Friday, September 17, 2004

Kerry's Position on North Korea

We were talking about Kerry and North Korea in class on thursday. Most people didn't really know what his position was so I thought I'd investigate. This link has Kerry's position.

2 comments:

Kirk said...
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Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, this doesn't really tell me too much about Kerry's stance on NK. It seems to me that the allusion is that Bush is unwilling to negotiate whereas Kerry is more flexible. Kerry probably will be more willing to work with South Korean authorities, but I really doubt he can pull off what Clinton failed to do in 1994.

Kerry seems to have no plan just like Bush far as NK is concerned. Republican or Democrat, the de facto US policy towards NK has been to cross their collective fingers and hope that Kim Jong Il pass into the next ethereal dimension while a progressive imaginary "Deng Xiao Ping" clone becomes the new leader of NK.

My Kerry prediction towards NK:
1.no change in status of human rights violations in NK.
2.no change in the progress of nuclear technology in NK.
3.improved relations between the United States and South Korea.

relations towards Japan and China becomes questionable. Traditionally republicans and the Chinese gotten along better---Nixon started friendly relations, while Clinton soured it slightly with human rights demands. But Republicans are also more likely to fight wars on behalf of Taiwan, while Democrats are more likely to avoid direct confrontation with China over this issue. Net effect=? Japanese government has been going more and more right-winged (read pro-american) with public fears of NK kidnapping as well as more provocative Chinese acts such as drilling oil in contested territory; however student left-wing(read anti-american) sentiments have been growing with issues of US military causing problems in Okinawa and also with the current war in Iraq. Net effect=? Russia is probably more comfortable with a conservative American president. First and foremost, Russia is probably more comfortable with the "war on terror" Bush having common interest with the current Russia whose sole fear in the world are Chechen suicide bombers. They also tend to use the similiar tactics to "build a civil society" in Iraq and Chechnya--not to mention the fact that there is significant oil interests in both nations. Also, oily Bush/Cheney probably knows better how to handle Putin who is currently battling oil baron of Yukos.

Kerry is probably marginally better than Bush far as North Korea is concerned, in the same way Cheney is better than Quayle.

-virtual wonderer