US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7358

On April 20 2017 01:41 KwarK wrote:
Nobody is saying that North Korea would prosper if China closed their doors. My argument is that the benchmark for catastrophes that the North Korean regime can weather has already been set at the mass starvation of the civilian populace. If you wish to make the argument that North Korea, which you must recognize is the least dependent upon foreign trade nation in the world, would collapse without foreign trade then you need to first make the argument that a lack of foreign trade would be more unpopular with the civilian population than literally starving to death.

I'm not sure how you're not getting this but that's the argument you'll need to make.

Your argument so far
A lack of foreign trade would be so unpopular with the people that they would rise up and depose the regime.

The problems with it

Starving to death wasn't sufficiently unpopular with the civilian population for the regime to be overthrown. Therefore for your argument to work you must first demonstrate that foreign trade is more popular than not starving to death.

The Korean people don't themselves trade with China. The state does, to accumulate foreign cash reserves to be used to purchase the things they cannot make themselves. The Korean people aren't the ones exporting, the state is.

The Korean people typically don't have access to the things bought with the foreign cash reserves. The state isn't using its extremely hard to obtain cash deserves to buy the people iPods, the people aren't going to suddenly have their supply of Wii games dry up.

The entire export industry is under $3b. For perspective, a 0.5% change in the stock price of Apple is worth more than everything North Korea exports in an entire year. Walmart sells about $200 for every dollar the entire nation of North Korea sells. Trade is a near negligible factor for Korean economy, a deliberate strategy precisely for the purpose of avoiding any chance of trade being leveraged against them in the way you suggest.

The Korean people lack the means to overthrow the regime. They are disarmed, pacified and denied access to the means of communication and assembly. If one province revolted the neighbouring provinces wouldn't hear about it until after it had been crushed.

The Korean state is overwhelmingly, disproportionately, unimaginably powerful compared to the people. 25% of the entire population of the nation is militarized. To put that in perspective, if you got every single male civilian in North Korea, armed them, equipped them, supplied them and trained them then every single male civilian all revolting at once would still be outnumbered by the government forces.


You have provided literally no evidence for your absurd claim that a lack of trade with China would somehow trigger the civilian population of North Korea to all simultaneously rise up against their oppressors, presumably using some kind of telepathy to coordinate and telekinesis to defeat the soldiers, powers that they refused to use when they were battling with mere death by starvation but that they couldn't restrain any longer when battling with a state shortage of foreign cash reserves.


Would the North Korean state like Yuan? Sure, Yuan are handy for when they can't make something themselves. Would a lack of Yuan within the North Korean state be more unpopular with the Korean people than a lack of food on their plates? I think not.

On April 20 2017 01:46 LightSpectra wrote:
I never said "A lack of foreign trade would be so unpopular with the people that they would rise up and depose the regime", that's your strawman. I actually think that's quite unlikely.

On April 20 2017 00:23 LightSpectra wrote:
China could put an end to this mess any second they want by a full embargo against NK, which would shut down their economy and lead to immediate riots. (We can already see that in action right now from the coal embargo.) But that would be really costly to China and dangerous, since they don't particularly want ten million refugees flooding across the border, or Kim to think "well I'm doomed anyway, might as well see some fireworks".

On April 20 2017 01:48 Plansix wrote:

But during that time, they could attack any SK. The starve them out plan also involves starving millions of people. If you want to see a nation do some irrational stuff, cut off the supply of food.

On April 20 2017 01:51 KwarK wrote:


You did actually. That was the piece of idiocy that started this whole shit. You said that a full embargo against NK would shut down their economy and lead to immediate riots, a knockon effect of which would be ten million (half the population of the entire country, really?) refugees crossing the border and the collapse of the state.

But don't let the actual argument you made being the same thing as the straw man you're accusing me of inventing trouble you. By all means keep arguing that the North Korean people are so incredibly invested in foreign trade and so reliant on imports that they'd tolerate starving to death but would immediately destroy the regime if their government could no longer sell coal.

On April 20 2017 01:51 ticklishmusic wrote:


I largely agree, but the richer class (like the folks who like in Pyongyang, have access to Westernized goods or have a cousin who's a colonel or whatever) might be unhappy. While the peasant class is willing to more or less silently starve to death, will the other group which has some semblance of power/ benefits from trade go along with it as easily?

On April 20 2017 01:55 LightSpectra wrote:


Hence why I said that Trump was playing with fire by trying to get China to hit the breaks...

On April 20 2017 01:57 LightSpectra wrote:


Uh yeah, if North Koreans would riot over their savings being devalued over a bad monetary policy, you bet your ass they'd also riot over Kim hoarding all the food to keep the military going.

I don't see how that equates to "A lack of foreign trade would be so unpopular with the people that they would rise up and depose the regime", unless you think riots = coordinated political dissidence.

On April 20 2017 01:57 LightSpectra wrote:


Uh yeah, if North Koreans would riot over their savings being devalued over a bad monetary policy, you bet your ass they'd also riot over Kim hoarding all the food to keep the military going. (You might reply "But there's already famine." The famine in NK right now is at a low enough level that it's relatively stable, Pyongyang can essentially decide who starves to death so that the state's cogs keep running. That wouldn't be the case if there was suddenly a global embargo.)

I don't see how that equates to "A lack of foreign trade would be so unpopular with the people that they would rise up and depose the regime", unless you think riots = coordinated political dissidence.

On April 20 2017 02:00 KwarK wrote:

You said 10 million refugees would cross the border to China and that Kim would realize his regime was doomed. You weren't describing a riot, you were describing a revolution. If at any point you wish to concede that a revolution would not happen if China stopped importing coal from North Korea (which incidentally is my side of the argument) you can feel free.

Until such a time as you wish to concede that what you said was silly I would appreciate it if you would confine yourself to your own side of the argument and cease trying to co-opt mine. I know mine is better, and you're welcome to join me over here, but you have to do it properly. You can't just insist that what I have been saying is what you meant all along and that we both disagree with your own original premise.

On April 20 2017 02:10 zlefin wrote:
Kwark pretty clearly right here; and light is ignoring the statement he himself made. so this one is clearly in Kwark's favor. No more discussion will be useful, since light's ignoring his own statement's rather than retracting them.

On April 20 2017 02:11 LightSpectra wrote:


Sorry, which statement am I ignoring here?

On April 20 2017 02:11 LightSpectra wrote:


Sorry, which statement am I ignoring here?

On April 20 2017 01:46 LightSpectra wrote:
I never said "A lack of foreign trade would be so unpopular with the people that they would rise up and depose the regime", that's your strawman.

On April 20 2017 02:14 zlefin wrote:

seeing as Kwark already explicitly pointed it out to you, and you've ignored it; there's no use in me repeating it. So I shan't discuss more with you on this matter. There is no discussion to be had as you aren't discussing.

In this post you say that Kim Jong-Un would be unable to stay in power due to lack of money and an economic breakdown [referencing a Chinese embargo].

In this one you say that a trade embargo with China would cause a total collapse of the North Korean military (and therefore the state).

In this one you describe the consequences of an embargo. In it you suggest that half the entire population of North Korea would attempt to cross the border into China and that Kim would conclude that he is doomed.

You also make the very strange claim that North Korea, which has the capacity to nuke China, is developing missiles capable of nuking the United States in order to get sovereignty back from China. This is in the wake of another North Korean broadcast featuring an American city being nuked.

Here you again reference the collapse of the government as a whole, not a riot, a revolution.

On April 20 2017 02:18 LightSpectra wrote:


If you'd like to point out the exact thing I said which you think I am ignoring, I'll be right here.

Looking back on all of my posts, it doesn't look like I said anything that I'm not prepared to stand by. This conversation went off the rails when KwarK erroneously began to think that I was describing a nation-wide revolution against the Kim regime. I have never suggested such a thing, I've now twice said that it's highly unlikely. I think North Korea relies on trade with China so much that if there was a total embargo (not just coal), the state would cease being able to marshal enough resources to keep control over the whole country. That's my argument. I've seen nothing yet to suggest that's wrong, just a lot of complaining about how stupid I am for thinking there's some underground democracy waiting to overthrow the Kim regime.

On April 20 2017 01:21 Biff The Understudy wrote:

No offense but in the last three months, America has rather been returning to stupid.