Should we feed North Korea?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by BenTheMan, Nov 23, 2009.

  1. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    9,879
    The US signs treaties all the time and then breaks them when it no longer suits their interest so we can't expect other nations not to do the same. As for Iran, what one signs in 68' may not hold now for the present leadership and circumstances. They have not signed anything saying they cannot have it they only gave permission for strict IAEA inspections.

    China and Russia are not living in fear of N. Korea. The Chinese are one of their closest allies and if N.Korea is on its way to advanced weaponry its because the Chinese have either helped or silently approve. They are always 'in talks' with N. Korea at the behest of the US but that doesn't mean anything, at least not anymore than the US negotiating a peace deal with Palestinians and Israel is if in earnest when we all know the US is pro Israeli in its interests. The fact of the matter is that the Bush administration threatened N. Korea first with pre-emptive strikes. It stands to reason that they would feel forced to take preventative measures.

    Wether we give food aid or not N. Korea is not going to disarm. There are occasions when the US doesn't want to confuse humanitarian aid with arms talks. Look the US has halted food aid from N. Korea during the Bush years and it didn't make much of a difference.

    "If food aid from the U.S. stops, at least 300,000 to 400,000 North Koreans will die of hunger. This winter is critical to them, said Chang Seong Chong, a North Korean analyst at the Sejong Research Institute in Seoul.

    From the North Korean point of view, they often say, ’We’d rather die standing up straight, than live kneeling down,’ Chang said. If food aid is used as a weapon or stick to tame them, no matter whether hundreds of thousands or millions die of hunger, they will react with that attitude."

    http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55a/008.html

    Again you don't satisfy other nations by tying democratic ideas with trade or aid. The Chinese have leverage in developing countries precisely because they don't try and change the nature of the regimes they do business with, its simply a matter of quid pro quo. What we aim to do is force Kim Jong ll to open up his society and give up some control, recognize democratic and human rights ideals but they are not going to do that no matter how many people starve. I think that the sanctions are a mistake as they are in Myanmar. They should sweeten the tooth with pure capitalism as they have done with Cambodia. They make some changes to suit the west because they don't want all that money to stop flowing into the country, the government is basically run by a dictator but one who likes to have elections anyway, there is no opposition and no justice but there is peace and the people eat more than they did a decade ago and there is a rising middle class and the rich are getting richer and sending their kids to good schools in the US and Singapore. Those in government and business get rich and more powerful and in exchange they agree to a genocide tribunal, they sign treaties with the West and sit at the table and become more and more pliable over time but the moment the West harps too much about this right or that right or threatens to stop aid if they don't sign the anti corruption bill the Khmers simply say 'Well we always have the Chinese and they give us more' and the West loses it leverage.
     
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  3. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Why would they attack S. Korea or Japan? Why would they give the West an excuse to completely invade, topple and destroy. Their capabilities are miniscule in comparison and only truly useful as a deterrent. North Korea is insular, they are not looking to conquer their neighbors, intimidate yes but not conquer. Their troops don't eat enough to carry out an invasion. They are not suicidal they just want to maintain the status quo.
     
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  5. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    No, which is why I asked

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    By ``we'' I don't mean the US. It is clear that Kim Jong Il is using his nuclear weapons program as a way to extract subsidies from the outside world, China, South Korea, Japan, and the US.

    Well, more beneficial to the millions of people who the regime is starving to death, for one. And more beneficial to the South whose capital is less than 100 miles from the border. Secondly, I don't know if China would rather have a few (million) refugees from North Korea or another nuclear armed power on its doorstep. And the flood of refugees would probably mostly be south, as the Koreans share a common language and culture.

    Again, this is not clear to me. The Korean peninsula is isolated from China, more or less, as it was for generations before WWII. Maybe you're right, but I don't know. I'm willing to concede this because my first thought was for the people who Kim Jong Il is starving (hence the moral question!).

    Because of the cultural similarities between the south and north, any collapse of the North's government would probably precipitate unification, in which case the government would probably be more like the South's.

    China has a long history of non-involvement in the affairs of other countries. Unless it posed a serious threat to Chinese national security, I don't see Beijing doing much to this end, although I could be wrong, as I am no expert in such things.

    This seems probable, which is why I don't know what to think about the issue.
     
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  7. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    So you're advocating lawlessness? Just because one person does it we should expect everyone to do it? Countries should come and go from their commitments as they please, and fulfill their obligations to the international only if they want to? Do you really believe this?

    Immaterial. Iran is a signatory to the NPT, and is thus obliged to the tenets of the treaty, including cessation of any research program designed to build a nuclear weapon (Article 2). They are allowed peaceful nuclear technology under Article 4, and must submit to IAEA inspections under Article 3. They are also allowed to withdraw from the treaty under Article 10.

    Pure speculation.

    As a matter of principle, though, if your goal is to disarm a country, and you have clear evidence that food aid is running contrary to that end, should you continue with this program? This is the moral question.

    At what point does their ethos apply to an oppressive and dysfunctional government?
     
  8. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Of course. But presumably they'd have already replaced the Kim family regime with something more to their liking, if such was in their power. It's difficult to see how starving them would substantially empower them with respect to the regime.

    Well, maybe, maybe not. Nobody likes having their capital within artillery range of a hostile army. But on the other hand, the economic, social and political costs to South Korea of the collapse of NK would be pretty severe, even if the situation ultimately worked out in their favor (and there is no guarantee it would). South Korea might well prefer a rapproachment with the North wherein tensions are drastically de-escalated (in which case, who cares about how close their artillery can get), without any attendant state failure. Of course, it's difficult to see how NK could get into such a position without inviting regime change, but the point is that SK's interests are not necessarily aligned with the demise of the Kim family regime as such.

    They seem pretty clear about preferring the latter to the former, so far. If they could get rid of the nukes without risking state collapse, I'm sure they'd embrace such an option. But in so far as they face a choice, they seem to prefer to keep NK alive and kicking; nonproliferation doesn't seem to be nearly as big a concern with the CCP, particularly when it comes to a state they see as dependent upon them to begin with.

    Well, it would depend on how it worked out. A major reason the refugees today largely head to China and not SK is that the border with SK is much more heavily controlled. As long as that remains the case (and it likely would up until the final collapse of the Kim family regime), the refugees flows will reflect that.

    It is? They share a thousand-mile-long border. And while it is in largely mountainous terrain, this didn't prevent China from pouring about 1 million soldiers into the country to war against the US and SK.

    I.e., something along the lines of German reunification. I agree that such is the most likely outcome, but in the first place it is not without massive transition costs. In the second place, it is probably not in the interest of the SK political elite, since they'd find themselves having to share power with an entire new constituency. And in the last place, the resultant state would be in a politically tenuous position: what are relations with China, the US and Japan going to be like?

    The loss of an NK client state for China means that their leverage over the peninsula would be radically reduced, so something major would have to be done to compensate if we expect China not to undermine reuinification. But the US is accustomed to having SK as a client state, so it's unclear whether the US would support such accomodation of China. Nor, for that matter, would a unified Korea be likely to accept a subservient role dictated to them by great power rivals concerned with their own clout. There's a reason that Korea has been the site of great-power rivalry (and, indeed, this rivalry is the entire cause of the divided politics on the penninsula today), and reunification is likely to exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, those factors.

    To get back to the German example, let's recall that reunification there occurred in the context of the collapse and repudiation of the USSR. Reuinification was possible because the great power rivalry that had sustained the divisive pressures had ended. This will not be the case with Korea, unless we imagine that the CCP is going to fall apart at the same time. Thus, we are faced with the prospect of a dramatic, disordered reconfiguration of the politics of a great-power friction point, and so lack much confidence that a preferable solution would be the result. More likely, we'd get a major war, with most of the suffering done by the Korean people.

    Not when said affairs are perceived as directly relevant to the interests of China, as is the case in North Korea. They've been intervening there pretty much continuously since WWII; there would be no divided Korea to begin with, if it were not for a continuous, explicit policy of Chinese intervention.

    I think what you are referring to is China's famous ambivalence about the "internal affairs" of other countries. Which is just a codephrase indicating that they're happy enough to do business with dictators. This doesn't mean they don't get involved, but just that they don't concern themselves with human rights, democracy, etc. This trope is actually designed to facillitate Chinese involvement in the affairs of other countries, by assuaging the relevant political classes as to China's intentions towards them.

    They've been doing much to that end, on that justification, for generations now. Absent massive Chinese intervention, Korea probably would have been reuinified after the North lost the Korean war. It has been speculated that Mao played a key role in initiating the Korean war precisely to create a pretext for China to co-opt NK and so retain it is a client buffer state (as it has done ever since).
     
  9. thirdlaw Registered Member

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    5
    This is an unnecessarily complicated situation. I do not care if N. Korea has nukes. Without nuclear driven sanctions, I'm sure they would not need a handout, instead they could trade with the US. I think allowing US farmers to sell N. Korea food will improve our economy.
     
  10. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    8,967
    So there should be no obstacles to nuclear proliferation?
     
  11. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    8,967
    Let me just respond to the first of your points, as to the others I have nothing (really) to say.

    I guess I'm more concerned with the way that North Korea handles the food aid, with as much as 50% being skimmed off of the top. On the one hand, I struggle with the mentality that this is an acceptable loss, but on the other, the human casualty is pretty unacceptable, at any cost.

    I guess I'm just confused about the whole issue.
     
  12. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    9,879
    No not lawlessness. I am merely suggesting that if the US wants other nations to stand by treaties then they should start a precedence. You don't insure lawlessness by ignoring the law. I am also suggesting that treaties are not iron clad, if the government changes, if there values and concerns of a nation changes then a signed treaty can be deemed null and void.

    There is no proof that Iran will their nuclear program for anything but but peaceful means. Its an Israeli fear more than anything else.

    Not speculation. The tie between N. Korea and China has always been strong. The Chinese backed sanctions against N. Korea but they still supplied them with aid. They don't control N. Korea but it doesn't seem as if that is their goal. N. Korea's internal politics will not collapse from outside pressure.

    "North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Wednesday told the visiting Chinese defense minister that his isolated country's friendship with China was "unbreakable," even as ties have been tested by the North's nuclear tests.

    Relations between China and nuclear-armed North Korea, once described as being as close as "lips and teeth," have soured in recent years, especially since Pyongyang held nuclear test blasts in 2006 and again this year in May.

    But Kim told Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie in Pyongyang that ties were in fine form, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

    "He said the DPRK-China friendship, a treasure inherited from the older generations of the leaders of the two countries, had stood the test of history and was unbreakable," Xinhua said, using the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

    http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5AO1WQ20091125

    " Beijing continues to have more leverage over Pyongyang than any other nation, say some analysts. The economic leverage in particular, some point out, has only grown as a result of North Korea's declining relations with South Korea and the international community. But most experts agree that Beijing is unlikely to exercise its leverage given its concerns regarding regional stability and the uncertainty surrounding regime succession in North Korea."

    "At the same time, China has too much at stake in North Korea to halt or withdraw its support entirely. "The idea that the Chinese would turn their backs on the North Koreans is clearly wrong," says CFR Senior Fellow Adam Segal. Beijing only agreed to UN Resolution 1718 after revisions that removed requirements for tough economic sanctions beyond those targeting luxury goods, and China's trade with North Korea has continued to increase."

    http://www.cfr.org/publication/11097/

    You can cut the food aid but that will not necessarily lead to an internal regime change. We have seen that cutting food aid doesn't really work, especially when China which supplies half of Koreas energy and half its food supply.

    I'm not sure I understand this last question 'At what point does their ethos apply to an oppressive and dysfunctional government?'

    Do you mean from the standpoint of the West? The quote referenced indicates food sanctions will not work against regime like N. Korea. The West can decide to send food or not send food and it still will not make much of a difference as China supplies the country with food not to mention other donors including Japan. The world can watch them starve if they like but ask yourself if this will make the country more unstable without moving towards the change we want to see. Instability tends to yield wild results, results other nations may not want to deal with.

    I don't think negotiating with food is wise. You say that most food aid is skimmed off the top but this is true in many developing countries like the Sudan for example or Somalia but it doesn't lead to a complete withdrawal of funding. The idea here is that you want to force korea into giving up its nukes by starving the local population and as we have seen with Iraq this leads to nothing but a humanitarian disaster with our name on it. The Iraqi's did not blame Saddam for their crippling ten year sanctions they blamed the UN and the US.

    You must remember that N. Korea was starving its population even before the sanctions. They starve in N. Korea because they have no economy, if as Thirdlaw suggests we do straight business with them then maybe they could relax enough to see the incentive of raising the status of their population without giving up any power.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2009
  13. mugaliens Registered Member

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    110
    Why did they level Soul during the Korean War? Why have they had their missiles pointed towards Seoul ever since? Why have they repeatedly refused to sign any armistice treaty?

    That hasn't exactly been the best course of action, has it...
     
  14. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    9,879
    Yes but are these gestures of a genuine threat or is it simply an attempt to intimidate? The US is trying to broker something with a nation they technically are still at war with so why should N. Korea lay its guard down? Was the armistice treaty in their favor? Its a cold war effect. The fear that if one yields ones guard and withdraws troops they may leave themselves open to attack. N. Korea is a very paranoid nation like Myanmar. They are fear other nations and it has their back up. I don't think the West really fears N. Korea, I think we need them in check.

    "North Korea does not have a right to terminate on its own, but termination must be agreed by both sides. The North Koreans argue that their declaration ‘not to be bound’ is because the U.S. has repudiated the Armistice agreement. The view of South Korean scholars is that there has to be material breach on the U.N. Commanders side, based on article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, for North Korea to have sufficient grounds to terminate it, and there can be many controversies on this regarding the implementation of the agreement.

    North Koreans could argue that South Korea’s participation in the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) led by the U.S. and the recent UNSC resolution are all acts of hostilities against the North, violating article 12 of the Armistice agreement where it states for the parties to enforce ‘complete cessation of hostilities’. " (Blog excerpt from European Journal of International law)

    http://www.ejiltalk.org/has-north-korea-terminated-the-korean-armistice-agreement/

    No.

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    Not the best course of action.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2009

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