What To Do About North Korea

Power Line Blog  "Here’s very interesting news item—if true—from The Independent in the UK:

China ‘tells citizens to leave North Korea’ as tensions with U.S. escalate

The Korea Times reports that the Chinese embassy in North Korea began advising Korean-Chinese residents to return to China last month, over fears the country’s military provocations could lead to retaliation from the US.

"If true, this could perhaps be an expression of China agreeing to put pressure on the Norks to behave. Or it could be much more serious than that.

"Our pal Herbert Meyer has offered up a typically astute and creative analysis of the situation over at The American Thinker that is worth taking in. He says: Let’s turn North Korea into East Germany. I know—that may sound odd: isn’t North Korea waaaayy beyond East Germany in a totalitarian awfulness? Yes, but let Herb explain more fully:

Here’s one possible objective that would defuse this crisis and perhaps even bring a few decades of stability: to turn North Korea into a modern version of East Germany.

. . .
 "In other words, we need an active strategy to subvert the regime from within. Read the entire piece for Herb’s walk through the four crucial questions about what would need to be done to make the Norks decide to change their own regime, but I’ll just give you his conclusion:

Don’t bother asking the usual Washington policymakers whether turning North Korea into a modern version of East Germany might actually be possible. They will reply — in unison, within two-billionths of a second — No, this is impossible! Kim Jong-un is crazy, and the North Koreans will never give up their nukes or agree to stop threatening South Korea and the U.S. Well, they may be right. On the other hand, these are mostly the same geniuses who told us, also with 100 percent confidence, that it was impossible to win the Cold War, and impossible for Donald Trump to get elected president. Impossible things sometimes do happen, even in politics — especially in politics. Given the risk we face of nuclear war, this is worth a shot.