Hunger in North Korea could be destabilizing for the region

01 February, 2013

The North Koreans are resorting to cannibalism and corpse eating due to hunger. This could be very destabilizing for the whole region. In order to restore stability, the North should be de-linked, and decoupled from the South.

There are reports in the international media that North Koreans are resorting to cannibalism and corpse eating in order to avoid hunger. Asia Press, an agency based in Tokyo, claims that a hidden famine in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae has claimed around 10,000 people’s lives.

Cannibalism in the North Korea in high conscious era could lead to either extreme: towards unhindered and unmatched slavery or towards urgent revolution. Both the ends could be dangerous and destabilizing for the region. If the North Koreans opt for further slavery, which is more probable than otherwise, then the hold of the regime of President Kim Jong un would increase - leading to rise in militarism in the region. The protests and revolutions are less likely in the North because of the progress made by the South Korea. China's status in the globe also matters for the Northerners. Even in the latter case there could be spillover destabilizing effects as the North can react in a hawkish way to distract the attention of the public and the rest of the world from protests.

The fact is that missiles and bombs can not feed a hungry population. But cannibalism and eating corpses do tell that all people may not be ready to die for ideals and beliefs. The fact is that defense mechanism would compel people to take reversed stand in widening of genetic pool which could make the human civilization incompetent in procreation, if unchecked. While continuous hybridization and immigration would tilt the American bipolarity towards Left and the Right would react fiercely, their reversal would promote conservatism. Only thing is that due to their beliefs and changing consciousness Muslims as a group would incline more towards political Right with there being no balancing factors. This political Right and increase in ids and libidos can help change the economic Left in Islam. Specifically, Muslims may consider ending near zero-interests rate economies.

The recent declaration of intent of the North Korea to detonate a nuclear bomb if it is a step towards reducing the size of its nuclear arsenal is welcome or else it could lead to proliferation of military activities in the South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and also in China. China in all likelihood would not compel the North Korea to take suicide pill and end its unwanted slavery-based nationalism. This is very dangerous to think that hawkish North can move towards non-proliferation in this explicit way though on the other hand this is tempting as well.

The North detonated nuclear weapons in 2006; Bush 43’s second term, and in 2009; Obama’s first term and now it is planning to detonate the third one in Obama’s second term. Obviously, the ability of the North to enrich weapon grade Uranium should be limited and as well as its Uranium stockpile. If CIA reports are to be believed, which should be considered the most authentic, the North Korean arsenal originally had six tiny bombs and if three were detonated because of partially rolling back the program, then three weapons would be left. At this rate North may fully roll back its nuclear weapon program, should it agree so, by around 2025. The world would change a lot by then and the North may be fully devastated economically by that time, if it continues its isolationist policies. The South may not have temperament and even intention to reunite the Korean Peninsula by that time.

But at present the US, the South Korea, China and Japan should deal very liberally with the North Korea. The fact is that this is no time for the international community to resolve the North-South relations in Korean Peninsula. Instead the world should consider the North Korea in isolation and specifically. For that phobia of Northerner elites loosing out to their Southerner counterparts should be undone. The world should delink and decouple the North from the South at the moment and address North’s problem separately.

The North should be explained that the US has no interests in the North Korea other than strategic; specifically regarding non-proliferation. The US can leave business opportunities, if there are any there, to regional players such as China, Japan and the South Korea. The US companies can take compensating shareholdings in their joint ventures with the South Korean and Japanese companies in other parts of the world. The North needs to be explained that interacting with the rest of the world is in its interests. The US should specifically assure and promise continuation of status-quo.

The urge to change because of changing consciousness should not be much encouraged at this moment of time and the ‘normal’ arguments when dealing with a pariah state should be avoided. A lack of dialogue and mutual mistrust can harm the stability of the region. State should be emphasized and people should be ignored. Only then the situation of people can improve in the North. In all likelihood the Kim Jong un’s regime would survive the whole Obama’s second term easily.

Since the hunger could lead to instability in the region, the humanitarian assistance to the North should be restored and some of the sanctions should be lifted with the North Korea softening its stand on apparent missile and nuclear proliferation. The US should understand that the North is cash-stripped society with a nuclear know-how: that it could sell the design of a nuclear bomb to eager buyer Iran.