Musings on Korea

While doing my household chores his morning, I stared to muse
about how a reunification of Korea might happen. I remembered back
to he reunification of Germany and the fall of the Berlin wall; I was taking
German language classes at the time, and everyone in the class seemed to
be sure this was going to happen, even when the teachers themselves - German
diplomats - were apprehensive. Why? Because the peoples involved wanted it.
The Wall was no longer tenable and  - in effect - it was stormed.

Flash forward to Korea today. Is it reasonable to expect North Koreans to demand
freedoms and storm the frontier to Seoul. Probably not. It is a very different situation.
Not North Koreans demanding modernity, but South Koreans demanding tranquility and the
countryside might be forces at work. South Korea is twice as populated at the idyllic North.
Osmosis - the border is a war zone - rather then diffusion.

Because diplomatically, this is a hard one. The Korean War was that last little detail
from World War II that never got settled. The United States led the UN coalition that
won the war against the North, but as a police action and no treaty was ever signed.
North Korea ia effectively still at war, but because alliances have changed, it has focused
on the US as the enemy, and has been going at it on a slow burn. Until now.

Russia and China are conveniently looking at their immediate interests: getting the US out
of the South. And refusing sanctions against the North, which is both humanitarian
and disingenious at the same time.

Is the North Korean regime holding a death grip on power? Hard to tell from here. But the
country was occupied by Japan for a long time, and going to a communist regime was
useful in that regard. This was done by Kim the grand father. The present regime
surely keeps the memory of all that as well.