Kim Jong-il's bridge to nowhere

Wen Jiabao collected what he came for : a pledge of allegiance from the North Korean regime and furthermore, the keys to the country... or rather the future Chinese province of Korea, which will be even more firmly anchored to "motherland" by a new bridge at the soon-to-be-former frontier (the perfect symbol for the success of China's highly controversial Nord-Eastern Project). The gift was graciously wrapped in a big smile by the hanschluss' victims, while they celebrated in a most spectacular manner 60 years of cloudless friendship with their big communist brother.

Kim Jong-il saved face : he just traded his country with his dynasty's survival, but almost succeeds in making this shameless treason pass for a political victory, the abdication of an absolute leader in front of a simple Prime Minister for a friendly meeting between equals, the sacrifice of national independence for a triumph of juche...

In this pathetic comedy, the ones losing face are American diplomats, who were basically used as mechanical hares in a greyhound race to please the Dear Leader. KIM started negociating the terms of his own capitulation as soon as he was rewarded with the winning prize : an invitation to bilateral talks with the US, crowning his regime as an equal to the Obama Administration.

Here we are, back to the statu-quo commonly called "Six-Party Talks" : a joke putting at the heart of negociations the two fiercest opponents to a reunification of both Koreas. As we saw earlier :
- Japan refuses to appear as a suburb to the next hub of prosperity, and the recent publication of a survey confirming the potential of a reunited Korea next to a declining Japan won't help Yukio Hatoyama undermine anti-Korean positions pushed by ultra-conservatives (see "Land of the rinsing sun ?").
- China only considers one form of unification : all Koreans under the same Chinese roof and within the same Chinese walls (see "The Great Hanschluss" on Seoul Village : Great Wall of China - Anschlussing Korea (continued)")

And when I consider NK's other 3 interlocutors, I don't see them fight against this imposture :
- Obama has other fish to fry than Korea's political and cultural independence. If the crisis could be solved without his intervention, that would be change even he couldn't believe in. Besides, these days, his Administration is not precisely seeking conflict against China on touchy matters : the POTUS decided not to meet the Dalai Lama before visiting China, and Hillary Clinton as well as Tim Geithner kept very low profile on human rights during their trips in Beijing.
- Russians eventually seem to leave it up to the Chinese. If they can't become the main entry point to the peninsula, this new socialist honeymoon could spread some wealth around in their direction as well. And they wouldn't have to bother with the always day to day monitoring of that weirdo hairdo lunatic.
- South Koreans simply don't seem to realise what's going on.

To be continued...

Seoul Village 2009

sur blogules en V.F. : "KIM Jong-il, un pont trop loin"