A bit more than food for thought…

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200501/200501130026.html
http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/01/13/after_north_korea.html

“[Former Bush administration special envoy to North Korea Charles Pritchard] also said that while most people expected the two Koreas to reunify if the North collapsed, it was more likely North Korea would be absorbed by China. Pritchard said that since North Korea already depends on China for much of its fuel and life necessities, its absorption by Beijing would be a relatively simple matter.”

Hundreds of posts, thousands of paragraphs, and the one quoted has an elementary spelling error. Enough to make one paranoid and bitter, hanging on to the blogosphere…

Japan has a long history of rarely losing wars, and responding constructively to defeat. In other words, the precise opposite of France (bizarro France, perhaps?).

When faced against foreigners I think Japan has better track record than France, but still have lost more than they won. Mongols whopped them, China stopped them in Korea in the 16th C, they couldn’t withstand the Black Ships and then there was the Pacific War. They had many successful battles such as in early 20th C Korea and Taiwan, but haven’t won that many campaigns. Russia in 1905 is the only striking victory that comes to mind.

But in any case, definitely better than France!

Maybe Britain? Europe, yet not Europe, just like Japanese are not Asians. Japan did have a tiny empire compared to Britain, though.

Just got this from today’s “Stratfor:”http://www.stratfor.com

... Instead of unification, there is a growing trend of uni-direction, as both Koreas see their fundamental security interests coming much closer to a parallel track. Both Seoul and Pyongyang see the instability brewing inside China as the economic miracle begins reaching the limits of the social and political fabric. Both Koreas see Washington and China potentially on a collision course. And both see Japan as a resurgent regional power, one that might seek to take advantage of China’s internal instability. This raises fears of the past, when Korea was in the unenviable position of sitting between two rival Asian powers, serving as either a pawn or a route of invasion.
...

Unless there is a re-establishment of a Cold War-type system of competing patronage for the two Koreas, this uni-directional trend will continue. It does not mean unification is at hand, or that tension between the Koreas is over; but as the fundamental interests of both states come closer together, there will be new tensions both with their international partners and within the regimes of the two states as the shift in the decision-making criteria takes place.

Japan tracks Britain closely. Don’t forget that Britain got its empire much later than all European powers except Germany, and enjoys great relations with an out-of-area power (the US in both cases).

I’m gonna have to step in and say that I mildly disagree about Japan’s lack of military success historically. The Japanese did have a quasi-client state, Mimana, on the Korean peninsula in the 5th century. (A little rusty on my history, so corrections are welcome, but I think it was eventually absorbed into the unified state established by Silla in the 7th century?) The Mongols might have whopped the Japanese, but the fact is that in spite of two attempts, they never made it. True also that Hideyoshi’s campaign in the Korean peninsula met with failure, but this is partially attributable to his death. And the defeat of Russia should not be understated given the strength of the Russian military at the time, especially relative to that of Japan. The Pacific War was an unquestionable disaster, so I’ve nothing to contend here, but they were able to do an enourmous amount of damage before it was all over. Still better than France though.

The Russo-Japanese war is more or less what started Japan’s colonization binge. NOONE expected them to win that war, least of all Russia or Japan, and when they won it just got to their heads. Seemingly having no military rivals in the Pacific, they went on a run.

About client states in Korea, Mimana（任锚£ï¼”°is the Japanese name for what is generally called the Kaya Confederated States (伽耶åÂ?Œè«¸å”ºÂ½Ã¯Â¼”°, but may actually have only been one portion of Kaya. Accurate historical details on both Japan and the Korean penninsula are rather few and far between. According to the Nihon-shoki, yes, it was a puppet state of the Yamato court which existed from the third century until the year 562 when it was finally shattered in wars between Silla and Paekche, but the Nihonshoki is just as much myth as fact and notoriously unreliable.

Due to verification by Chinese and Korean sources, Kaya certainly existed, and Mimana was either an alternate name for some/all of it, but whether it was in reality a Japanese puppet state is an open question. Mimana could have been a tributary of the Yamato court, or it may just have been a close ally whose importance was exaggerated during the composition of the Nihonshoki to help make the fledgeling Imperial court of Japan look more impressive.

And about France- aren’t you guys forgetting Napoleon? Sure they got their asses handed to them in the 20th century, but before that?

Hey, I’d love to visit the DPRK, but I don’t think they’re letting my American ass over the border anytime soon. And of course even if they did, it would just be a little chaperoned fantasy tour, not a visit to the real NK.

(And on another note, don’t forget the MF and CZ went to the DPRK border together with ZAR and affiliated loved ones!)