Yeah I didn’t want to leave my self open to the “Well, actually, they don’t officially have them,” response.
It’s +EV with a high variance side of “possibly stolen/deployed nukes” in the middle of a global pandemic with Donald Trump overseeing US efforts to safeguard against that and influence the process.
What could go wrong?
Like if this was 2015 or in a post-Covid19 world with a competent president it would be good news. Right now it’s not clear.
I will page @pyatnitski for his thoughts. He’s #1 Unstucker on FP in the microbet power rankings…
All of the worst possibilities are quite live right now with KJU. Very live. Could happen any minute.
I assume a likely outcome of Kim dying is some general seizing power and executing the sister.
And the generals will know who China supports. NK could not survive as a state, such as it is, without China.
Right now and until he’s healthy and/or someone else is firmly in charge, they’re way more live than they had been.
Even more than during the Fire and Fury days?
I don’t know much about NK, but then no one does. I’d guess Louis nailed it earlier when he says that very likely any change is essentially the status quo. I think it’s thought that KJU was put in place by people who figured they could control him, but he’s slowly gained proper control himself. My inclination is always to believe there’s a structure who would take over, especially in a country where there’s no internal organised dissent.
Only other thing is that if you believe the SK president then the pretty light olive branch stuff that’s been going on recently is actually worthwhile. I doubt it can lead anywhere really good as it requires US cooperation, but a new leader might mess that up. But then KJU has been cooling on that himself after the moron summits with Trump.
About the nuclear war. The way I read it NK knows that if they ever use them they’re dead, so they are genuinely developed as a deterrent. They would use them, but only if they’re pushed until they believe they’re gonners anyway.
This could be the optimistic angle. I get the impression China’s support for the Kims is the same limits as ever, that they don’t want a ‘Western’ friendly regime there, but beyond that they don’t care. If there’s a chance to get not paranoid shut-ins who are nonetheless all aboard team China in charge then they might prefer it.
I think the problems with that, though, are there’s likely no good candidates, China doesn’t care much and they’re distracted at the moment anyway.
As I understand it, China mostly doesn’t want a flood of refugees if NK completely falls apart. I don’t think they get much out of their relationship with NK other than Kim keeps people from fleeing.
And they get a buffer between themselves and a true democracy.
Makes sense, and yeah they want a regime, only real sickos like the West thinks chaos is an acceptable succession plan. Just looked up the geography of the border and was mildly surprised that wikipedia says it is pourous as I figured it was mostly mountain. Seems there’s a sizeable bit in the NE with towns along both sides, though.
I think those are both ‘away from the negative’ points. They don’t want chaos and they don’t want a united, western aligned Korea, but they don’t actually need much in return.
Much more relevant than “true Democracy” is “country with US Army bases.”
So when do we invade the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
They get a lot of even cheaper than normal labor. But, I think you’re right in that new refugees / stability is more important.
That’s not all!
Legitimate North Korean exports to China remain extremely low in the aggregate. However, its exports of certain categories of non-sanctioned goods—such as watches and fake eyelashes—have rapidly grown over the past two years.
https://www.38north.org/2020/02/dwertz022520/
Edit - Beyond my pointless joke, then that article also contains what I guess micro was talking about in its section on Textile. China exports fabric and then imports it back as clothes, effectively using NK as cheap labour. The total value of that was $500M imported back to China for the last year of legit data, it’s now sanctioned but it seems likely that NK is doing anyway.
Yeah cuse is right here.
Also things can always get worse under a new dictator, as we’ve seen before. Not wanting to imagine how, or not being able to imagine how, doesn’t negate that possibility.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean there, but I had thought about commenting about which democracy? A lot of people don’t know that South Korea wasn’t a democracy, at least not a consistent one, until 1988 and that was electing one of the leaders of a military coup. 1992 is probably when the foundation of their democracy should be dated. They were an ally, so we pretended they weren’t a dictatorship.
They still rank below another country that borders China that Suzzer has been to (Mongolia).
Dennis Rodman
Not exactly. Obviously the replacement could just order firing all weapons immediately. I know that it could be worse. As you pointed out there’s no decision here - it doesn’t matter what we hope for - I’m just surprised people would not hope for KJU to be replaced even without knowing who would replace him.