S. Korea, U.S., Japan discuss what has been unlikely scenario: The collapse of N. Korea

[ErnstBlofeld]

East-Asia Intel:

South Korea, the United States and Japan have begun talking about the possibility that North Korea's Kim Jong-Il regime has lost control while being fully pre-occupied by economic and succession crises, a diplomatic source in Seoul said.

When diplomatic chiefs from the three counties gathered in Washington on Dec. 6, they shared a view that something unusual might have taken place in North Korea's control tower, the source said.

A series of recent provocations attacks on the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island and revelations of an extensive uranium enrichment program may have transpired without close policy coordination by the North's regime.
"Each of them could have great consequences, enough to determine the fate of the totalitarian regime," the source said, noting the North's policy-making does not appear to be taking place under normal conditions.

"South Korea, the United States and Japan have raised the possibility that conditions on the Korean peninsula have entered a new situation under which the North's regime has lost control," the source said.

"Having watched the North launch a series of provocations, the three countries discussed the need to look at the North's latest movements from a completely new viewpoint," he said.

Another source in Seoul said Kim Jong-Il, who suffered a stroke in 2008, could not handle every state affair. "The Royal family that includes his sister Kim Kyong-Hui and her husband Jang Song-Taek have played a bigger role in running the country," he said.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper said Washington and Tokyo will start bilateral policy talks in preparation for a possible regime collapse in North Korea. The planning aims to handle such emergencies as a mass exodus of refugees and the many uncertainties rising amid Kim Jong-Il's deteriorating health and the precipitous dynastic succession to his untested son Jong-Un, the report said.

In a surprising statement earlier this month, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak declared that the reunification of Korea is "drawing near," saying important change that nobody can stop will come sooner rather than later.

"I feel that reunification is drawing near. We should prepare for reunification on the basis of bigger economic power," he said during a recent visit to Malaysia.

Signs of change have been detected among the North Korean people while the totalitarian regime is preoccupied with another father-to-son power transition, Lee said.

"North Korean residents had been unaware of what was going on in the world. But now they know how the world changes. Now they have begun to realize that the Republic of (South) Korea prospers," he said.

Earlier in his major policy speech on the Aug. 15 Liberation Day, Lee said South Korea should prepare for reunification by studying the possibility of adopting a reunification tax aimed at raising money for the costs of integration.

[ErnstBlofeld]

OPLAN 5029

 

The costs of Korean reunification have been estimated by some sources to be as high as $2–3 trillion, about five or six times South Korea’s gross domestic product.The overall burden of Korean reunification might be as much as ten times greater than that of German reunification.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Barring conflict, I think China will annex Mini Me Jr.'s domain in the name of stability and he will quietly disappear, and the country will become much more Chinese.

[ErnstBlofeld]

Barring conflict, I think China will annex Mini Me Jr.'s domain in the name of stability and he will quietly disappear, and the country will become much more Chinese.

 

Quite the opposite. South Korean and Chinese defense ministers met two weeks ago.This was probably on their agenda. Possibly China will request the removal of the USFK for a South Korean free hand in the peninsula. There are problems with this. South Korea will have to secure all of North Korea's nuclear and missile factories. The South Koreans may not enough forces to secure these facilities with the help of the USFK. The Chinese are more interested in the natural gas and oil rich Spratly Islands than the Korean Peninsula.