ROK Drop points to this Chosun Ilbo article on, “an official Chinese study that co-opts the early Korean Shilla and Bakje kingdoms for Chinese history.” Like a game of chess, planning many moves in advance of a North Korea collapse.
In a previous post on Pyongyang Soju being imported to the U.S., I used pics from a bottle I have, which was purchased in South Korea. Jason Perlow of Off the Broiler sampled some Pyongyang Soju at a Korean restaurant in New Jersey and has photos of the updated labels (looks like it was $5.99 a bottle).
- #OFK has a telling post (w/video) on Joe Biden's North Korea policy. It's hard to do much of a related post on Obama since he hasn't even completed one term in the senate and so has a thin record. See all Election 2008 posts.
- #15 August is the 63rd anniversary of Victory over Japan (V-J) Day, or Liberation Day in North and South Korea. It’s hard to imagine how the North Koreans could explain the significance of the day without mentioning the U.S. doing the heavy lifting, but they still manage to do so.
- #North Korean Economy Watch has released version 11 of his layer/bookmarks for North Korea in Google Earth - easily the most authoritative map of North Korea on the web.
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June 6th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
To be honest I feel China is impementing a subtle imperialist policy in Asia as the region begins to return to its traditional status of being Sino-centric. The Chinese government seems to have the theory that if an area was once part of a Chinese dynasty then it belongs to China. Hence Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang are all attributed to being part of China despite having endured long periods of being independent from China in the 20th entury. This continues to the ROC in Taiwan who still technically claim (Outer) Mongolia, northern Myanmar and a part of southern Russia (Tuva) in addition to the current PRC territory.
Korea has the tradition in the Chinese mindset of being a Chinese tributary vassal state (was it not even incorporated into China by the Mongols during the Yuan dynasty?) You could say that North Korea currently adheres to this principle in that while they do not pay tribute (in fact the opposite is the case), it is subject to Chinese influence and provides a useful buffer against the Americans in the South. It could also be said that China is attempting to create a similar influence on traditional tributary states in south-east Asia (Vietnam) through increased economic ties and militarisation.
With the issue of regarding an entire ethnicity as Chinese (in this case the entire Korean population and thus the land of Korea) I would not rule it out. One small but potentially significant example is Bhutan. Culturally and ethnically very similar to Tibet the country hs never been part of the Mongol Empire, China or Tibet. However the Chinese in recent years have suggested they possess territorial designs on the region http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Bhutan#Relationship_with_the_People.27s_Republic_of_China In addition there is the following recent issue of the Chinese regarding the Bhutanese language as “Bhutanese Tibetan.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzongkha#Microsoft
These examples suggest that China sees Bhutan as so similar to Tibet that it may consider laying claim to it as “part of China” perhaps in preparation for the rise of India.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Many, me included, see China’s recent revisionism as a not so subtle attempt to lay the groundwork to place troops in North Korea in the event of a regime collapse or some other event that would threaten stability in the same manner. I’m sure China would say it was at the insistence of whatever government North Korea ends up with, and that might even be true, if Kim is out of the picture and the elites are struggling to stay in power. China likes its buffer zones, and having one between itself and USFK is not something it wants to lose.
June 7th, 2007 at 4:42 am
I’m still wondering just what in the hell the free world is doing feeding this dragon. Not just a little, but almost to the maximum extent possible. The USA granted China most favored nation trade status year after year, and then helped it right along into the World Trade Organization, while the free world has absolutely poured foreign direct investment into it. All this enabling China to achieve double digit growth rates for the last few decades. I was given the impression that the free world was pursuing a policy of engagement and that economic development and openness would be a catalyst spurring political change that would lead to human rights, democracy, and freedom. The ladder things are not happening, which means the free world is just selling out the principals it claims to stand for.
China is embarked on a huge arms build up, particularly in strategic nuclear capability. It is becoming more aggressive and could easily field a military greater than the size of the entire population of the USA. Maybe they couldn’t project that power far (for now), but they could effortlessly have anything close to them. That includes all SE Asia, Korea, Central Asia, and possibly the Middle East and it’s oil.
I know this sounds very alarmist, but the potential is one that must be considered with a one-party dictatorship as nationalistic as China, which regards itself as the center of the world awaiting the rightful return of it’s place.
I wonder if the USA is getting ready to yank the rug out from underneath China before it becomes a credible threat to the progress humanity has made toward human rights and freedom within the last few hundred years.
June 7th, 2007 at 6:33 am
I agree, why does the West insist on strengthening the rule of the CCP? By doing this they are allowing the next potential superpower to be a totalitarian dictatorship which has an abysmal human rights record. Surely India - the world’s largest democracy and with far more historic ties to the West would be a better option for cheap labour and investment?
I am essentially hoping for China’s economic bubble to burst thus causing the erosion of CCP rule and finally bringing democracy and the collapse of the Chinese empire (as that is what “China” is and always has been). I’m hoping that current economic growth and a growing sense of power in the world will cause Chinese workers to realise how important they are in maintaining Chinese growth and when they start demanding more pay/increased rights etc will spur foreign corporations to up anchor and move to India.
Of course current ways for the (Western) world to pressure China seriously into sorting out its human rights record/imperialism etc is to use the ‘One China Policy’ against it. If Europe and America were to unilaterally recognise the Tibetan government in exile or Taiwan as an indpendent state by China’s own policy it would be forced to break off diplomatic relations with those countries. Individual countries would not be so much of a problem but on mass China might be forced to make concessions or otherwise rapidly lose bilateral relations with the West. (Of course this is easier said than done. However, such united pressure would show that China can by no means stand on its own feet and still retain such growth.)