Theory on Korean Unification/Future.

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I was gonna post this in a thread where it went on a North Korean tangent. But I think it's more appropriate for it's own thread. So pardon the formatting some...

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As far as the North Korea tangent going on, well, North Korea sucks. The only apologetic for North Korea I can personally think of is that North Korea and South Korea were semi-equivalent to live in and both had similar GDPs and both did giant stupid military parades and had martial law, until the mid 1970s. After around that time you can definitively say it sucked a lot more in North Korea.

As far as a big reason I personally believe about a united Korea being not a possibility, it's pretty simple. I think you have to wait for the WWII generation to completely die off. If you unite Korea now, obviously some of the people from the North WILL keep their jobs in the government in some capacity, as has happened with Germany. The North still very much tries to keep alive all the bad sentiment between the Japanese in WWII, and the horrors of Japanese colonization/nation building/defending them from Western Imperialism.

You unite Korea, and you have an economic and military powerhouse that could basically do whatever the hell it wants with impunity. You'd have all the technology and scientific advancements of the South and all the resources of the North.

Now combine this with political ideas. You have the capitalistic powerhouse of South Korea. They've managed to be basically, the success story for capitalism working, and country growth. They went from third world to first world in a generation. Combined with the North, though, you have their militaristic and xenophobic ideology, that probably lots of South Koreans on some level share. They want the US troops out of their country. They don't want to be pushed around by anyone else in the world. Both countries are sorta yin and yang, but combined it'd be possible for them to be very powerful.

Now with what I said about the WWII thing. As long as WWII is a relatively close memory, if you unite Korea, and they get a unified military. Well, Japan would be in danger. Korea could very well want revenge for what Japan did in the late 1800s through WWII. And Japan's not a militarily strong country at all anymore. And they're not legally allowed to be under US's occupation that's still going on some 60, almost 70 years, after WWII. So North Korea by itself is not in any position to invade Japan. But combined with South Korea? It's quite possible.

I think North and South Korea being separate is part of a plan to keep an easy balance going in Asia. Having USA manage South Korea somewhat so they don't pursue revenge also with US managed Japan, and vice versa. Also having North Korea as an enemy keeps their military preoccupied against, again, invading Japan.

Another possible scenario is, China goes on it's first nation building adventure (well unless you count Vietnam/etc) and takes over control of the North Korean government and just annexes North Korea. This might be actually, the most realistic option. I think China going in and taking over could even be bloodless if cards were played right. Then North Korea would just become probably an "administrative region" type of deal with China. China's main problem would be possibly South Korea and definitely USA. However it'd be a much more stable and peaceful government than the current North Korean government, though China longterm could become a bigger superpower and have North Korea officially in their hands along with becoming a bigger superpower, which is probably something the rest of the world does not want.

So that's China's stake in this game, if there's no united Korea, then China might be able in a few years, to take North Korea as it's own. Now, China doesn't like North Korean refugees either, but the affect of the North Koreans on their economy wouldn't be nearly as bad as it would on South Korea's economy. And China could take their resources, too, and for a future war, have a good launching point for a war with Japan if China ever gets that ambitious (supposedly the Chinese constitution says no offensive wars at all for the next 100 years, we'll see how that goes...)

Basically, the point I'm trying to make is that in this current game with North Korea, many countries have a lot on the table. So because of this, in the stalemate, I think all the countries agree it's better for North Korea to lose, rather than have someone win and cause massive instability in that region. The possible winners are a United Korea or China. USA has nothing to gain from a united Korea, because of the possible instability regarding Japan it could cause, once US is able to stop giving Japan any military protection, then it has no reason to care anymore (I guess.)

At least this is how I see things. What do you think. Do these ideas have any merit? That basically lots of people lose with North Korea out of the picture?

Wave a magic wand, and instantly create a unified Korea built on the model of the capitialist democratic south korea that exists now- and it would indeed change the whole balance of power on the Pacific RIm.

It would be as if a new middle sized power the size of France, or Germany suddenly appeared were a flashpoint between nations exists now.

The USA wouldnt be able to justify keeping troops in the south because there would be no north to defend against. Japan, and Korea, would drift towards more soverignty from the USA and toward more jealousy with each other.

This hypothetical Korea would be rival maritime power to Japan, and land threat to China, and to Russia (Russia's only year-round Pacific port is right on the Korean border). It would be more soverign and more aggressive in its own interests than now. That much I agree with. Doubt that there would be instant war between Korea and Japan though.

On the other hand one can exaggerate the effect of unification as well.


North Korea is phyically bigger than the south, but has less than half of the south's population. So joing the north would not double the south's power-only increase it by about fourty percent. In the eighties everyone thought that the unified Germany would take over Europe. Germany ended up having economic set backs instead.

Reunify the Koreas today, and watch their united economy collapse tomorrow.