Timeline for Has China shown any inclination towards a unified Korea?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 12, 2022 at 2:28 | comment | added | Faito Dayo | You are right. China, given its treatment by the West in the last century, would not let any Western military base resides near its border. It is a saber pointing at the throat of China--not just to the CPC, the whole China. | |
| Jul 28, 2022 at 17:26 | comment | added | RonJohn | @o.m. the "screaming ChiCom hordes" poured over the Yalu River for the express purpose of preventing a US client from sitting on their border. | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 19:29 | comment | added | Italian Philosopher | @MSalters I know, consider it shorthand for "Western interests". Which may include any nation persecuting poor Russia now, as well as evil Japan. Point is, right now, China is splendidly isolated from ground threats (letting aside Russia, which has limited urban density and logistical capability on their border and shown limited overall military ability to boot). If you were planning to invade China on land or deploy shorter range aircraft, you'd have nowhere to do it from. That changes if you have a West-oriented unified Korea to base from. Why should China take the risk? | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 18:55 | comment | added | MSalters | NATO? Korea is quite a distance from the North Atlantic, unlike Germany. | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 16:38 | comment | added | gerrit | There are US bases in Germany, but not in the eastern part. | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 6:09 | comment | added | Italian Philosopher | But the analogy to Germany remains extremely valid nevertheless. China has much more to lose by having NATO troops on its borders than it has incurred costs from NK so far. Any idea that it will let NK reunify on SK and Western terms is wishful thinking - aww, shucks, can't we all be reasonable?. Instability is also very relative: SK is not going to attack NK and is quite unlikely to take any action significantly harming China's border interests. Sure, Kim is batshit crazy, but he's somewhat their bat shit crazy. | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 6:01 | comment | added | o.m. | @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica, unlike the answer by Fizz, this one went purely by analogy to Germany, glossing over the details of that case. China is deeply opposed to instability on their Korean border, and it may come to the point where the current DPRK regime is no longer seen as a source of stability. | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 5:07 | comment | added | Italian Philosopher | and also cfr.org/backgrounder/china-north-korea-relationship | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 5:02 | comment | added | Italian Philosopher | @o.m. Oh, come on, this is Military Strategy 101. Korea is a mountainous country and China has the buffer of North Korea stopping or at least slowing down any NATO invasion. There's a wikipedia entry for the concept, it doesn't take a PhD to figure out one reason China is keen on not losing it. But yeah, not hard to find exactly this kind of claim in the pros section of NK, before digging into the cons. | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 3:29 | comment | added | o.m. | Do you have any quote from official or tier 1.5 Chinese sources on this, rather than just guesses? | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 1:31 | comment | added | Italian Philosopher | Agreed. Given the train wreck that NK is, there's a good chance reunification would happen on South Korea's terms, meaning it may very well cut a deal with the US to stick around. Just like Europe did. | |
| Jul 26, 2022 at 20:46 | history | answered | alamar | CC BY-SA 4.0 |