Why Yes... famous... well well... I didn't think I was famous for much of anything at all... predictions... OH... you mean when I have three tequilas while looking over my hobby information sites, and sit down here to chat it up... Actually... for the NK's... it's a given that they will do something to make them look like they are spitting in the faces of the countries they hate... and they hate everybody that is making it good on their own, especially folks that their fathers were fighting against more than a half a century ago... Did they launch their rockets yet???
Surely you should have been able to predict that someone would say you were famous for making predictions?
I had a very interesting lunch yesterday, in a smallish group with a senior US diplomat involved in policies in the Pacific. He said that North Korea was proving incredibly useful for the China-US relationship. Because China and the US have a shared problem with North Korea, and a common interesting in maintaining stability on the Korean peninsula, it's been a brilliant catalyst to make China and the US work together, and to understand just how many interests they have in common. And he thinks that, in spite of the increased tension between China and Japan since Shinzo Abe's election, Japan and China's common problem with NK is going to do more to bring China and Japan together than Abe's nationalism will do to push the countries apart. He reckons that, even if NK is stupid enough to start a war (and he doesn't think they will be, but he is far from sure), the single biggest result of NK's shouty idiocy is going to be a safer, more stable West Pacific as everyone - China, Japan, the US, SK and Taiwan, realise that they all have similar interests, and they all dislike the NK government. What's interesting is that I've heard much the same - repeatedly - from Chinese diplomats (I have far closer relationships with Chinese diplomats than American ones: it's the nature of my job). So it's clear that both sides are thinking the same thing here.
It really helps that China is a rather good world citizen. They don't (substantially) finance insurgent groups, even those claiming a communist manifesto. They attempt to spread influence donating soccer stadiums vs military hardware. And they don't claim capitalism must be destroyed. (That's not too hard to understand.) They are not angels in a lot of areas, but in the larger picture they seem to be the total opposite of the Soviet Communist approach to international behavior.
I suspect there is lot of truth in that. I wouldn't want Kim's job. If he is terminated from his job, he will be "terminated with extreme prejudice"
We need a new viral meme... Kim Jong-un is informed.... Why do we need the Hitler Downfall clip when we have a really mad and crazy dictator from this century?
Because we don't have a good video clip of Kim to work with. That picture does look like a C grade movie set, maybe they are going to release video.
Indeed. They've seen that the best thing for the government (and the people) is global stability and growing trade, so that's what they're aiming for. The Chinese government certainly has its faults, but in terms of international policy and practice, it's pretty good.
