The JYD

There’s a lot of excitement about the fact that the Kim Jong-Un wants to meet with Trump personally and that Trump is willing to fast-track the meeting. I talked about this potential breakthrough earlier this week, see Is Trump Winning the Korean Conflict?

Who knew things would be moving so quickly?

My heuristic for thinking about North Korea, based on everything I’ve read, is that the country is China’s junk yard dog. They love having this unstable, unpredictable, starving, angry thing as a buffer against nations with cozy US relations in the region, like South Korea and Japan. You keep a JYD fed just enough that it doesn’t pass out, but hungry enough that you can control it and keep it mad.

Nothing will happen to Kim unless China wants it to. There will be no collapse or revolution in-country because China sees what happens with failed states in the Middle East – crime and terrorism fill the void, followed by a humanitarian crisis which would put 20 million refugees on the Chinese border and lead to god knows what level of international military activity in the region.

So now the interesting question is whether or not Kim is willing to talk at China’s behest – and whether the trade issues may have been the catalyst for this. Another question is whether or not this is just a stalling tactic to buy NK the time it needs to complete its weaponry. Or will Trump offer concessions (NK wants our troop headcount on the peninsula lowered or eliminated) in return for lies and false promises.

I suppose we’ll see, but the one thing no one should count on is North Korea fading away as an issue for the world. Anyone acting overly credulous at last night’s news hasn’t really looked at the history of this thing.

As for people who are saying stocks are rallying on this, LOLOLOLOL stop.