Kim May Have Stepped In The Kimchi
The ABC reports that China condemns N Korean nuclear test
China has condemned North Korea’s nuclear test and called on Pyongyang not to worsen the situation.
North Korea reportedly test-fired three short range missiles, just hours after detonating a nuclear device.
It is believed the nuclear blast detonated deep underground was at least four times more powerful than North Korea’s first test nearly three years ago.
While the Stalinist state hailed the test as a cause for national celebration, it has been condemned around the world.
“The Chinese Government expresses its resolute opposition,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.
“The Chinese side vehemently demands North Korea abides by its denuclearisation promises, stop any actions which may worsen the situation and return to the six-party talks process.
“The Chinese Government calls on all sides to calmly and appropriately deal [with the situation].”
This is stronger than anything the Chinese have said before, and they allowed the North Koreans to be condemned by the UN for their missile test. North Korea’s actions make the Chinese government look bad, as they are the primary sponsors of the six-party talks. If the Chinese decide to impose sanctions on North Korea, Kim is in deep trouble, because the Chinese have been keeping the country on life support with aid. Kim may have overplayed his hand with this latest move.
Update: The CBC reporting UN Security Council condemns North Korea nuclear test. It was unanimous, so China voted for the condemnation, another sign of China’s annoyance.
8 comments
Somehow all the talk of how Kim is a crackpot eccentric, while Obama is portrayed as fatherly, all-knowing, and wise doesn’t quite square with reality when the “crackpot” is running circles around our flawless messiah.
This is the same Obama that was apparently busy with his puppy-vetting process or playing basketball while the Russians where nabbing our Afghan supply air-base in Kyrgizstan.
Obama is endangering our national security, a failure of his most primary duty as president… maybe we should draw a line here?
Living in a celebrity-driven/liberal/MSM fantasy world is not a right of Obama supporters to cling-to indefinitely, as it’s both the voters and the press’ duty to make informed, good-faith decisions… not waste power making a hollow fashion statement instead.
It’s rapidly getting to the point where this kind of willfully-ignorant “thinking” is not just irresponsible, but dangerous. Obamania’s sheeple are deeply delusional, and as Obama’s enablers, these fools are going to get us killed.
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/
First off, I have never cast a vote for Obama and consider him a right of center Chicago machine politician who would be very comfortable with the positions of moderate Republicans.
That said, you have selected two to the egregious disasters of the Bush administration that have nothing at all to do with Obama.
The Clinton administration had North Korea in check and acting relatively normally, but then Bush decided to renege on the agreements made with North Korea and started calling the country names, apparently having no understanding of how insane the leadership was. The presence of nuclear weapons in North Korea is a wholly owned problem of the administration of George W. Bush.
You might want to read this article by Baktybek Abdrisaev, Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to the United States and Canada from 1997 to 2005, which explains how the administration of George W. Bush lost the Manas AB by failing to follow through on its promises to the Kyrgyz regarding economic development that were part of the leasing agreement.
The Russians, who were totally misread by the Bush administration, filled the void the US left. They didn’t force the Kyrgyz to do anything. The Kyrgys told the US to leave before Obama was even nominated, so it is hard to see how it is in any way an Obama problem.
As for your choice of Reagan as a guide, that mealy-mouthed SOB cost me take home pay every month he was in office. My taxes went through the roof thanks to him. His tax policies resulted in net losses for me after two promotions, so he is one of my least favorite Presidents ever. He supported Saddam Hussein and provided the weapons of mass destruction that everyone got into such a lather about; he sold weapons to Khomeini’s government to finance death squads in Central America; he got hundreds of Marines killed for no reason in Lebanon; he is responsible for the creation of al Qaeda to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan. I have no good memories at all of Ronald Reagan. We are still cleaning up after the mess he created.
Yeah, China is pissed, but what can they really do, short of invading the place? Yeah they can cut off their support for Li’l Kim, but I mean, c’mon. Most of NK has already devolved to a medieval hell-hole dependent on animal power and human power for its very survival. China cuts off NK, all that happens is that a lot of peasants starve, you don’t think Li’l Kim and his cronies will starve or really give a crap about starving peasants, huh?
Of course, the Chinese could invade. It isn’t as if the NK army is capable of doing a whole lot, they have no fuel or parts for their tanks, their air farce can’t fly for lack of fuel or parts, and there are a helluva lot of Chinese. And that million-man NK army knows a helluva lot more about planting rice and harvesting rice (what they spend their spring and fall doing) than they know about, like, actual war-fighting. They’re basically a mob armed with AK-47’s, RPG’s, and mortars, not a serious threat to anybody other than their own toes. (Well, they also have a helluva lot of arty tubes aimed at Seoul, but presumably that would not come into play if the Chinese invade).
But the problem is, you invade it, you own it. And what you own is a medieval hell-hole where the entire population has been brainwashed and indoctrinated into some weird-ass cult shit, and the economy relies on having a million soldiers planting rice in the spring and harvesting rice in the fall and that’s the million soldiers you just crushed, remember? Meaning, economic collapse, meaning, you’re gonna have to send in a whole shitload of food aid or else have your name dragged through the mud as the country that just starved a few million Koreans to death, and then you own the place and it’s a money pit for the next thirty years until you can get the infrastructure rebuilt and the population indoctrinated into the ways of the modern world. Ain’t *nobody* in a hurry to invade North Korea — not South Korea, not China, crap, probably not even Dubya was dumb enough even if he’d had the troops to do it after invading Afghanistan and Iraq. So the problem just gets punted down the road in hopes someone else will solve it, year after year, because who the hell wants the place, anyhow?
– Badtux the Cynical Penguin
More and more, I think this may be a lot of posturing taking place to position Kim’s youngest son to take over the family business. He was just appointed to the military committee, which is the real power in NK, so the nuke test and missile shots may be to show what a wonderful leader he will be.
Before China invades North Korea, there will be an invasion of China by Korean refugees, which the officials don’t want because they already have too many people.
The Chinese now have the problem of looking weak because they can’t do anything about Korea. If they have an ambitious Korean general on their payroll they might go for regime change, but they don’t particularly like that sort of precedent, look at how long they tolerated the Khmer Rouge without doing anything.
I know I don’t want it, or anything to do with it.
Well, that’s because you’re sane. As are the leaders of China and South Korea, who basically just want the North Koreans to shut up and be nice because they really, really really REALLY don’t want to have to invade that hellish country… the South Koreans because all those arty tubes pointed at Seoul would cause billions of dollars in damage before being overrun, the Chinese because they have absolutely no desire to take on the task of feeding and bringing to modernity yet more worthless peasants when they have plenty of worthless peasants of their own to deal with.
Of course, we could have Japan invade the place again :-). (That, BTW, was a joke. If there was ever anything that would unite China, North Korea, and South Korea into a united front, it would be the prospect of a single Japanese soldier *ever* setting foot anywhere in Korea or the Chinese mainland, they have *long* memories there and remember exactly how the Japanese behaved last time they invaded the neighborhood).
– Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin
Badtux´s last blog post..The economy in a nutshell
The Japan thing is something that everyone in Asia seems to understand, except, for some weird reason, some Japanese. There are calls in Japan for the country to “do something”. Like you say, that would be such a horrifically bad idea that I don’t want to think about.
My Mother visited my younger brother when he was working out of Hong Kong and she was somewhat stunned about how openly hostile everyone was toward the Japanese.
Hmmm. I’d be tempted to call RRR a Troll, but he’s an obvious moron. *shrug*. Not worth the effort.
As for China and NK… I suspect that if Kimmy pushes China too far, someone close will have a sudden, fatal, accident (The major difference between China and the company, is that China is actually good at not being caught, like the Belgians). 😆
Actually, it is very possible that this has nothing to do with the outside world, but is a reaction to something going on in the leadership circle of North Korea. Kim may be whipping things up to distract from some major internal problem.
As for someone succumbing to “swine flu”, that thought may be at the heart of this, and the outside world may not be involved.
They continue to test missiles and are making threats about their border again, so something is definitely happening in the capital that is behind this latest spasm. The military may have rejected Kim’s son on the military committee.