“The one exception to the lack of long-term thinking may be China. Its commercial interests in North Korea are only growing, as it eyes mineral rights and access to ports on the Sea of Japan. China’s political imperative is for a stable North Korea. Andrei Lankov, a perceptive watcher of North Korea at Kookmin University in Seoul, raises the possibility of China attempting to avert collapse by installing a hard authoritarian, pro-growth regime in North Korea, something along the lines of China’s. Perhaps a third-generation Kim might even be made the impotent figurehead, like Emperor Hirohito after the war, but the power would lie elsewhere.”
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North Korea
