how does North Korea 'end'?

[Jon-of-arc]

I know there's a thread about DPRK and war, but I wanted to focus on a different aspect to the prospects of war.

In short, how could the madness end? War is one possibility, but it would likely go nuclear, and surely no ones mad enough to want that? Peoples revolution? I get the impression that the totalitarian oppression over there is sufficient to be the possible only justifiable use of the adjective Orwellian in the real world. Just not possible. I sort of hoped that when daddy snuffed it a while back, calmer heads might prevail within the inner party, and there would be an immediate rethink of the insane and counter productive foreign policy tactics that are employed. But no, it seems to be deeply ingrained within their way of thinking. No chance of reform, radical or even moderate, in the near future.

So how can you picture it ending? Surely something has to change?

 

[Lo Siento.]

I know there's a thread about DPRK and war, but I wanted to focus on a different aspect to the prospects of war.

In short, how could the madness end? War is one possibility, but it would likely go nuclear, and surely no ones mad enough to want that? Peoples revolution? I get the impression that the totalitarian oppression over there is sufficient to be the possible only justifiable use of the adjective Orwellian in the real world. Just not possible. I sort of hoped that when daddy snuffed it a while back, calmer heads might prevail within the inner party, and there would be an immediate rethink of the insane and counter productive foreign policy tactics that are employed. But no, it seems to be deeply ingrained within their way of thinking. No chance of reform, radical or even moderate, in the near future.

So how can you picture it ending? Surely something has to change?

Any of those three are possible.

 

[Stigmata]

Coup by a less dogmatic faction

 

[Lo Siento.]

Coup by a less dogmatic faction

Seems the most likely at the moment. At some point some of the ruling elite there are going to realise that the top lads at Samsung are waaaaaay better off than them, the Chinese are going to get increasingly embarrassed by the current regime, and they'll encourage somebody to do away with them

 

[alsoknownas]

The world becomes convinced by the right of their doctrine, and a glorious communist international is established with DPRK as its figurehead.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Optimistic view: slow reform and opening up from within with China's encouragement. No real political freedom but an easing of the extreme isolation and increased economic freedom. Maybe the disbanding of the gulags.

That wad my hope with the new leadership. But fuck knows what power struggles are going on right now. And the gangsters in charge have been lying to their people for so long, they must be scared of the consequences of allowing access to information that would show the extent of the lies. Increasingly though information is getting through by all accounts as the border with China becomes more porous.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Seems the most likely at the moment. At some point some of the ruling elite there are going to realise that the top lads at Samsung are waaaaaay better off than them, the Chinese are going to get increasingly embarrassed by the current regime, and they'll encourage somebody to do away with them

I was thinking China might be quite happy with having a rogue state "on side", as a sort of unmentioned bargaining chip with which it can be seen to be keeping the leash on, as long as "the west" plays nice. A kind of cold war by proxy, if you get what I mean? The stakes are lower, but the threat of escalation is always there.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Change can seem impossible then happen very quickly, though, as it did in Eastern Europe.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I was thinking China might be quite happy with having a rogue state "on side", as a sort of unmentioned bargaining chip with which it can be seen to be keeping the leash on, as long as "the west" plays nice. A kind of cold war by proxy, if you get what I mean? The stakes are lower, but the threat of escalation is always there.

Yes, I think there's an element of that. China can't stop nk from doing many things it doesn't want, though, despite being their only trading partner effectively - 85% of trade is with China.

 

[Sprocket.]

Peacefully I hope!

 

[sunny jim]

Seeing as NK has got nuclear weapons, I cant see it ending in an imminent war. In maybe a generation things might have changed but IMO definitely no Korean Spring on the horizon.

 

[seventh bullet]

a glorious communist international is established

Except that they've abandoned Marxism-Leninism.

 

[alsoknownas]

Except that they've abandoned Marxism-Leninism.

Well we'd all better brush up on our Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism then. I think there's a '...For Dummies'.

 

[2hats]

I think there's a '...For Dummies'.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

I'm not picturing our dear leader giving that version final approval.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Except that they've abandoned Marxism-Leninism.

There is a kind of twisted genius to juche. 'In our communist utopia, everyone relies on their own efforts.'

 

[bendeus]

The world becomes convinced by the right of their doctrine, and a glorious communist international is established with DPRK as its figurehead.

Many years ago I used to listen to the DPRK's English language broadcast on a Tuesday. In between the blasts of martial music and the paeans to 'world-renowned' NK generals, who nobody had ever heard of, there was a news article that will forever stick in my mind,

"Today, Typhoon [forgot the name] made landfall on the island of [forgot the name] with 100kmh winds. In capitalist countries, when such natural disasters strike, there are normally many deaths. However, in North Korea under the glorious guidance of the bright sun of Juche, Kim Jong Il, who directed disaster preparedness, there were no deaths, and fourteen births."

Utterly. Fucking. Bonkers.

 

[petee]

Many years ago I used to listen to the DPRK's English language broadcast ,,,

right, many years ago i worked with an "alternative" newspaper that had reciprocal exchanges with many other "alternative" newspapers including ... the pyongyang times. model propaganda stuff, i'm so happy i kept a few copies. in one issue the great leader was praised for showing how "the party's policy of putting the right cop in the right soil" was producing record yields. it needs the guidance of the party to learn stuff like that i guess.

 

[bendeus]

right, many years ago i worked with an "alternative" newspaper that had reciprocal exchanges with many other "alternative" newspapers including ... the pyongyang times. model propaganda stuff, i'm so happy i kept a few copies. in one issue the great leader was praised for showing how "the party's policy of putting the right cop in the right soil" was producing record yields. it needs the guidance of the party to learn stuff like that i guess.

It's only a short step (with platform boots) from world class golf to Nobel prize winning agronomy, I guess.

 

[seventh bullet]

There is a kind of twisted genius to juche. 'In our communist utopia, everyone relies on their own efforts.'

I think you were talking about a perversion of it, but that's still a misunderstanding of Mao-derived self-reliance.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think you were talking about a perversion of it, but that's still a misunderstanding of Mao-derived self-reliance.

Is it?

You think juche is a coherent enough concept for you to say what it really means?

 

[Dan U]

Ern takes over from his New Malden bunker.

 

[thriller]

what it will take is to do a non-stop 48 hour bombing campaign on their military sites that will flatten it back to the stone age. since they don't have the capability to launch a nuclear strike, get them before they do. Sortie after sortie after sortie and then follow that up with an immediate invasion. avoid going right up to the boarder so as not to antagonise the Chinese.

 

[seventh bullet]

Is it?

You think juche is a coherent enough concept for you to say what it really means?

Juche is quite a melange, and while it is influenced by both Marxist-Leninist variants from the USSR and the sinified version from China (much more with the latter), it diverges from both considerably. Going outside the acceptable bounds of what it is to be meaningfully described as 'Marxist-Leninist.' Other Stalinists/Maoists would see it as revisionist.

I understand its self-reliance component well enough (which had served them very well) and what Mao meant by it (they got it from China). I noticed what you did there with the quote. I don't think it is beyond all comprehension, no.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

what it will take is to do a non-stop 48 hour bombing campaign on their military sites that will flatten it back to the stone age. since they don't have the capability to launch a nuclear strike, get them before they do. Sortie after sortie after sortie and then follow that up with an immediate invasion. avoid going right up to the boarder so as not to antagonise the Chinese.

That's not going to happen, though, is it? China couldn't allow it. Wouldn't allow it. An interventionist approach to NK is off the cards, as I see it. Besides, they have seem to be conducting nuclear tests, who's to say they haven't been able to weaponise their bombs? Maybe hit south Korea before being obliterated. Seems feasible to me.

 

[likesfish]

A nuclear bomb is one thing
Making the nuclear bomb small enough to fit in a missile and the missile fast enough to get past patriots actually much harder than it sounds.

 

[ayatollah]

I think the key is the huge process of change in its former Big Brother, protector, and source of funding, and political cover, China. In case nobody's noticed, the former stalinist state of China is now well on the way to complete bourgeois capitalist restoration. No need to try and classify the current aberrant command economy/wild west free enterprise capitalism hybrid that is China in transition. It's only a temporary position. You only need to look at the incredible number of multi millionaire capitalists on all the political command institutions of the state , from the Communist Party Central Committee downwards to see that the newly renascent private property based bourgeois class is now in control (in fact in an amazingly direct way, not using political placemen, but sitting themselves in all the "representative institutions" of the state - like Parliament in 18th and early 19th century England!)

Already the new Bourgeoisie in China must view the ossified stalinist bureaucratic class crazies in North Korea with horrified loathing - a bad reminder of their (or more accurately their parents or grandparents), periodic terrorisation by the mercurial Maoist state machine. I think the Chinese ruling class would actually quite like a prosperous, predictable ,unified , trading partner, Korea on their doorstep - rather than the unpredictable stalinist madhouse of the Kim bureaucratic dynasty.

I think China will actually be trying to work out a peaceful , managed, route to a dismantling of the Northern stalinist rocky horror museum, and may well be quietly talking to the South Korean elite about a suitable strategy. Remember , today's Chinese ruling class are a resurrected conventional bourgeoisie (ironically usually directly related to all the old Long March stalinist elite), trying ever more quickly to slough of their remaining stalinist command economy, collective bureaucratic class, chrysalis -- and finding much more to empathise with in the dynamic, prosperous, corrupt ruling clans-based, bourgeois capitalism, in the South, than the now irrelevant regime form in the North. OK, the Chinese will not be happy at the thought of a US client regime on their doorstep - but given the shifting economic /power relations in the region as China's economic/military power grows, who's to say a political/commercial reprochement with the South's bourgeoisie isn't possible - with a unified Korea becoming much more engaged in the new Chinese Eurasian "grand area" , than in the sphere of influence of a now rapidly declining US imperialism ? This might seem far fetched for some , but only if we assume that China is still in any way "Communist", and gives a flying fuck about preserving a "brother regime".

 

[yield]

Chinese Editor Suspended For Article on North Korea
New York Times. April 1, 2013

Mr. Deng’s article in The Financial Times did not deal with sanctions, but it offered a harsh critique of the Chinese government’s policy of support for North Korea and, in particular, its new leader, Kim Jong-un.

“It is entirely possible that a nuclear-armed North Korea could try to twist China’s arm if Beijing were to fail to meet its demand or if the U.S. were to signal good will toward it,” Mr. Deng wrote.

North Korea, he argued, did not view its relationship with China through the same lens of “friendship sealed in blood” that came from Chinese soldiers’ fighting and dying in the Korean War against the United States. “North Korea does not feel like this at all toward its neighbor,” he wrote.

I think China will actually be trying to work out a peaceful , managed, route to a dismantling of the Northern stalinist rocky horror museum, and may well be quietly talking to the South Korean elite about a suitable strategy. Remember , today's Chinese ruling class are a resurrected conventional bourgeoisie (ironically usually directly related to all the old Long March stalinist elite), trying ever more quickly to slough of their remaining stalinist command economy, collective bureaucratic class, chrysalis -- and finding much more to empathise with in the dynamic, prosperous, corrupt ruling clans-based, bourgeois capitalism, in the South, than the now irrelevant regime form in the North.

That does sound fairly plausible. I'm not sure if the Chinese see the Kaesong Industrial Region as a rival or step in the right direction? There is $ billions of trade between the two countries.

And the Chinese know the Koreans like the Japanese as much as they do.

 

[Sunray]

It would be hypothetically interesting to see NK attack the US with a nuclear missile. If they did everything the US has developed in the cold war up to the present moment regarding nuclear attacks would switch on and we would see if all that investment in anti missile technology could actually stop it before it blew something up.

What would be even more interesting to see if they retaliated?

 

[Casually Red]

It would be hypothetically interesting to see NK attack the US with a nuclear missile. If they did everything the US has developed in the cold war up to the present moment regarding nuclear attacks would switch on and we would see if all that investment in anti missile technology could actually stop it before it blew something up.

What would be even more interesting to see if they retaliated?

far enough away not to bother me, no plans to ever go there . Although id quite like to visit DPRK .