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ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Impact of Corean Unification
t's been over a decade since the Iron Curtain came crashing down in Europe. The Bamboo Curtain is little more than a quaint phrase. Yet the Cold War remains very much alive on the Corean peninsula.
Across a 186-mile DMZ glare opposing armies collectively totaling 1.7 million. By all reckoning the Pyongyang regime should have become ideological roadkill following the collapse of communism. Instead, it remains an impregnable roadblock to the economic integration of East Asia, the world's fastest-growing region.
How can an economic nonentity be such a roadblock?
Consider its location at what should have been the crossroads of East Asia. With 56% of the peninsula's land mass, North Corea separates on one side the world's greatest market and labor pool (China) and the biggest reserve of natural resources (Sibera) from, on the other, two of the world's leading technological and manufacturing nations (Japan and South Corea).
But for Pyongyang's intransigence Seoul would already be linked by railroads and superhighways to Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, Paris and London. All those cities would also be linked to Tokyo via a bridge across the 126-mile strait dividing Shimonoseki from Pusan. The savings in shipping cost and time alone could amount to tens of billions of dollars a year. Such a trans-Eurasian land link would accelerate the cultural and economic integration of not only East Asia, but the world. In the process, the Corean peninsula would shed the burden of financing the world's most heavily fortified frontier and become the center of the global economy.
That's the vision dancing before the eyes of farsighted statesmen and business leaders pushing for the political leaps of faith needed to keep Pyongyang taking its unsteady baby steps toward opening North Corea.
But skeptics and pessimists abound. Even a loose confederation with the North would only burden and destabilize South Corea's economy and political system, they argue. For decades to come the impact on the global economy would be entirely negative as investors and customers begin shunning the uncertainties, denying capital and trading partners to hundreds of world-class Corean manufacturers. The ultimate result, argue the naysayers, would be to throw a monkey wrench into an alignment that has allowed three decades of strong growth for East Asia.
What is the likely impact of Corean unification?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, 06:38:55 AM)
Can someone tell me what reasons the US and other countries might have to prevent the unification of Korea?
I can handle the Truth.
Saturday, June 29, 2002 at 16:23:14 (PDT)
AC, you use impressive words, but you still fail to show me any evidence that you have even an inkling of knowledge about what exactly is going on in North Korea. You think so abstractly you have lost all grips of concrete facts pertaining to North Korea.
You sound really smart talking about Huntington and "Core Values." It seems that you sat in couple lectures in International Relations during college. But then you go on comparing NK to biological organism and our policy as having an adverse reaction. There is absolutely no parallilism here. I see you doing this all the time. When you lack factual information about North Korea, you resort to using rather complex and convoluted examples related to very different and unrelated physical or biological phenomena. You call this, "highest-level paradigms." I'm rather amused. It is very clear that you still hold an infantile view of what a nation-state is. The very first thing I learnd in my International Relations class is that a nation is not an organism in itself, but has several actors within it. But you still see North Korea in the same line to biological organisms.
Please do give me your "required" reading, I'm so curious what books you recommend, and I'm even more curious whether you read any of them. I imagine your book list will list something like, Das Kapital, Communist Manifesto, Liberty, Repulic, but I imagine that you give no articles or books related to North Korea or economics, because those two fields, you seem to be rather ignorant about. Your answer appears to me to be copout. you can of course, prove me wrong.
I agree with you that both sides have committed offenses. but you are positively deluded if for whatever reason, that somehow justifies Kim Jong Il's policies towards his own people, and even more your assertion that US should Kim Jong Il's anti-human policies. Also you really have a problem overexaggerating US offenses and understating NK offenses. You make me so mad sometimes. People are dying AC, and it's ignorant people like you who are making them suffer.
It's because you are so wrapped up in seeing the "big picture" you have so far ignored all factual evidence I gave you. You are very much like I Ching in this regard. So what couple thousand North Korean die? This is what is coming out of your postings.
It's good that you have the intelligence to realize that Bush administration has ties to military industries and also oil industries. But in your provincial view of the world, you hate the TMD so much, that you have again relegated the starvation of North KOrean people as being trivial. You truly make me mad. Also you are again wrong with your facts, I see you do this when you run out of supporting evidence. You said that US broke treaties in implementing TMD. The treaty I imagine you are talking about is the AMD treaty signed with Soviet Union. Since you seem to consistently ignore current events, I'll let you know that Putin and Bush signed a treaty to nullify that agreement. China and North Korea was never a signatory of the treaty, so how has US broke your so-called international agreement? you resort to outright fact-creation when you need to "win" an argument. I imagine you do this because you don't want to "bog" down by "trivial" details. right?
You are so ignorant of Pakistan and India, I don't know how I should respond to you. You blame US for the military build up of Pakistan and India??? God, why don't you read some Pakistani and Indian newspapers AC? They have english sections for foreign readers. I challenge you to give me an article that says, "India and Pakistan arming, due to US nuclear stockpile."
Yes AC, I want to dive down to details, because I'm confident that you really don't know what you are talking about. I'm sure you are very knowledgeble about philosophy or taiwan, but you have amply demonstrated your lack of knowledge about Korea. You keep saying sanction this and sanction that, because you lack understanding of elementary economics that you simply cannot grasp what I wrote about that issue 3 or 4 times. You seem to have some sort of amnesia, because you never wrote back to me about why sanction is "bad."
I never said U.S. and S. Korea are perfect. But they are downright angelic compared to your hero generalissimo Mao and Kim Jong Il.
you are soooooooooooooo out of touch with reality. Spy satellites do not kill people. North korean terrorists who plant bombs on south korean passenger airlines do. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, you are quite idiotic. Yes US is far more powerful than both China and North Korea combined. despite this fact they had not lead a war of aggression against china or north korea. North KOrea on the otherhand has decided to kill their own people, and China has decided to look the other way and give them their tacit approval. So you know what AC? Why do you have such a difficult time admitting this?
U.S. sanction? Cuba has the same sanction, and please tell me why Cubans aren'et starving. Can you think?
You say where is S. KOrean voice? OH MY GOD, YOU ARE TRULY BLIND! READ ANY SOUTH KOREAN NEWSPAPER YOU IGNORAMUS!!! GOOD GOD, YOU ARE TRULY BLIND. You fail to do your own homework and you accuse others. Go to www.korealink.co.kr/times.htm. also try www.chosun.com also try www.chosunjournal.com also try www.donga.com they are all major south korean newspapers. You can even read "liberal" south korean news such as hankyureh, but I assume you can't read korean. hell, why odn't you take some time and visit North Korean websites? or Chinese? You seem to do neither. as a matter of fact, you seem to not read western news sources either. You get me really upset when you start to lie outright, because of your ignorance.
I'm very angry that you would perpetuate you ignorance, using your big words and your convoluted examples to make yourself appear very intelligent. Let's stick to facts here.
ka
Friday, June 28, 2002 at 12:11:46 (PDT)
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