Sigh...Bret, have you not been paying attention all these years? Unification has been policy since 2009. It will be interesting to see if President Trump and the new ROK President reaffirm the Joint Vision statement of 2009 as Presidents Obama and Park did in 2013 and 2015. Also, is north Korea the most sanctioned country in the world?
And China's strategy has long been to try to influence the Kim Family regime to implement Chinese style reforms. We do have to wonder if the assassination of Kim Jong-nam who had long been under the nominal protection of China was the result of fears by Kim Jong-un that the Chinese would like to install him as the new leader as has been rumored. But I am not sure the Chinese really want to take the risk of trying to implement regime change because they fear instability and collapse (and war) more than the status quo.
Excerpts:
The first type of regime change is pro-China. Beijing has little sympathy for Kim Jong Un, who brutally purged his regime of its China sympathizers after coming to power five years ago. But Beijing’s distaste is tempered by its interest in the existence of North Korea as an independent state, mainly because it has good reason to fear the strength and example of a unified, democratic Korea led from Seoul.Pro-China regime change would take the form of a coup, in which Kim would be given the choice of exile or execution, to be replaced by a pro-Beijing figure willing to move the country from totalitarianism to authoritarianism—a Korean replay of the transition from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping. The U.S. would recognize the new government in exchange for verifiable nuclear disarmament, sealing the division of the peninsula....
And if the Chinese aren’t amenable to this strategy? In that case, the U.S. should support the anti-China model of regime change, aiming not only at the end of the Kim regime but of North Korea itself.That would mean a formal U.S. declaration in favor of unification. Other steps might include cutting off Chinese banks and companies that do business with Pyongyang from access to U.S. dollars, undertaking a campaign to highlight Chinese mistreatment of North Korean refugees, and further speeding the deployment of antiballistic missile systems to South Korea. As another inducement, Donald Trump could return to his suggestion last year that the South should have an independent nuclear deterrent.
From the 2009 Joint Vision Statement (http://www.cfr.org/proliferat
“Through our Alliance we aim to build a better future for all people on the Korean Peninsula, establishing a durable peace on the Peninsula and leading to peaceful reunification on the principles of free democracy and a market economy.We will work together to achieve the complete and verifiable elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs, as well as ballistic missile programs, and to promote respect for the fundamental human rights of the North Korean people.”
If anyone wants any assistance on regime change I am happy to oblige.
The bottom line is that the only way we are going to see an end the nuclear program and threats and to the crimes against humanity being committed against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim Family Regime is through achievement of unification and the establishment of a United Republic of Korea(UROK) that is secure and stable, non-nuclear, economically vibrant, and unified under a liberal constitutional form of government determined by the Korean people.An Information Based Strategy to Reduce Korea’s Increasing ThreatUnification Options and Scenarios: Assisting A ResistanceBeyond the Nuclear Crisis: A Strategy for the Korean PeninsulaShould The United States Support Korean Unification And If So, How?Irregular Warfare on the Korean PeninsulaInformation and Influence Campaign in north Korea When, Why, and How?
A ‘New Approach’ to North Korea
It’s time to make regime change the explicit aim of U.S. policy.
Rex Tillerson was widely criticized earlier this month when he suggested that “efforts of the past 20 years to bring North Korea to a point of denuclearization have failed.” The secretary of state then promised “a new approach” without offering details.
Perhaps he doesn’t yet know what that new approach is. But recognizing failure is the first step on the road to wisdom.
Since the end of the Cold War the U.S. has pursued a three-pronged approach toward North Korea. First has been a policy of inducements aimed at getting Pyongyang to change its ways. These include the unilateral removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991, yearly shipments of heavy fuel for most of the 1990s, South Korea’s construction of the Kaesong Industrial Complex inside North Korea in 2003, and the removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2008.
None of it worked. North Korea is too cynical, greedy and poor to stay bribed for long. And it knows it cannot abandon its nuclear program, lest it also forsake the only reason the West would pay bribes in the first place.
Then there are sanctions. North Korea may be the “most sanctioned” country on earth, as Barack Obama pointed out in 2015, but sanctions on North Korea tend to fail because China has generally been reluctant to enforce them. China last year imported $1.2 billion of North Korean coal, above the level allowed by U.N. sanctions. More recently, Beijing announced that it would cut off coal imports from Pyongyang, but only after it had already purchased its annual quota. And politically influential Chinese individuals continue to help the North evade sanctions through front companies.
Finally there is what the Obama administration called “strategic patience”—a policy of waiting for the regime to collapse or change course.
Continued at the link below:
