There is a final option that deserves consideration. It would amount to inducing (bribing) China to remove Kim Jong Il's regime and install a more pragmatic government in Pyongyang, along with the explicit condition of keeping the country nonnuclear. Part of the bargain also ought to be a commitment from Beijing to promote the reunification of the two Koreas within the next generation. During my visit to China last year, policymakers there professed loyalty to Beijing's longtime ally, but there was also a distinct undertone of exasperation with Pyongyang.
If the price were right, Chinese leaders might be bold enough to topple Kim with a palace coup. But the price would certainly not be cheap. At the least, Beijing would want a commitment from the US to end its military presence on the Korean Peninsula and, probably, to phase out its security alliance with South Korea. In all likelihood, Chinese leaders also would want US concessions on the Taiwan issue.
Wow.
A nuclear North Korea will lead to a nuclear South Korea and Japan, and quite possibly a nuclear Taiwan, and we need to bribe China into stopping North Korea?
And as the price we are willing to pay to China for this "favor" of accepting the Chinese conquest of North Korea, we will abandon Taiwan to China and allow South Korea to be absorbed into North Korea? (The logical result of a unification based on Chinese control of North Korea and America out of South Korea.)
So basically, Carpenter's Plan B for dealing with a potential nuclear-armed North Korea is giving China control of North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan? After China has refused to do its part to squeeze North Korea into concessions?
And Carpenter makes this suggestion when it seems as if North Korea is faltering from severe internal problems. And really, while North Korea may well hope that talks provide goodies and nuclear weapons in the end, I'm hoping that talks just lead to North Korea's quiet collapse.
I admit China would very likely go for Carpenter's Plan B. There is only a tiny chance Peking would turn it down and if China did turn us down it would be from fear that we were tricking them under the belief that no American could be this stupid.
Well, consider Plan B duly considered. It sucks. Dude, not even the Obama administration's State Department would consider this a good idea.
