing will gradually become less and less true. Right now there are families in which people who were once together are now divided, but those generations are rapidly aging. How many generations can these two groups of people be relatively isolated before those bonds start to falter?
fatbird 14y ago
I agree in general with what you write here, with a big caveat: Korea is at the cross-roads between China and Japan, and throughout their history have been the battlefield between those two. Most recently, Korea suffered under a long and incredibly oppressive Japanese occupation up to the end of WW2. While Koreans are militarily ahem enthusiastic, it's not that Korea is the crazy man of Asia, prone to belligerence and expansionism. There's a long history there and a lot of justified anger on the part of Korea towards her neighbours.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  > it's not that Korea is the crazy man of Asia, prone to belligerence and expansionism. As a Korean-American, I'd say that's accurate, but it would be more accurate without the phrase after the comma and without the negative in the part before the comma.
stdbrouw 14y ago
> North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world. It's big, but not quite biggest according to Wikipedia. Or are you using a more specific definition of "standing army" than the amount of active servicemen? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_... (Just a nitpick though, I appreciate your input.)
cabalamat 14y ago
> Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either. This might be true of China and Japan -- though I'm not sure I'd call them Western -- but I doubt if any European country would be the least bit bothered.
doktrin 14y ago
Your entire post feels very ill-informed. > Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either. Name one. > North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world. No, it doesn't. The US, China and (India, IIRC) all have larger standing armies. > Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship. This is a poor and complex example. Several quite Japan-specific cultural issues are at play here. It's also not as welcoming to non-Korean foreigners as you seem to imply. > The united Koreas... maybe they will start another crazy war and attempt to conquer Japan or China. This is ridiculous. > ...every time one Korea is losing advantage in the stalemate, that Korea gets some sort of clandestine or official help, in a way to force the stalemate to continue, and the biggest army of the world divided in half and turned into itself. Aside from the factual inaccuracies ("biggest army of the world"), this feels like a half cooked conspiracy theory. Do you have any evidence whatsoever?
- jonmrodriguez 14y ago
  It looks like he got the "biggest standing army" from Active military + Reserve military + Paramilitary. Just sort descending by the "Total" column: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
  - Volpe 14y ago
    It's still a misleading stat, The North Korean stats are essentially a "Total War" stat (as that reservist number is the ~ number of Males). To suggest that any countries are scared of another's simply by it's population is ridiculous. Let alone suggesting that "The West"s combined forces would be intimidated by that... "Human Wave" [1] Tactics didn't work very effectively in the Korean war, they would work even less in a modern combat theater. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack
    - jeltz 14y ago
      > "Human Wave" [1] Tactics didn't work very effectively in the Korean war, they would work even less in a modern combat theater. The Chinese were quite successful in the Korean war. But yeah I do not think those tactics would work today.
ekianjo 14y ago
> Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship. Almost ALL Foreigners living in Japan rarely get citizenship in Japan. Havent you been told ? Your example means NOTHING. As for the crazy conquest/wars started by the Koreans, feel free to substantiate, please. And let me laugh at the idea of Korean conquering Japan/China. Where in the world can they even dream to do so ? You seriously have no idea what you are talking about.

by speeder 14y ago

guard-of-terra 14y ago

I think South Koreans don't want the united Korea either (not on the words but in practice). It will pose a huge burden of organizing and assimilating a huge and a very strange country. Regular North Koreans will be eager to join but then they won't be so happy in fifteen years seeing how their life quality won't nearly match the "historical south" and only jobs available to most of them will be of low prestige and pay.

gosukiwi 14y ago
South Koreans just want to keep playing Starcraft and League of Legends.
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  I can't blame them for that. I'm sitting on the couch in a warm room with new year tree and 47" TV right now and I certainly won't want to go outside in the snow and cold to fix the agriculture or restore the order of some remote and unhospitable land. Also won't want to have my lifestyle degrade because my country suddently have 20 million unproductive mouths to feed.
silencio 14y ago
South Korea has already sunk billions of dollars into trying to help the people of the DPRK without even considering unification, and is promising even more than that in exchange for certain concessions from the government. There are still many families that have yet to be reunited with each other across the border, including parts of my extended family. The Korean War hasn't ended so long ago that there aren't still plenty of people that remember what it was like before this split, or even back to WW2 and earlier. Nobody is saying unification will be easy for anyone, but they're family members. They were friends. They were neighbors. They are not strangers just because the burden is a lot to shoulder. Not to mention it's not South Korea blocking the development of North Korean workers at the moment.. there have been attempts to work together (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region) but between the batshit crazy government up north and everyone else scared shitless of what they can do it's not possible to manufacture and import/export a lot of technology instead of just mass-manufacturing clothing with cheap labor. Pretty frustrating.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Part of what makes the "wait it out" solution particularly troublesome is that as generations pass, the "hey're family members. They were friends. They were neighbors. They are not strangers" thing will gradually become less and less true. Right now there are families in which people who were once together are now divided, but those generations are rapidly aging. How many generations can these two groups of people be relatively isolated before those bonds start to falter?

fatbird 14y ago

I agree in general with what you write here, with a big caveat: Korea is at the cross-roads between China and Japan, and throughout their history have been the battlefield between those two. Most recently, Korea suffered under a long and incredibly oppressive Japanese occupation up to the end of WW2. While Koreans are militarily ahem enthusiastic, it's not that Korea is the crazy man of Asia, prone to belligerence and expansionism. There's a long history there and a lot of justified anger on the part of Korea towards her neighbours.

stcredzero 14y ago
> it's not that Korea is the crazy man of Asia, prone to belligerence and expansionism. As a Korean-American, I'd say that's accurate, but it would be more accurate without the phrase after the comma and without the negative in the part before the comma.

stdbrouw 14y ago

> North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world. It's big, but not quite biggest according to Wikipedia. Or are you using a more specific definition of "standing army" than the amount of active servicemen? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_... (Just a nitpick though, I appreciate your input.)

cabalamat 14y ago

> Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either. This might be true of China and Japan -- though I'm not sure I'd call them Western -- but I doubt if any European country would be the least bit bothered.

doktrin 14y ago

Your entire post feels very ill-informed. > Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either. Name one. > North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world. No, it doesn't. The US, China and (India, IIRC) all have larger standing armies. > Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship. This is a poor and complex example. Several quite Japan-specific cultural issues are at play here. It's also not as welcoming to non-Korean foreigners as you seem to imply. > The united Koreas... maybe they will start another crazy war and attempt to conquer Japan or China. This is ridiculous. > ...every time one Korea is losing advantage in the stalemate, that Korea gets some sort of clandestine or official help, in a way to force the stalemate to continue, and the biggest army of the world divided in half and turned into itself. Aside from the factual inaccuracies ("biggest army of the world"), this feels like a half cooked conspiracy theory. Do you have any evidence whatsoever?

jonmrodriguez 14y ago
It looks like he got the "biggest standing army" from Active military + Reserve military + Paramilitary. Just sort descending by the "Total" column: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
- Volpe 14y ago
  It's still a misleading stat, The North Korean stats are essentially a "Total War" stat (as that reservist number is the ~ number of Males). To suggest that any countries are scared of another's simply by it's population is ridiculous. Let alone suggesting that "The West"s combined forces would be intimidated by that... "Human Wave" [1] Tactics didn't work very effectively in the Korean war, they would work even less in a modern combat theater. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack
  - jeltz 14y ago
    > "Human Wave" [1] Tactics didn't work very effectively in the Korean war, they would work even less in a modern combat theater. The Chinese were quite successful in the Korean war. But yeah I do not think those tactics would work today.

ekianjo 14y ago

> Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship. Almost ALL Foreigners living in Japan rarely get citizenship in Japan. Havent you been told ? Your example means NOTHING. As for the crazy conquest/wars started by the Koreans, feel free to substantiate, please. And let me laugh at the idea of Korean conquering Japan/China. Where in the world can they even dream to do so ? You seriously have no idea what you are talking about.