North Korean Diplomatic Visit 9
I always get the warm fuzzies when we receive state visits from the most oppressive government in existence today. Trade with North Korea is (thankfully) pretty dismal (a miniscule R36 million last year) and I’m hoping Aziz Pahad will be doing his part to convince the NK leadership to undertake some political reforms.
Now when are we going to start increasing those trade, cultural and technological exchanges from South Korea which 50 years ago was one of the poorest nations in Asia and is now the 10th largest economy in the world (and who hosted a pretty decent World Cup as well).
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<i>Now when are we going to start increasing those trade, cultural and technological exchanges from South Korea which 50 years ago was one of the poorest nations in Asia and is now the 10th largest economy in the world (and who hosted a pretty decent World Cup as well).</i> My bet is we’ll do it when South Korea becomes a vicious dictatorship which oppresses its own people, threatens other nations and opposes everything the US does.
Why on earth the SA government continues to persist with its illogical foreign policy strategy is entirely beyond me.
I don’t mind diplomatic relations if it gets NK to open up politically. I’m alright with giving aid to help alleviate suffering of it’s prisoner civilian population. What I do not want to see is massive investment propping up the NK govt past it’s sell by date (which frankly if it wasn’t for China would have been a few years ago).
That being said it’s a wonder why we don’t have much much better relations with SK. Like SA SK was ruled by a political repressive government rule since the 60’s and only became fully democratic in 1988, a scant 6 years before SA. You’d think the SA govt would use that as a basis to form an extremely close relation.
Are we culpable for Kim’s nefarious activities? According to that website:
Never knew that NK produced textile products for export. I am sure our unions would be pleased.
Yeah, our forgein policy beggars our beliefs at most of the time. And why Pahad is running the show instead of Dr Zuma?
That’s another interesting question. Does she even do anything these days what with Mbeki galavanting around Africa? She’s been awfully quiet.
South Korea! You want we should do business with a country whose president has just accused Japan of “making a fuss” over North Korean missile issues? To hell with South Korea!
Clara, is that the same as not wanting to make a fuss about SA’s Northern neighbour in case it offends them?
Well if there’s one thing to unite both Korea’s it’s their common dislike of Japan meddling in their affairs.
Do I find SK’s attitude towards NK (sunshine policy and such) is similar to ours, with Zimbabwe?
Kinda, except that NK is a very real threat to SK in terms of armed forces and the fact that NK has thousands of artillery tubes aimed at Seoul that could pound it into dust within two hours. The only thing Zim threatens us with is a larger influx of economic and political refugees.