“China wants it if it gets the rich storehouse of strategic minerals in N Korea ”
Evidence please!
While the Norks do have valuable strategic minerals, it is hardly a treasure trove. China already has pretty much the same resources, only they won’t require the same capital outlay to develop that the Nork’s would.
I will say that might not matter. Taking North Korea to steal their graphite, copper, iron, etc. would not be logical, but then again the Chinese Government is under no obligation to be logical. Or maybe I should say that their logic isn’t the same as Western logic.
I also disagree about how the Chinese would deal with the Koreans. The Whole Olympics thingie to China was about being a major player in the 21st century. They took a beating over the Gal Fong and Tibet, so claiming that they would just stand and watch as millions of Koreans starved seems wrong to me. They don’t want the international black eye that would give them.
It will take an enormous sum of money to develop the Korean mineral resources. That same money spent in China would provide a greater return.
AS an example look at the Canadian OIL sands development. Canada is the #1 source of imported OIL for the USA. They get most of that OIL using American technology to convert OIL sands and tars to liquid OIL. That was made possible by the Environmental laws in America. So the USA paid for the Canadian development of their resources, then exported high paying jobs to Canada so we could then send them billions of dollars in exchange. It was a Clinton plan.
I don’t think the Chinese will spend billions in Korea and create good jobs there when they could spend those billions in China and create jobs for Chinese. They might, but I doubt it.
“If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”
George Bernard Shaw
Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 – 1950)
