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Next Korean war is coming close...


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On 2018. 5. 12. at 7:05 AM, StieliAlpha said:

Looks like you need to change the focus to Iran now.

Well, looks like we need to put more focus to DPRK :D

Edited by exsonic01
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I was very busy with real life so couldn't update, but I think everyone in this forum saw what happened recently so far.

A lot of people around me (and in this forum) were very very hyped about RoK-DPRK talk. Some even expected the "perestroika" in DPRK. But see what is happening now. I think people are tooooooo optimistic or too easily hyped/triggered by concepts like 'peace'. We need to see this realistically. Such naive thinking based on hope is the one commies love to exploit and use. 

When commies says "peace talk", never trust that. Commie's "peace talk" is usually to show something useful for them, or they have another purpose. They never say "peace" when they have good cards in their deck. History proves it, and it can happen again now. See how Kim flipped the RoK-DPRK head talks now. See what happened during and after Paris Peace Accords. 

I already mentioned that I'm skeptical about talks (Both US-DPRK and RoK-DPRK). Regarding US-DPRK talk, I think it will not gonna happen. Even though they have a talk, I think it will not that positive. Maybe they can agree something, very vague and unclear one, but detail contents will never be agreeable between two parties. Because DPRK will never accept CVID, but US will never allow weaponized nuke in DPRK. Furthermore, US want to include chemical and bio weapons, and hacking issues as well. Kim will never going to accept that. 

Same goes to 'perestroika' in DPRK. Kim will never give up his dynasty and he knows the opening/exposing his system to outside will surely bring the end of the dynasty. If Kim dynasty ever thought about 'perestroika', they've already done, during grandpa Kim or papa Kim. But instead, Kim dynasty purged anyone who claims about 'change'. So better throw away the hope of any natural change from inside DPRK, unless coup. 

Also, naivety of RoK is way too serious than my expectation, I mean, IMO they really think they can make peace deal with Kim dynasty, which is total stupidity. To me, it seems that the current RoK leadership desperately want to repeat the same mistake again - trusting DPRK and Kim.   

I think the next step will be the naval blockade, and increase economic pressure to PRC to prevent any support to DPRK. Let's see what will going to happen. 

Edited by exsonic01
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well to be totally frank it isn't just the "commies" who negotiate like that.  It is pretty much the way everyone does.  The whole point is to give up as little as you can for as much as you can get.  The extent to which you have the upper hand and your skill determines (usually) how well you do.  Right now the US sucks at it - badly.  So no I don't expect much if anything.  Not exactly sure how we are going to economically pressure the PRC.  That hasn't seemed to work out to well so far even for addressing a simpler issue of trade balances.

The only real upside at the moment is the nuclear test site appears to be a wreck.  Expecting DPRK to pick back up on the missile launches before too much longer, but they'll probably play a bit more pitting members of the administration against one another as why not, it seems to be working for them so far.

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4 hours ago, sburke said:

well to be totally frank it isn't just the "commies" who negotiate like that.  It is pretty much the way everyone does.  The whole point is to give up as little as you can for as much as you can get.  The extent to which you have the upper hand and your skill determines (usually) how well you do.  Right now the US sucks at it - badly.  So no I don't expect much if anything.  Not exactly sure how we are going to economically pressure the PRC.  That hasn't seemed to work out to well so far even for addressing a simpler issue of trade balances.

The only real upside at the moment is the nuclear test site appears to be a wreck.  Expecting DPRK to pick back up on the missile launches before too much longer, but they'll probably play a bit more pitting members of the administration against one another as why not, it seems to be working for them so far.

I agree that US is really bad at negotiating, previous deals only allowed Iran and DPRK to let them play what they want. Regarding commie strategy, I think you may right, but I can add more to help to understand. Maybe I can add later in this post, about how "commies" behave during any conflict and peace talks during cold war. 

We still have some cards to press PRC economically. China surrenders to us regarding trade deficit, but detail is still left to be finished. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/politics/china-trade-deal.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/20/mnuchin-says-us-has-deal-with-china-to-cut-trade-deficit-will-hold-off-on-tariffs.html

But there are other issues like unfair trade, intellectual property & copyright infringement and etc. IMO copyright issue is the one of the prime weakness of so many PRC companies. We'll see what will happen. 

Nuclear test site is another show. 

https://abcnews.go.com/International/north-korea-dismantling-nuclear-test-site/story?id=55287694

"Can the process be reversed?

If the political winds change once more, the collapsed tunnels could easily be re-excavated.

Ankit Panda of Asia-Pacific affairs magazine The Diplomat reported that a U.S. intelligence assessment determined it would take mere "weeks to months" for Pyongyang to reverse course." 

They can recover test site whenever they want, and they can rebuild another one in different place. 

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44 minutes ago, exsonic01 said:

I agree that US is really bad at negotiating, previous deals only allowed Iran and DPRK to let them play what they want. Regarding commie strategy, I think you may right, but I can add more to help to understand. Maybe I can add later in this post, about how "commies" behave during any conflict and peace talks during cold war. 

We still have some cards to press PRC economically. China surrenders to us regarding trade deficit, but detail is still left to be finished. 

 

I am surprised you bought that "China surrenders to us regarding trade deficit"  Even if they wanted to we don't have several billions of dollars worth of what they typically buy from us to alter the deficit.  That was a sop for Trump.  The only thing that could really change that deficit is if Americans stop buying Chinese goods and that isn't gonna happen even after that crap sheetrock that caused so many issues to homeowners.  We are very short sighted.

As to the Iran deal, that actually was a good deal regardless of Trump's pronouncements.  No it did not alter Iranian thinking about geopolitics, but that was not the goal.  It was successful at reducing their Nuclear capabilities.  Our allies felt so, our intelligence agencies felt so.  Only Trump and folks who never want Obama to ever be able to be credited with a single thing disagreed.  US violation (no we don't get to just cancel, we are now in violation) completely undermines US negotiating with DPRK.  That was the US showing we negotiate in bad faith and even if we pen a deal forget any guarantee we will honor it if we decide it better serves domestic political aspirations to walk away. 

And no I don't really feel like hearing how "commies" negotiate in bad faith.  That they do is not going to surprise me.  Just about everyone negotiates in bad faith.  How much varies.  The continuing use of "commies" though is kind of cartoonish.  It is a generic term that really means very little and ignores the many cultural and nationalistic aspirations of those countries that have had or have a communistic oriented gov't.  The communist world was never a solid block of mindless bureaucrats all thinking and acting the same no more than the western powers all acted and thought the same.  Failure to understand that seriously hurt our ability to take advantage of and manipulate differences in the cold war.

Edited by sburke
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4 hours ago, sburke said:

I am surprised you bought that "China surrenders to us regarding trade deficit"  Even if they wanted to we don't have several billions of dollars worth of what they typically buy from us to alter the deficit.  That was a sop for Trump.  The only thing that could really change that deficit is if Americans stop buying Chinese goods and that isn't gonna happen even after that crap sheetrock that caused so many issues to homeowners.  We are very short sighted.

PRC agreed to reduce trade deficit, which they officially and unofficially refused/denied to do so for last several months. Now they agree with that term without any condition. For that part, I think we got a small advantage. However, there are no any details are mentioned about how, so I can understand your concern about this. We shall watch this part. I think part of the reason why we didn't included the detail is to watch the DPRK situation, and resume tariffs and leverages against PRC if it is necessary. On the other hand, I still believe that there are other methods to give some pressure to PRC. 

4 hours ago, sburke said:

As to the Iran deal, that actually was a good deal regardless of Trump's pronouncements.  No it did not alter Iranian thinking about geopolitics, but that was not the goal.  It was successful at reducing their Nuclear capabilities.  Our allies felt so, our intelligence agencies felt so.  Only Trump and folks who never want Obama to ever be able to be credited with a single thing disagreed.  US violation (no we don't get to just cancel, we are now in violation) completely undermines US negotiating with DPRK.  That was the US showing we negotiate in bad faith and even if we pen a deal forget any guarantee we will honor it if we decide it better serves domestic political aspirations to walk away. 

I was thinking like you until I watch this:

At least one thing is true: There are lots of Israeli spies in wide aspect of Iranian social/political/military infrastructure and hierarchy, and they are good at their job. I think there should be a serious level of mole hunt in Iran now. While I agree with your point that the intention of previous deal was legit and good enough, but it fails to push Iranians to give up their nukes, failed to broke the will of Iranians to continue their nuke problem. Continuation of previous deal might be a losing game to us. Yes, we broke the deal, but they played bad first, why should we? I think this is another declaration from us that we will never going to be fooled again, whoever the opposite is. 

4 hours ago, sburke said:

And no I don't really feel like hearing how "commies" negotiate in bad faith.  That they do is not going to surprise me.  Just about everyone negotiates in bad faith.  How much varies.  The continuing use of "commies" though is kind of cartoonish.  It is a generic term that really means very little and ignores the many cultural and nationalistic aspirations of those countries that have had or have a communistic oriented gov't.  The communist world was never a solid block of mindless bureaucrats all thinking and acting the same no more than the western powers all acted and thought the same.  Failure to understand that seriously hurt our ability to take advantage of and manipulate differences in the cold war.

You have some misjudgment about me. 

I have a Chinese neighbor, office mate from Guangzhou , and fishing mate came from Hong Kong, and my academic adviser when I was PhD came from Russia. I knew some DPRK defectors when I was in Korea. Me and my wife have a good relation with all those folks, we respect them and their culture and they respect ours, they were truly good humans with nice character, and I'm in still in contact with some of them. I have no emotion towards normal individuals, BUT, still, I hate government and leadership of PRC and DPRK, and overall communism system with ultra maximum prejudice. If anyone who zealously advocate such broken and corrupt system, I will call them 'commies' whatever others say to me. 

As a half Korean / half American, I have some good personal reason to hate commies. Both of my family (my mom's and dad's) lost some of family members to the communists during battle from Korea and Vietnam. On top of that, I myself served in RoK army for 26 months long time ago and I was able to learn some about history of cold war and communists strategies. Not everyone negotiates in bad faith. Usually, we approached to the problem in good will and hope and good intention, and it is them who exploits the our good gesture and trust to maximize their gain. Similar history repeated over and over again.  

4 hours ago, sburke said:

The communist world was never a solid block of mindless bureaucrats all thinking and acting the same no more than the western powers all acted and thought the same

Their system is corrupt and good enough to compare with mindless block. Communism is failed system and it is too ideal to realize. Unlike its original intention, communism make their own strict authoritarian structure, which largely rely on force and terror from brutal leadership and strong control over communities. Soviet Union crushed, PRC become Oceania of George Orwell's 1984, DPRK become crazy dynasty, Cambodian Khmerokraham made "Killing Field", Mao's Great Leap Forward movement killed huge number of innocent people. DDR is another great example, please check the movie "The Lives of Others", which depicts the true face of communism behind the curtains of propaganda. 

Speaking of cold war, IMO we are approaching to new cold war era really fast, which is totally different and more complicated from the Cold War in the past. I maybe wrong, but it feels like the war among idealogies is far from over yet, at least to me. 

Edited by exsonic01
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not gonna get into a debate about communist block philosophy etc.  I will say however your experience I think colors your perceptions.  The communist block does not have a lock on oppression   Name a country and I am sure I could with very little difficulty find a period when they too participated in a heinous act on some other group.  Humanity as group is evolving only ever so slowly.  Human beings are only too ready to blame someone else for their woes or covet what someone else has.  Don't even get me started on the perils of power.

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4 hours ago, sburke said:

with very little difficulty find a period when they too participated in a heinous act

Yes.  However, some societies have practiced this on a regular basis, still practice it on a regular basis, and have never evolved.   That is what I read in Exsonic's comments.

For example I was shocked to read a couple days ago in a Brit newspaper that even though female genital mutilation has been illegal in UK for a long time now...  not a single person has ever been convicted of it.

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10 hours ago, sburke said:

not gonna get into a debate about communist block philosophy etc.  I will say however your experience I think colors your perceptions.  The communist block does not have a lock on oppression   Name a country and I am sure I could with very little difficulty find a period when they too participated in a heinous act on some other group.  Humanity as group is evolving only ever so slowly.  Human beings are only too ready to blame someone else for their woes or covet what someone else has.  Don't even get me started on the perils of power.

Haha. You may say that I'm biased, but I'm not biased, and those examples I listed in previous post are 100% truth. Look at the history, communist nations were used to rely on control and force, and they are still the same. I met a person who escaped from DPRK for better future and human dignity, a person who lived in Russia (including Soviet Union era) and moved to US for better opportunity, and Chinese American who lived the most of his life in China. Conclusion from conversations with those people were always the same: communism is failed system. I can list more and more examples of commie backstabbing in international relation and commie style oppression to their own people. And now you are blaming humanity to advocate the failed system...... lol. You, or anyone can't hide the failure of communism by watering down the truth using 'noble' concepts like humanity. 

Edited by exsonic01
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On 21.5.2018 at 5:24 PM, exsonic01 said:

Well, looks like we need to put more focus to DPRK :D

What do they say in Ireland? „If you don‘t like the weather, wait 15 minutes.“

Let‘s see where the focus is tomorrow. Probably „evil“ Europe. 😵😵😵😴

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55 minutes ago, exsonic01 said:

You, or anyone can't hide the failure of communism by watering down the truth using 'noble' concepts like humanity. 

no one is trying to.  It is just it isn't the only example of failure.  Oh what the hell, never mind.

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On 21.5.2018 at 5:24 PM, exsonic01 said:

Well, looks like we need to put more focus to DPRK :D

Ah, sorry. Seems, we “mis-mis” understood each other.

I meant the focus based on some countries current “policy” (if there is any.) 😎

You meant the focus on what (you think) it should be. 🤔

Edited by StieliAlpha
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5 hours ago, Sublime said:
On May 22, 2018 at 9:02 AM, StieliAlpha said:

What do they say in Ireland? „If you don‘t like the weather, wait 15 minutes.“

No. Thats what they say in New England. ;)

They say it out here in the Pac Northwest too. But the weather is so changeable that the wait time is more like 5 minutes.

:lol:

Michael

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Well, Trump canceled the meeting yesterday, which I also didn't expect. I was skeptical about meaningful result, but I thought at least they would have a talk. But I think this was a good decision. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-24/north-korea-talks-trump-can-win-by-walking-away

This is just one of the reader opinions from Bloomberg, but I mostly agree with this article.

Then suddenly, DPRK changed their mind, saying aggressive comments were DPRK diplomat's personal opinions, and mentioned they want to start the talk. Plus, they mentioned "President Trump" in their official statement. LOL, they never clearly stated "President Trump" before, and it was not long ago that DPRK statement blamed Trump, Bolton and Pence like "crazy warmongers will be on hellfire if they do anything stupid on 'holy' Juche nation". Funny to watch them in panic. Where have all those guts were gone? XD Typical cowards. 

Not sure whitehouse will re-accept the talk offer, but IMO pressure to DPRK and PRC will be increased. Folks are saying that strict financial sanction like BDA account squeeze will be also considered. 

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I'm sorry but Trump is getting played. NK (I don't like associating that dictatorship with democracy) has managed to take advantage of the comments by US officials to get them to be the ones who cancelled the summit all the while continuing to talk with the officials in SK. The SK officials where surprised by the US move and that is what Kim wants - space between those allies. Now Trump is talking about talking again. What a mess.

The problem is this summit has very little meaning since there isn't even a framework for an agreement let alone a draft. So, no one knows what the goal is and Kim is taking full advantage. 

The NK leadership has a long history of talking out of both sides of thier face and bouble dealing and not living up to its commitments. The US seems to have forgotten that. In my opinion any US president should only sit-down with the NK leader after they have signed a deal and started executing that deal - which would need to be fully verifiable. And all this talk of incremental moves on both sides is silly give NK's past history.

Trump is getting played.

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2 hours ago, Erwin said:

Time will tell.  But my money is on Trump and Bolton. 

Good luck on that. Everybody who has bet on Trump prior has lost money. (Check out the wonderful Atlantic City experience). Trump and Bolton don’t even agree so you can’t really bet on both. My bet is Trump eventually blames Bolton for the “missed opportunity” when he fires him. 

Trump is getting played by both NK and China. His lack of real experience in international diplomacy, his frankly horrible negotiating skills and his guttting of the professional diplomatic corps all spell disaster. The ZTE debacle alone should tell you how good Trump’s negotiating skills really are.  ZTE we are gonna punish you by making you buy more of the products from us that you wanted in the first place! Take that! 

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11 hours ago, IanL said:

I'm sorry but Trump is getting played. NK (I don't like associating that dictatorship with democracy) has managed to take advantage of the comments by US officials to get them to be the ones who cancelled the summit all the while continuing to talk with the officials in SK. The SK officials where surprised by the US move and that is what Kim wants - space between those allies. Now Trump is talking about talking again. What a mess.

I mentioned in previous post that current RoK leadership is very pro-DPRK and pro-PRC. Those Korean liberal groups are mostly stands for Korean-ethnic nationalism and socialism. The most of cabinet members and president himself of RoK were members of ultra-left organizations like "University student front" or etc, almost all of them were linked with DPRK directly or indirectly. They only little bit changed their attitude toward US and DPRK.

This is not the first time RoK behaves strangely like this. RoK liberal leaderships in the past were also pro-DPRK and pro-PRC, more or less. Robert Gates once mentioned president Roh as "anti-American and probably a little crazy" in his book. Current president Moon was the secretary general of president Roh at that time. Novel peace prize winner, president Kim dae jung was also involved in illegal money transfer to DPRK back in 2003. 

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/02/13/kim.scandal/

Under this circumstance, I don't see why and how we are played. It is current RoK leadership who doesn't want to stand with us, not us who want to push them or being fooled by DPRK's plan to create space between US and RoK. See what current RoK advisor said about US-RoK relation: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/moon-south-korea-us-alliance/560501/

I think Koreans, especially Korean liberals, are very two-faced. I'm curious about whether they consider us as an ally or not. They want to sell their car, steel, phone, and all those goods to us, and they want to "look good" with us so that foreign investors & banks keep invest to RoK and they can keep their credit rating high enough. Yet, at the same time, they wish to turn down the relationship between us and them when we need their help as an alliance. I'm very suspicious that some of current RoK cabinet might be DPRK spies, maybe or maybe not.

Anyway, what I want to say is, it is not our fault if RoK get away from us, it is their fault. And I don't think we need to beg to RoK to keep alliance with us. If they don't want us, fine, let them go. But considering the dependency of overall Korean economy on us, I think they can't just neutralize US-RoK alliance. 

11 hours ago, IanL said:

The problem is this summit has very little meaning since there isn't even a framework for an agreement let alone a draft. So, no one knows what the goal is and Kim is taking full advantage. 

In some sense I agree with you, I already expected and mentioned that there will be a US-DPRK talk, but any draft or agreement will be very ambiguous, and deal will be crushed due to collision on details, like recent Iran deal was broken. Key is, DPRK can't accept CVID, while we wish to push not only CVID but also hacking issues and overall NBC(Nuke Bio Chemical) weapons. And "maximum pressure" will be applied. Kim wants to earn some time before full weaponization of their nukes, so we better hurry if we want to do something. But I don't see what kind of advantages he get. 

11 hours ago, IanL said:

The NK leadership has a long history of talking out of both sides of thier face and bouble dealing and not living up to its commitments. The US seems to have forgotten that. In my opinion any US president should only sit-down with the NK leader after they have signed a deal and started executing that deal - which would need to be fully verifiable. And all this talk of incremental moves on both sides is silly give NK's past history.

I agree with this. I also think those talks with commies might be a waste of time honestly, because DPRK will never accept CVID. (I think Bolton expressed his concern in similar fashion) But at the same time, this can work as the final warning to DPRK, and I think Trump maybe wish to check by himself about what Kim is really willing to do. After this talk, they will be forced to choice something. If they keep their nuke program after the talk (which I expect), then the pressure will never be the same as before, and I think this time the pressure will include PRC.

Honestly, I think all of those recent events are aiming towards PRC, and DPRK issue is just one of the way to find a good reason to take an action against PRC. This is just my guess, but I think Trump himself maybe knows that DPRK will not accept CVID plus etc, then pressure will be applied, then PRC will support DPRK, then we can start big sanctions against PRC and so on.... Not sure about this part regarding PRC so take a bit salt on this opinion XD  

 

7 hours ago, sburke said:

Good luck on that. Everybody who has bet on Trump prior has lost money. (Check out the wonderful Atlantic City experience). Trump and Bolton don’t even agree so you can’t really bet on both. My bet is Trump eventually blames Bolton for the “missed opportunity” when he fires him. 

I think they are doing typical good cop bad cop approach towards DPRK. When Bolton throws very hard ball, then Trump and Pompeo try to look "soft" during interview or etc. 

7 hours ago, sburke said:

Trump is getting played by both NK and China. His lack of real experience in international diplomacy, his frankly horrible negotiating skills and his guttting of the professional diplomatic corps all spell disaster. The ZTE debacle alone should tell you how good Trump’s negotiating skills really are.  ZTE we are gonna punish you by making you buy more of the products from us that you wanted in the first place! Take that! 

In some sense I agree, maybe PRC can playing against us using ZTE network and machines in the future, but I think it is not such a huge disaster like your claim. This can be an another leverage for us. ZTE sanction is another warning sign to PRC, let them know what can we do against them. Remember, we can give sanction again whenever we want, or when we find ZTE doing suspicious. So that PRC won't do any stupid things against us in the future regarding DPRK issue, South china sea and Taipei China issue and etc.... 

Edited by exsonic01
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sigh. politics.

 

that said i think hes going to be remembered as an absolute embarrassment, if hes lucky and if not and unlucky will be remembered as a near treasonous criminal IMO. but lets just leave out the politics again IMO nothing destroys or gets threads locked quicker than US politics besides of course racism or other PC issues that BFC doesnt want to have to deal with. ( i dont blame em )

Edited by Sublime
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Pompeo and Kim Yong Chul is having a meeting now. Pompeo mentioned that there is a "real progress" but "significant challenges remained and predicted more “tough moments and difficult times” as the two sides negotiated." And he mentioned it is not clear yet whether the talk will be held at 12th June or not. 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/31/pompeo-says-north-korean-official-to-deliver-personal-letter-from-kim-jong-un-to-white-house.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/world/asia/trump-kim-korea-summit.html

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/politics/us-north-korea-talks-new-york/index.html

Besides, Taiwan and HongKong news suggests the possibility of Russia - PRC - DPRK summit talks before US-DPRK talk: 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3443887

SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) is the block of Russia, PRC, and old-soviet nations except Pakistan and India. While I'm not sure would whether Kim will really be at Shanghai, maybe very high ranking profile might be there and have a talk with Russia and PRC. This is not a good sign for US-DPRK summit talk.. If this talk (Kim-Putin-Xi meeting) really happens, this might be a good indication of incoming era of "new" cold war. 

Personally, I'm really not sure, is the talk really good idea. Strict level of CVID will require a lot of things, I'm suspicious if DPRK will accept it. Even though they agree with strict CVID, what if they lie to us again? What would we do if they dig a nuke in very deep deep mountain of the northern part of DPRK or somewhere very ordinary & plain place, and bring it later in their convenient time? Also, some sources say DPRK already hide key scientists by "identity washing" like our Witness Protection program. How do we find those people if they lie to us? Any "talk" requires the trust between each other, but they have so many ways to cheat us again. 

Recent CIA report suggests that DPRK will never give up their nuke program: 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/cia-report-says-north-korea-won-t-denuclearize-might-open-n878201

Let's watch what will happen from Pompeo-Kim talk, and see what kind of DPRK reaction will be there. 

 

Edited by exsonic01
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