South Korea’s leader warns of North’s regime collapse

[bemildred]

South Korea’s president warned Tuesday that North Korea faces collapse if it does not abandon its nuclear bomb program, an unusually strong broadside that will likely infuriate Pyongyang.

President Park Geun-hye, in addressing Parliament to defend the closure of a jointly run factory park in North Korea, said South Korea will take unspecified “stronger and more effective” measures to make North Korea realize its nuclear ambitions will result only in accelerating its “regime collapse.”

Park shut the factory park in response to the North’s recent long-range rocket test, which Seoul and Washington see as a test of banned ballistic missile technology.

Without elaborating, Park said the North has diverted much of the factory workers’ pay to the Pyongyang leadership, which directs its nuclear and missile development. She also said the South has sent more than $3 billion in government and civilian aid to the North since mid-1990s.

http://atimes.com/2016/02/south-koreas-leader-warns-of-north-korea-collapse/

[Nyan]

1. She's wrong. NK regime collapse is not very likely.

NK system is set up in such a way that the regime collapse is too costly for the party leadership as well as for the people.
Even if some elements in the government do take out the boy king (which is very unlikely to begin with), they're bound to face nothing less than a full-scale purge coming from loyalists who, by the way, would be backed by significant portion of the populace.
So it becomes very costly to stage coup or mutiny unless you have significant outside backing, which for them, would be China and/or Russia, for they're the only outside powers that bear any influence on them.
BUT, that's also unlikely. North Koreans are as nationalist as they are communist. They don't really trust anybody and that includes China, even as China has been doing enormous good to their economy that otherwise would have imploded decades ago. Executing Jang was a message that the NK sent out to China, which is "The most powerful pro-Chinese force in the government has stepped over the line, and we ended him, and we will do the same in the years ahead if you once again try to control our fate."
And China and Russia are not up for that regime change scenario anyway. They've got enough on their plate as it is without having to deal with instability brought on by NK, and for what? They have nothing to gain from unstable Korean peninsula. They have every incentive to keep NK stable because for them, NK is the only military buffer zone, a bulwark against heavily armed US forces in SK, Taiwan, Okinawa, and Japan. And especially so right now, because US is pushing for militarization in that region (with THAAD in SK and whatnot), they will do everything they can to keep things as they are, at least for now.
She could dream all she wants, but it will be a wet dream.

[bemildred]

2. Thanks for your views.

Appreciated.

[Nyan]

3. You're very welcome :)