1024: China wants the DPRK to be a threat. @GregScarlatoiu, @GordonGChang
Image: Soldier of the Royal Guard. Ancient dress not yet entirely obsolete - Coat & helmet are lined with a mail of hard leather - & studded with iron buttons Greg Scarlatoiu, @GregScarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea; and Gordon Chang, @GordonGChang, Daily Beast, in re: North Korea, ballistic missiles. It's a post-Communist, post-industrial dynastic [tyranny]. Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, at the expense of human rights and security of its own people, where people starve and freeze. China supports DPRK and has for decades. NK SLBMs replicate China’s, showing a close military alliance. China wants DPRK to be a threat. Sanctions do work—unless they’re on paper, only; they work if they’re properly implemented. NK has instituted draconian measures to protect the country from covid—kicked out foreigners and sealed borders; then claims that there’s no covid case in the county. Seoul has tried appeasement, with no success. Will Mr Biden try engagement or appeasement? Maximum pressure may come first; I doubt we’ll see resumption of summit engagement, which Trump tried—no one ever had before—and it didn’t especially work.