Will China Protect Kim Jong Un from International Justice?
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Even during World War II, the Allied powers went to war against Hitler's expansionism, and not on account of the holocaust. If Hitler had just concentrated on killing people in his own country (like Stalin), no one would have clamored for bringing the Nazis to justice.
Except the US when dealing with Manuel Noriega.
One could instance India's intervention in the then East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh; the always bad relations between India and Pakistan had plenty to do with it, but I don't think were the deciding factor. It has been a while since that was in the news, though, and I haven't read up on it since.
If we were serious about justice and humanity, we'd have intervened in Rwanda and NK and other disasters long ago.
Not sure if we can say that. There were reports of what's going on smuggled out of Nazi territory, but they were mostly ignored; public opinion learned about the genocide only when Allied soldiers stumbled upon the concentration camps in 1944. Hard to tell what would have happened if people listened to the reports that came even before the war.
I don't think this is true. A brief search finds nothing that says he was, and several places that don't say he was where I'd expect them to. E.g. http://www.weatherimagery.com/blog/president-woodrow-wilson-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson#Civil_rights
The Wikipedia page ignores all the other articles (do the search) about Wilson's beliefs, friends, and civil rights record. It is also ignored in HS history books just as President Lincoln's dealing with the Dakota is ignored. Let's also remember he was happy about the biggest KKK march on DC in US history. Never mind his dumb meeting after WWII in Paris.
"Not being a member of the KKK" doesn't mean someone wasn't a racist. If he was a racist, we can say that without saying he was a member of the KKK. You'll note that I linked an article titled "President Woodrow Wilson was a Racist", which successfully accomplished this.
:) "perl harbor", very HN typo ...
I think there were enough folks that would have cared just from a self preservation view if the UK had gotten invaded.
A referral to the ICC is a substantively different action than a condemnation (of course, the DPRK is unlikely to cooperate with the ICC, at which point there is a different discussion that may happen at in the UNSC -- or potentially even the GA, under "Uniting for Peace" -- about how to deal with that.)
Some day, though, NK will fall apart, if only when this Kim or the next runs out of planned economy money to reallocate to bribes. Then China will have a problem on its hands.
That's like saying that he US is an unlikely proponent of action here (despite the fact that it is, obviously a key proponent of that action) since it, too, has been reprimanded by the UN Committee Against Torture over its use of torture, particularly in the context of detainees at Guatanamo Bay and at secret, exterritorial detention facilities.
I don't think it's falling apart any time soon, especially now that the regime is nuclear armed.
3 generations of a single family's dictatorship is remarkable in modern times, usually one of the power bases upon which the regime stands swerves it from such a thing.
The nuclear arming just helps with outside threats, I would think, and no one with the means really wants to destabilize them. As I understand it South Korea shudders at the thought of trying to integrate such a population into their country, one which is on average a foot shorter and significantly less intelligent due to pervasive malnutrition.
That even the Army is filled with malnourished men says something significant, and, yeah, indicates more stability that you'd expect on general principles.
Looked at that way, maybe. OTOH, authoritarian one-party-rule revolutionary regimes lasting on the order of 75 years (e.g. Mexico under the exclusive rule of the PRN/PRM/PRI, the USSR) don't seem as unusual, whether with regular turnovers in power to nonrelated successors (e.g., Mexico), irregular transfers of power to nonrelated successors (e.g., USSR); I don't see any compelling reason that one-party revolutionary regimes that practice irregular succession to related leaders would have particularly different lifespans.
Even then, the DPRK is coming right up to that rough max lifetime, if per Wikipedia you count 1948 for its founding and 1922 for the USSR, the PRI et. al. a bit longer, but then again it wasn't quite the same thing.
The Soviet and PRI regimes are convenient because they started earlier than the DPRK regime, they've ended and their lifespan is, for that reason, known. The PRC, Castro's Cuba, and a number of other one-party (mostly, that I can think of, Communist; the PRI regime is an outlier there) revolutionary states that are a bit younger than the DPRK and are still functioning exist, as well.
I think that such regimes become naturally less stable when the whatever misery existed in the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary period (including any major international war on the territory of the country around its formation) and was relieved -- even if replaced new miseries -- by the institutionalization of the revolution has passed from living memory.
> Even then, the DPRK is coming right up to that rough max lifetime
Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if the next couple decades saw the collapse (as one-party states) of most of the remaining early-cold-war era regimes, the DPRK particularly included; the DPRK is the one I'd expect to collapse most messily, too.
North Korea may end up with a coup or a revolution, but change isn't going to come through economic collapse absent a change in Chinese policy.
It is interesting how our mainstream media phrases these things, to make them a question. They frame debate to be 'normal' or 'silly'. For instance, they could also ask:
Will China protect Tony Blair from International Justice?
Will Mozambique protect George W Bush from International Justice?
More generally the U.S. in its dealings with China always want to put our Chinese friends on the back foot by questioning their human rights record. Meanwhile, which country imprisons the most? USA. I would not be at all surprised if there were more people imprisoned inside the USA than there are people imprisoned in the rest of the world.
Hence, when it comes to important matters of human rights it is difficult to take the U.S. government or media seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
> I would not be at all surprised if there were more people imprisoned inside the USA than there are people imprisoned in the rest of the world.
I would, since it's common knowledge that the US has 22% of the world's prisoners.
America has an incarceration-per-100k of about 700, while North Korea has an estimated 600-800, but we can't be sure because they're so secretive.
HOWEVER, america's prisoners get medical care, food, and many protections. North Korea's prisoners are starved, beaten, raped, and worked to death in brutal camps that rival nazi germany for pure concentrated evil.