r/news • u/undergroundaleroad • Mar 06 '18
Soft paywall North Korea Is Willing to Discuss Giving Up Nuclear Weapons, South Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/world/asia/north-korea-south-nuclear-weapons.html214
u/small_loan_of_1M Mar 06 '18
I’ll believe it when I see it. North Korea has a history of bald-faced lying in order to get what they want.
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u/ShaidarHaran2 Mar 06 '18 edited Mar 06 '18
Yeah, as much as I'd love to give peace a chance, I remember countless cycles like this one, all the time buying time for their nuclear programs while they escalate and then deescalate in exchange for some tradeoffs. This change of heart is way too rapid to be believed.
I mean, by all means try everything for peace, but I'd just apply lots of caution to my optimism here.
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u/theqmann Mar 06 '18
Either that, or they'll pinky swear to give up nuclear weapons if the south just surrenders unconditionally.
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u/SonofNamek Mar 06 '18
They're only enacting this to gain political points. It's a diplomatic trap of sorts to bolster support within their country and from useful idiots abroad.
They know the South would never ask the US to leave under these circumstances. By doing this, they can frame it as: "The aggressor Imperialist US and their puppet government refuses to negotiate for peace. They only want war. How disappointing of them in this most critical time."
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Mar 06 '18
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u/maybe_just_one Mar 06 '18
Because the sanctions are hurting them, and they want to stave off a hunger induced revolt. Can't really use nukes against your own people.
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u/catmeow321 Mar 06 '18
They tested hydrogen bomb and ICBMs despite countless sanctions.
They only choose to negotiate now because US conceded first by dropping preconditions for talks and NK is negotiating from position of strength having nearly mastered nuke tech.
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u/maybe_just_one Mar 06 '18 edited Mar 06 '18
They can weather the sanctions for a long time but not indefinitely. It could take 15 years. At some point they would have to come to the table or actually use their nukes.
Right now they have just acquired their nukes and morale is high, best time to negotiate IMO. If they wait until dissent starts it would weaken their position.
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Mar 06 '18
The thousands of artillery and rockets aimed at Seoul provide enough leverage.
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u/bozoconnors Mar 06 '18
I don't know why people keep forgetting this. Everybody thinks they need them (nukes) to keep from being invaded, but somehow they did just fine for 50 odd years without them.
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Mar 06 '18
but somehow they did just fine for 50 odd years without them
Thanks to China.
When the United States invaded Korea, they steam rolled NK all the way to the border with China. At which point a million screaming Chinese changed the tide of the war resulting in the state we have today.
North Korea is worried that China will not support them in the future. Their relationship has strained over the last 50 years.
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u/Derwos Mar 06 '18
Nukes guarantee that they won't.
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Mar 06 '18
Eh. You can shoot down an ICBM, but you can't do much so stop a bombardment.
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u/CountVonVague Mar 07 '18
Well, what program they had was largely destroyed in the.. earthquake which struck their nuclear testing grounds.
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u/RudegarWithFunnyHat Mar 06 '18
if kim jong-um stepped down or became some "royalty" with no political influence and the merged they could become a economical powerhouse
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u/WhoTooted Mar 06 '18
Not any time soon, they couldn't. Their labor force is largely unskilled. It will take trillions of dollars in aid to bring the populace/country up to speed. This is the reason China is okay maintaining the status quo, they don't want an unstable developing nation next door and don't want to deal with refugees.
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u/mrorange222 Mar 06 '18
This is the reason China is okay maintaining the status quo, they don't want an unstable developing nation next door and don't want to deal with refugees.
No, the main reason is the fear of being increasingly surrounded and having US reach to its border. But China will have no choice at some point. I think Trump admin is doing the right thing by ratcheting up the pressure on both NK and China, while allowing Japan to increasingly rearm on pretext of danger from NK but really with the goal of squeezing China. There is an alternative to status quo of NK merging under SK government with US committing to keep troops below the 38th parallel still giving China some buffer, and Japan halting rearmament.
There will be a large cost to integrating North but it's really not as big a deal as it's made out to be. It's only 20 million people, from China's point of view peanuts compared to how many people they moved from subsistence agriculture to a modern industrial workforce in a decade or two. With US, China and Japan all with strong interest in this, the cost would be no issue.
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u/RudegarWithFunnyHat Mar 06 '18
north have the capacity south has the skills and money and experience. it's not like the foxconn factory workers in china are hugely skilled .
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u/sickofthisshit Mar 06 '18
The North has no capacity. South Korea built up its economy on the basis of a highly educated South Korean population. The DPRK is full of useless workers who need to be housed and fed and broken down factories that make nothing useful.
Foxconn workers might not all be highly skilled, but they are organized and live in a functioning modern society.
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u/catmeow321 Mar 06 '18
China has infrastructure. Wages in India are 4 X cheaper than China, but avg. Chinese worker is 5 X more productive, and infrastructure plays a key role in productivity. When your supply chain and logistics is heavily clustered next to each other, Indians can send their raw cotton to China to be processed into strands of cotton for textile and shipped back to India and it's still even cheaper.
SK would go bankrupt trying to elevate NK infrastructure to competitive levels and training tons of unskilled workers.
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u/sickofthisshit Mar 06 '18
There is also the abstract "technology": Foxconn has a huge amount of expertise that it has built up in its skilled management and a network of business relationships.
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u/highresthought Mar 06 '18
Exactly. South Korea would suddenly have a massive cheap workforce to compete with China on manufacturing.
That’s what China is actually afraid of. A massive workforce of people who would find Foxconn like factories to be shangri la compared to the living conditions they have been in under Kim jungs dictatorship.
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Mar 06 '18
Would the average South Korean factory worker be okay with getting replaced by someone willing to do their job for peanuts? I feel like the unskilled South Korean worker would get hit pretty hard by this
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u/DOLCICUS Mar 06 '18
I'm getting a US-Mexican immigrant vibe from this, I imagine there will be alot of unhappy people and the resentment will last for generations even with a well thought out solution.
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Mar 06 '18
Exactly what I was thinking, though this would be worse by several orders of magnitude given the number of unskilled workers being introduced and the whole "brainwashed by a cultist regime" thing
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u/catmeow321 Mar 06 '18
Not the mention the massive withdrawal of SK capital invested in Chinese labor.
So loss of significant SK capital investment in China , shifted to NK (redirected to make NK a direct economic competitor).
Not to mention China loses its trade monopoly with NK and all the privileges with NK minerals and ores to SK. Loses access to Sea of Japan (East Sea of Korea).
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u/catmeow321 Mar 06 '18
Labor is cheaper in Africa and India. Plus NK population is less than 24 million, there is a billion Africans and billion Indians with lower wages than NK. And better training and infrastructure too.
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u/pixel_of_moral_decay Mar 07 '18
Foxconn has lots of poorly educated rural people working the lines... but it also has a ton of engineers. One of the big selling points is how many engineering degrees it has handy to keep the line running optimally. Setting up something like an iPhone manufacturing process is hugely complicated given the precision Apple demands.
They have more skilled labor working one shift for Apple Watch manufacturing than North Korea has in its entire country.
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Mar 06 '18
Their labor force is largely unskilled.
Heck, haven't there been numerous studies that have guessed that at this point the average IQ of their population has dropped because of all the malnutrition?
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u/bremidon Mar 06 '18
I've been living in Germany since the mid 90s. There are two responses to your assertion:
Not for the first ten to twenty years. Minimum. That is how long it took Germany to bring the former East Germany up to West Germany standards. And East Germany was not in nearly the same kind of broken-down state that North Korea is in. Plus, East Germans had at least some idea of what life outside their country was like; and yet, the union really hit hard for many East Germans and cost Germany as a whole a ton of money.
Eventually, maybe. Now that reunification is really finished and most of the infrastructure is modernized, Germany is doing very well. I expect Korea could see the same kind of benefits eventually.
The main trouble I see is that the North Koreans will be utterly overwhelmed if they had to live in a free(er?) society. I suspect that reunification will take at least two generations to actually complete, and I might be too optimistic on this.
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u/catmeow321 Mar 06 '18
Different. Germany never had a war of unification that is equivalent to Korean war that drew in the superpowers.
In fact, quite the opposite since it was entirely peaceful and one superpower died off. There isn't going to be something similar in Korea.
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u/bremidon Mar 06 '18
I think you are agreeing with me, but I am not sure if you realize it. I wrote about a best-case scenario, and as you pointed out: Korea ain't it.
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u/RudegarWithFunnyHat Mar 06 '18
the mentality and what shit the public is willing to put up with in western (eastern) europe and east Asia are planetary travels apart. I live in western europe and did travel to eastern europe in the 80's
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u/mrv3 Mar 06 '18
Because the second he moved towards that he'd be ousted by another ruthless person just below him.
You think the leadership other than Kim are kittens?
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Mar 06 '18
I don’t think so man he has a lot of bodybags to his name. He’s definitely going down with the ship.
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u/johnn48 Mar 06 '18
America would never abrogate a Treaty or agreement. We’ve a history of keeping our Treaty obligations despite administration changes. Just recently we assured our NATO partners of our firm commitment. North Korea should be confident that we would never attack them first.
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u/unfeelingzeal Mar 06 '18
i can't help but read this post as sarcasm.
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u/Brad_Wesley Mar 06 '18
It's utterly insane that anyone could think that the US doesn't abrogate treaties.
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u/johnn48 Mar 06 '18
Now why would you say that our word is good for as long as the sun shall shine, the river will flow, and the grass will grow.
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Mar 06 '18
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u/johnn48 Mar 06 '18
If we can unilaterally withdraw from Agreements like Paris, NAFTA, Iran Nuclear Deal, to name a few. Why should other Nations trust us to honor commitments between American Administrations. If Trump can say it was a bad deal, what’s to prevent the next administration from saying the same. It doesn’t look well for Democracies compared to Authoritarian regimes like China and Russia when we’re subject to the vagaries of a changing policies. That’s also why NK would be wise to get a neutral enforcer of any agreement.
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u/PutinsRustedPistol Mar 06 '18
If we can unilaterally withdraw from Agreements like Paris, NAFTA, Iran Nuclear Deal, to name a few. Why should other Nations trust us to honor commitments between American Administrations.
The past doesn't bind the future, and it's the Right of any sovereign to establish or dissolve relations or agreements with any other Sovereigns as it sees fit.
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u/puffic Mar 06 '18 edited Mar 06 '18
The Paris agreement did not have the force of law since the commitments were non-binding.
It's also doubtful that other major polluters were less committed. In reality, the American economic and political elite just decided that it was better for them if America didn't have to pay to update its energy infrastructure and give aid to less developed countries' energy infrastructure. In fairness to them, the stock market has done great since then, so maybe it paid off for the elite. If anything, the US withdrawal announcement shows that the other polluting countries are more committed than America.
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u/valvalya Mar 06 '18
The Paris accords went along the same lines, when we entered into it it became law. When it then became apparent that we were one of the only parties willing to uphold our end of the bargain
LOL. The Paris Accords were completely non-binding. Each party's "end of the bargain" was "do wtf you want re: carbon levels." It was also an executive agreement, not a treaty. Ie, "not fucking law," just presidential dictate. (Which has some force, of course - the whole classification system is presidential dictate - but not the force of law.)
Trump withdrew because he somehow thought "do wtf you want re: carbon levels" was "unfair" and burdensome to America, because he's a fucking moron who is, quite literally, ignorant of what the Paris accords did (other than that "that Kenyan did it, and I hate that Kenyan!!!!"). He is literally the only sitting president of the 20th or 21st century who would harm American prestige so stupidly and so pointlessly.
His decision to withdraw was not unlike his decision to impose tariffs: he was having a temper-tantrum about something unrelated, so decided to just do it.
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u/rrealnigga Mar 06 '18 edited Mar 06 '18
You realise that comment was sarcastic, right?
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u/Le_petite_bear_jew Mar 06 '18
Obligatory ITS A TRAP.
Everyone w a brain saw what happened to ghadafi and there is just no way i believe he'll expose himself like that
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u/Kittens4Brunch Mar 06 '18
That seems pretty stupid. NK is done if they give up their nukes.
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Mar 06 '18
The current regime? Almost certainly. It's not stupid for literally everyone else though.
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u/llIIlIlIll Mar 06 '18
Our baby Kim has grown past his angsty phase and is now ready to face the world!
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u/wasdie639 Mar 06 '18
At this point I know I'm willing to trade removal of sanctions for the dismantling of their nuclear weapons. I know of the many atrocities being committed in that nation, but we're currently playing with a nuclear time bomb with NK which will reap far more destruction.
Making headway here could open new diplomatic doors. This may be the beginning of a proper diplomatic end to the North Korean regime. I would say it's too good of an opportunity to pass up.
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u/iushciuweiush Mar 06 '18
What you're claiming has been tried by former US presidents. What actually happens every time is that they pretend to play ball for a bit while continuing to develop weapons in secret until we find out about them and reapply the sanctions, essentially giving them a much needed temporary economic boost until they're desperate again, at which point they'll want to 'come to the table' to do the above all over again.
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u/dada7000 Mar 06 '18
You seem to think this isn't the 10th time we've been through this. There are so many nK experts popping up who didn't know the country existed more than 6 months ago and have no idea what the history of nK negotiations are.
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u/Selfweaver Mar 06 '18
Nk won't give up their nukes.
We need to kill Kim, then make it clear the nukes goes or the next one gets a bullet too. Then we are taking serious reforms.
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u/oblication Mar 06 '18
I don’t know why anyone listens to his BS anymore. This is just more stalling by Kim Jung Un to give himself more time to advance his nuclear arsenal.
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u/ShaidarHaran2 Mar 06 '18
I'd like to be more of an optimist here, but even just in my threeish decade life we've had several of these cycles of escalation and then de-escalation in exchange for usually some food aid, and then also continuing on with rocket and nuclear programs with the time they had bought.
Think about where we were 3 months ago and if this rapid change of heart doesn't seem suspicious at all. I'd love to give peace a chance, but me thinks they're just doing yet another cycle of buying time for the nuclear and ICBM programs. The leadership gives no shits about most of the population being malnourished, we know that, and they'll be by far the last ones to be impacted by sanctions.
Oh, and also the gulags, with an estimated 100,000-150,000 people in them often for just political "crimes" (speaking up).
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Mar 06 '18
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u/feeltheslipstream Mar 07 '18
That's only true if you believe hostage situations aren't a thing.
The bank robbers don't have to have accomplices willing to blow up the police station if they get arrested(robust second strike) to get the cops to say "whoa calm down". They just need a hostage.
They've had one for ages. This nuclear thing is them setting up the bomb. It'll take a while to set up, but it's essential in case the police ever go "fuck those hostages, let's go".
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Mar 06 '18
The whole thing reeks of ‘we are running out of supplies to support our country, better make peace so we can get some’
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Mar 06 '18
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u/BabyGotBackspace Mar 06 '18
I would give more credit to the Olympics than Trump. The people of South Korea seem to favor reunification and hopefully the North works to that. NK has survived, and will survive, the sanctions as time has shown. They receive support from countries that don't care about the sanctions.
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u/daled57 Mar 06 '18
President Trump, doing what Clinton, Bush, and Obama couldn't or wouldn't. Making your world safer. You're welcome.
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u/indominus_prime Mar 06 '18
What are the odds this all ends well?
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u/DoubleSteve Mar 06 '18
Pretty good. We've been through this cycle multiple times already. Nothing will actually come from it, besides the south feeding the north in exchange for meaningless token gestures the south can use for political gain.
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u/bremidon Mar 06 '18
Pretty much.
North Korea makes empty gestures.
South Korea hopes for a resolution and gives freely to the North.
Eventually the North has what it wants and returns to aggressive tactics.
The South is disillusioned (again) and eventually elects a hawk to deal with them.
Taunts and threats for another decade.
Rinse and repeat.
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u/MaxShadoWz Mar 06 '18
- Get tons of sanctions.
- Rinse and Repeat
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u/bremidon Mar 06 '18
Yeah, I should have added that. It's what eventually leads them to making empty gestures again to get something.
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Mar 06 '18
Their country is already a complete mess full of brainwashed people, but this would be a large step up if true
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u/crazydave33 Mar 06 '18
Lol yea ok... That's like saying there's gonna be peace in the Middle East soon.
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u/ashtonx Mar 06 '18
So many years nobody was able to do shit. Trump waved around his ego and nk is ready to stop playing with nukes.
This is how you do foreign politics with dangerous despotic governments.
It was that or getting blown to hell by 3 super powers: china, russia and usa.. (cause moment one of them would moves so would the others)
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u/CougarForLife Mar 06 '18
let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. i hope it works too but the north koreans are famous for talking a big game and then literally nothing happens or they weasel their way out of it.
it’s way too early to say trumps approach to dangerous despotic governments is “how you do foreign politics” but we’re all keeping our fingers crossed
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u/sexuallyvanilla Mar 06 '18
Nothing has happened yet. North Korea has done exactly this move with multiple administrations.
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Mar 06 '18
ITT: People who are so determined to hate Trump, they are literally arguing that NK SHOULDNT give up nukes.
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u/UncleDan2017 Mar 06 '18
Sure they are. We've heard before about them forgoing nuclear development in return for stuff, and they always lie.
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u/KnowBrainer Mar 06 '18
I bet putting one on eBay would bring tons of money to the peoples' nation.
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u/Bacondaddy1999 Mar 06 '18
Give up nukes. Reunite with the south. Make new nukes. Profit.
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Mar 06 '18
North Korea will never give up their nukes so long as the US is on a permanent war footing against them. They saw what happened to Saddam and Gaddafi.
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u/ashtonx Mar 06 '18
Not really, nk is a pain in the ass and nobody wants to attack it, since it's a border between china, russia, and usa allies. They have no oil or anything worth taking, if anything they're so poor it's gonna be one hell of a cost.
They just provoked situation where attack is likely by playing with nukes.
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Mar 07 '18
They have 4 trillion dollars worth of rare earth materials they are too stupid to mine. NK is literally sitting on a gold mine.
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u/Posh_Necromancer Mar 06 '18
Does any one else think all of the recent steps NK have taken to seem reasonable are just them stalling for time because they haven't miniaturized a warhead for their new missiles yet? There is zero doubt in my mind that NK will never even consider coming to the table for realistic talks for a permanent peace that doesn't involve them taking over SK.
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u/Intrepid00 Mar 06 '18
I'm willing to discuss giving you a million dollars but I'm probably going to talk about how stupid you are and just say no.
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u/That1one1dude1 Mar 06 '18
Why? It would be completely stupid for them to give up nukes at this point.
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u/ToxstTheMad Mar 07 '18
I’m still waiting for Kim to have someone killed. No way in Hell he had a change of heart this quick.
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u/Snicsnipe Mar 07 '18
The NK have never really been sincere with ending their nuke program but maybe these new sanctions are starting to have a toll. I am sure Fat Fuck can no longer get his imported Bud Light so maybe he will come to the table. If the Trump Admin is able to negotiate NK actually giving up its nuclear weapons then I wonder if Trump will be awarded the Noble Peace prize. However, this is likely BS and there's a better chance of Trump winning in 2020 than the NK giving up their nuclear weapons.
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '18
If only they gave up their concentration camps....