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Korean naval ships 'clash at sea'

There has been a clash between ships from the rival navies of North and South Korea, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

The agency says that a South Korean warship fired a shot at a North Korean vessel which crossed the demarcation line off their western coast.

The North Korean ship returned fire, but no injuries are reported so far.

The two navies have engaged in deadly exchanges twice along their western sea border in the past decade.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8351738.stm
See you in 200 years!

It's saddening that Kim Jong-il is nuts enough to put his own nation in such grave danger. Any hostile move against anyone is suicide for them.

If it's happened twice in the past decade then this isn't all that unique of an event, though given the more turbulent relations between the two over the last few months this could become fairly heated.

The DPRK loves getting up to all sorts of hijinks (is that the spelling?) messing with the ROK.

There was the USS Pueblo in the 60s. The ship is still in Pyongyang as a museum. Then there was an incident, again in the 60s I believe, in the DMZ when DPRK soldiers butchered ROK soldiers/possibly US soldiers with axes. Then there was the time DPRK spies attempted to kill the ROK cabinet in a bombing at a Temple in South East Asia somewhere while they were on an official visit. They've kidnapped dozens of Japanese nationals. They had a failed commando raid on the Blue House (The president's, then dictator's, residence) in Seoul. Firing missiles off towards Japan. Incursions into Japanese waters, ROK waters. Smuggling SCUD missiles into Yemen.

Their army is like 10-12% of their population, but only the soldiers on the DMZ have any ammo. At the border with China and Russia only the officers have ammo - and it is used to shoot people caught escaping into China. Their leader is dying of some sort of Cancer and purges are common place. The DPRK is like China's old and stupid dog that escapes every so often and sh!ts on the neighbours lawn. Eventually, it'll kill itself off with its own stupidity.

Why do autocratic, communist countries always put 'Democratic' in their names when they, manifestly, are not?


Or Khornholio, its owner (China) will finally give up on the neighbours from putting it down.

I can't fathom why China keeps defending this clown of a country, sure years ago when China was actually communist there was some kinship. But now.... sad to see how well a communist country can develop when opened to capitalism when compared to going the rouge state route and stuffing everything up.

Do they really defend them any more?

Last I heard, they would be willing to attack them if they did something really stupid, and would otherwise probably just stop them from coming across their border.

I think the problem is more that no one wants to try and rebuild the country. (America's not very good at it, according to latest reports.)

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
I can't fathom why China keeps defending this clown of a country, sure years ago when China was actually communist there was some kinship. But now.... sad to see how well a communist country can develop when opened to capitalism when compared to going the rouge state route and stuffing everything up.

This is just a guess but , when people want to dip in the hot tub there is 2 kind of dips.

1- They do a quick dip to see if its too hot , if it is, they'll just stay out of it.

2- Then there is the dip where you stick the legs in and slowly see how much heat the leg can take .

*the awkward silence of "what the heck does hot tub have to do with anything" xD

I'm actually kinda scared that they blame it on the Yanks and fire a few atomic rockets at them, together with russia, the UK eliminates both russia and the koreans with their astute SSSM's and,....well that's it folks, was nice to meet y'all...

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Why do autocratic, communist countries always put 'Democratic' in their names when they, manifestly, are not?

So they qualify for US food stamps. Its a prerequisit.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
I can't fathom why China keeps defending this clown of a country, sure years ago when China was actually communist there was some kinship. But now....

China is fairly uniform in its defense of state sovereignty. Mostly because it wants to hand-wave its own human rights issues. Though they've been less tolerant of NK during this most recent period of tension.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Why do autocratic, communist countries always put 'Democratic' in their names when they, manifestly, are not?

The general rule of thimb is that if the title includes People's or Democratic then its a hellhole dictatorship.

I can't fathom why China keeps defending this clown of a country, sure years ago when China was actually communist there was some kinship. But now.... sad to see how well a communist country can develop when opened to capitalism when compared to going the rouge state route and stuffing everything up.

It used to be ideology but now it's more pragmatism. If North Korea collapsed or if there was outright war there'd be millions of refugees moving across the border into China.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hawkins wrote:So they qualify for US food stamps. Its a prerequisit.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Why do autocratic, communist countries always put 'Democratic' in their names when they, manifestly, are not?


Or Khornholio, its owner (China) will finally give up on the neighbours from putting it down.

I can't fathom why China keeps defending this clown of a country, sure years ago when China was actually communist there was some kinship. But now.... sad to see how well a communist country can develop when opened to capitalism when compared to going the rouge state route and stuffing everything up.

China defends, or props up DPRK, to maintain a buffer from the United States. There is no way China would allow the US to have bases in a country that is concretely aligned with the US and its East Asian foreign policy to share a border as wide as the one along the Yalu. History also shows that the US led UN offensive in 1950 had no problems in getting up to said border. It is cheaper for China to hand out some used military hardware and 386 25SX PCs to North Korea to play with and pretend to be bad ass than maintain a full on military garrison of the PLA. Plus the PLA is making too much cash running China to get their hands dirty with Kim Jong Il and the Korean Worker's Party.

The only other place along the Mainland Chinese border that has allies of the US are India and Pakistan. The hindu-kush/Kasmir region is a total cluster feth to begin with - no strategic worries there. And Tibet is an internal buffer between China proper and India. Zero chance of sucessful invasion there. The US would need 5 star general Serpentor for that to work. Russia has its own interests in the region, plus they were found to be equally matched in the 1969 border war between the USSR and the People's Republic of China.

If Korea was ever to unify like the Germanys did, I'm sure that one of the stipulations would have to be a politcally neutral Korea - which won't happen,(WAR) or the total collapse of either patron nation, the US or China, which is more likely.(WAR not there)

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Why do autocratic, communist countries always put 'Democratic' in their names when they, manifestly, are not?


Or Khornholio, its owner (China) will finally give up on the neighbours from putting it down.

I can't fathom why China keeps defending this clown of a country, sure years ago when China was actually communist there was some kinship. But now.... sad to see how well a communist country can develop when opened to capitalism when compared to going the rouge state route and stuffing everything up.

Because they use NK to tweak the US. Its an excellent strategy, and it is that.

North Korea, scarey or wonely?

@Spiggot


Racist.

Albatross wrote:@Spiggot


Racist.

You mean Lacist!

"Why does North Korea do these provocations? What does Kim hope to gain?" Well, the point is we really don´t know. North Korea is one of the worlds most insular and paranoid nations. Despite the monolithic outlook there must be internal factions and power groups that are at odds with each other. The outside world has some speculations about the power of the Kim family, the Party and the Army but thats it. Its perfectly possible that the recent rocket test was the result of just one faction exerting its muscle in order to "show the americans that North Korea is to be taken seriously".

"Why does China protect North Korea?" China has historically viewed Korea as its area of influence. Communism was just a bonus for the relations of the PRC and North Korea. Korea lies at Chinas backdoor and is a natural buffer against outsiders ( historically Japan, recently USA ). Although North Korea has in recent years caused much headache for all involved parties, I really believe China does NOT want to risk the Status Quo. Unification of Korea and /or the collapse of NK would create a huge mess on its backdoor.

Interesting that this happened just a day or so after the fall of the Berlin Wall remembrance day but its nothing new to anyone familiar with the region. NK/SK and Western allies have engaged in skirmishes and brief battles in the sea and along the DMZ for as long as they've been in the area.