[TerranC]

Originally posted by LGM:

quote:

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Originally posted by primitive:

North Korea is going to find a lot of new customers for their hardware over the next few years.

You think China and the USA will let North Korea complete development of Nuclear weapons. The Last thing China wants is for South Korea and Japan to start building nukes. Where do you think the lay over is on the way home from Iraq?

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The Last thing china wants is more US support on Taiwan, Japan getting a US-manufactured Missile shield, and a US-Friendly unified Korean Peninsula, rather than them having nukes. To the chinese, all of those listed above must not happen anytime soon, as it will severly damage Chinese geopolitical influence in the region, and give the US leverage.

Getting rid of North Korea by militaristic means accomplishes 2 of those 3 goals, so that's a no-no. Letting North Korea live accomplishes 1 out of 3 goals (or 1/2 out of 3, if you really believe the japanese will build their own missile shield). Therefore, the only way for china to proceed is to persue diplomacy, and eventually crack North Korea's Mao-Stalinist communism apart and get it to reconciliate with the south later.

[ April 06, 2003, 06:14: Message edited by: TerranC ]