North Korea Is Screwed

I am sure that by now most of you are familiar with the recent leak of diplomatic cables by Wiki Leaks. One of the things the most interests me is the announcement that China is sick and tired of having to deal with their wild and Wacky  Neighbor, the Not Ironically Named at All Democratic People's Republic of Korea, aka North Korea.

Click Here is you want to read for yourself

Long story short, North Korea is done, finished. Once Kim Jong Il kicks the bucket the country has two years, three max before it all goes to hell. And the Chinese are  just trying to cut their loses and insure that the endgame plays out with maximum benefit for them.

Korean reunification is going to be a messy matter, it shall be a long and messy reconstruction process where one of the poorest and most isolated countries in the world have to be reintegrated into one of its wealthiest. Official reports from the South Korean government have estimated the final, long term costs of reunification at 0.8 TRILLION dollars, that's right TRILLION WITH A T just to get the standard of living of the average North Korean to HALF that of his southern cousin.  No one has that money, not the South Koreans, not the US, not the Chinese, or the Japanese or the Russians. Repairing the damage done be six decades of misrule by House of Kim shall be a project of international scale with most us footing at least a part of the bill. Right during a time when much of the world is short on money too.

And you know what, North Korea just imploding and a ton of refugees crossing over into China and South Korea looking for food is the BEST CASE scenario. Do you know what the worst case one is? North Korea decides to go "Screw it, if we are going down, might as well go down fighting." and launches a second Korean War. My thoughts on that are in an earlier post but believe me. It isn't pretty.