Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader knows that by now you’ve probably read piles of stuff on North Korea. Many of the big sites that have been linked by others, in turn link to various Korea bloggers. Some of whom reside on your Maximum Leader’s own blogroll.
You ought to check out the ever popular Big Hominid on the situation. Post are here, here, and here.
Frankly, your Maximum Leader thinks the most helpful blog on the Korean situation from the point of view of people in Korea is The Marmot’s Hole. Check out the many good posts available there. Just click on the link and scroll down…
You should also check out the Lost Nomad.
In so far as your Maximum Leader is concerned… He is beginning to think that the “nuke” might not have been a “nuke.” But that is more or less irrelevant. The desired effect has been elicited by North Korea. The people to watch are the Chinese. From what your Maximum Leader reads and hears the Chinese do not desire to “upset the regional apple cart.” Their foreign ministry statements have been very harsh. The North Koreans must have taken note of this. No one in the region is pleased.
Your Maximum Leader suspects that two things have really been set in motion here. The first is the re-arming of Japan. Frankly, your Maximum Leader believes that it would be irresponsible of the Japanese to not re-arm. When you have a crazy neighbor with nuclear weapons, you probably ought to have an army and/or retaliatory capability.
The second is that China will work like crazy to stabilize the situation and try to go back to a status quo ante. Ante the nuke test that is. The Chinese can’t be satisfied with a crazy and unpredictable North Korea. The Chinese are in a position to change the regime in North Korea. If that thought hasn’t crossed your mind, it should have by now. Your Maximum Leader thinks that what the Chinese really want is a North Korea that is a little clone of themselves. A Communist Dictatorship with a quasi-market economy. They don’t want reunifcation. And they probably don’t want Kim Jong-Il either.
Most importantly, the Chinese don’t want anything that will upset their glorious 2008 Olympics. It will be the great coming of age party for their party. Nothing can interfere with that. As small-minded as it might seem (simple minded?) the Chinese will do everything they can to keep things just the way they are until after the Olympics. After the Olympics, then they can shake things up some. They might even undertake regime change in North Korea on their own. But given how successful other modern examples of regime change are going, they are likely to try and stabilize things.
Between Japan rearming and China desperately trying to keep everything together - not even factoring in what the US might do - the situation is probably going to be dicey for a while.
Carry on.
