BL> Historically, northern Korean falls iunder the influence of
 BL> China, southern Korea under Japan.

 KR> the koreans that i have known seemed quite fiercely
 KR> nationalistic. they dont borrow much from any of their
 KR> neighbours, with their own language and writing. they neither
 KR> seem to like china or japan (the latter being quite
 KR> understandable given the japanese national sport of invading
 KR> korea). 

 BL>   Quite true, but so is what I wrote. It's like the French falling
 BL> under English influence; they fight it furiously but can't avoid it.

i dont think that there is much british influence in france, the french are
incredibly afraid of foreign influences. the accademie fancais keep on
putting out edicts on keeping the language pure, and often as not they seem
to win. "le jumbojet" for instance is now "l'avion grande
passengeur" (sp).

the koreans dislike the japanese strongly, they have been using them as
part of the means needed to turn their economy around, but i suspect that
nothing would give them greater pleasure than screwing the japs. the japs
otoh look upon the koreans as a lesser race of barbarians. there are people
of korean descent living in japan who even when their families have been
there for 3-4 generations still cannot get citizenship. the japanese slang
for a korean is "garlic eater" which is odd as one of the more
popular fast food chains is "mr barbeque" which sells korean food
(although i dont think that they serve that korean/chinese delicacy - dog 
(:

 KR> i dont quite see what it had to do with vladivostok

 BL>   The Russians do not have an ice-free port in the Pacific and the
 BL> only free passage from Vladivostok is south through the Korea Strait.
 BL> Both Japan and Korea control that passage. With a communist Korea and
 BL> land access to Pusan, the Russians would have the East China Sea and
 BL> nothing to stop them. America is basically a naval power... as England
 BL> was.

it is quite possible to bypass that by sailing to the east of japan, and
anyway, the russians were not directly involved, only the chinese.

 KR> , i think that the yanks were using the same thinking as in
 KR> vietnam of the domino theory. 

 BL>   The domino theory was the 60's. Korea was ten years earlier.

it was better known then, but it evolved from the happenings in eastern
europe, and that pre-dated korea.

 KR> i've never had much time for mcarthur, he didn't match up to
 KR> patton's soldiering or ike's organisational ability, even if he
 KR> did wear cool shades (: 

 BL>   I grew up under the idea that Macarthur saved Australia and was god.
 BL> As a child I admired three great men (and the Phantom): Churchill,
 BL> Macarthur, and Montgomery. I read everything I could about them,
 BL> including Churchill's 19?-volume history of WWII when one of the
 BL> engineers at Pye was given the full set for his birthday.

out of those i think that the phantom is the only one to stand the test of time.

 BL>   Out of this study I now admire Roosevelt, Nimitz, and Patton (and
 BL> nice Lord Louis Mountbatten). Macarthur and Montgomery were fuckwits
 BL> and Churchill was basically evil (but the right man for the job). I
 BL> don't even think Macarthur was a good general. Nimitz was the genius
 BL> in the Pacific, not Macarthur.

patton out thought rommel, which puts him up there with the best.
montgomery just did what chirchill told him to and had a lot of photos
taken of him doing it. similarly macarthur was a figurehead, the war in the
pacific was more an application of superior force than tricky tactics, that
was one of the main reasons that so many died.

 BL>   Macarthur failed to hold the Philippines and left with his entire
 BL> force taken, he failed at Buna with the Australians cleaning up, took
 BL> West New Guinea against no opposition and walked into the Philippines
 BL> the same way. The real fighting was somethwere else. He rebuilt Japan
 BL> against America's best interests, fucked up in Korea, confronted the
 BL> Commander in Chief and and then got sacked by telegram. Great career.

 BL> I think the Chinese would have invaded anyway, willing to
 BL> settle for half or anything they could get. Korea has always
 BL> been basic to the balance between China and Japan, north and
 BL> south.

 KR> i dont think so, they laid it out ahead of time - stop there or
 KR> we join in, mcarthur didn't so they did. several thousand
 KR> people may much longer lives if not for a nutty us general
 KR> seeking glory. 

 BL>   True. But even so, I think China wanted to flex its new communist
 BL> muscle and its lovely new weaponry from Russia. Without the threat
 BL> of the H-bomb and the example of Horoshima, they might have taken all
 BL> Korea.

i think that it was a lot more complex than that. mao wanted to use the us
as a bogey to unite his somewhat divided country, but didn't want a defeat
on his hands. they quit while they could still say the they had inflicted
greivous wounds on the evil empire. when you look at what mao inherited, a
poor backward country, that had effectively been a whole lot of little
kingdoms under individual warlords, he needed someting to unite them and
make them willing to accept the hardships of achieving maos dream. he
carried on in the same vein by sniping at taiwan, but never carrying it too
far.

 BL> I still wonder what would have happened if the US had tested
 BL> the new H-bomb on Peking rather than Bikini atoll, the way
 BL> Macarthur wanted.

most people would not accept the morals of that, and anyway, the yanks
didn't know if it would work properly, and they couldnt afford to lose that
amount of face, or give that much data to the russians.

 KR> several large areas of the us and russia may have started
 KR> glowing at night. 

 BL>   Not at *that* time. There was a period around the Korean War when
 BL> Russia did not want a nuclear confrontation. It passed. That was the
 BL> wiondow of opportunity Macarthur wanted to exploit. He thought he
 BL> could take China. What a fuckwit!

a fuckwit in charge of an army is perhaps the world's greatest danger, you
dont have to look too far to see that today.

 BL> To me, China is the most dangerous of all, Communist and
 BL> growing rich besides.

 KR> china is less and less comunist, just despotic, and that may
 KR> change with the riches flooding in, it is historically
 KR> difficult to dominate a rich country, indeed it may get more
 KR> and more difficult to keep china as one country. 

 BL>   Yes... it splits into North, South and West. Many times.

 BL>   I agree with that old joke: Christianity and Communism are great
 BL> ideas; what a pity no one ever tried them. Communism was never the
 BL> Marxist vision of communism; it was just another form of despotism
 BL> with a huge bureacuracy to make it work, and the Marxist philosophy to
 BL> give the fuckwits something to believe. Marxism was the opiate of the
 BL> intelligentsia. Capitalists have more fun with cocaine.

pure communism, and pure democracy are very similar, and neither work in
anything bigger than a commune. probably the most successful communist
systems are the kibbutz (sp) in israel. what the larger experiments have
ended up with is totalitarianism not communism. the chinese probably came
closer than most, but it all came unglued when those in charge either went
batty (the cultural revolution) or saw the chance to do themselves a lot of
good at the expense of those who they were supposed to protect. the problem
that the chinese leadership has now is the rise of the middle class, and
that  historically has been the downfall of despotic systems.

 BL>   I can see China splitting in three but I can't see the bureaucracy
 BL> letting go, not while they control capitalism through licensing,
 BL> corrupt practises, and such.

i dont know how many pieces, but several chinese friends predict it's
happening. did you know that there is a significant reverse migration going
on with young chinese/australians seeing much more oppportunity in hong
kong/china than here over the next few years.

 BL> I think in 20 more years we may be saying that Macarthur could
 BL> have stopped it. 

macarthur would have been flattened if the chinese had put their whole force on him.

 KR> you have a strange sense of morality, vapourising several
 KR> hundred thousand chinese to ensure commercial advantage 40 odd
 KR> years on. 

 BL>   It's the Viking blood. What d'yer mean several hundred thousand? I
 BL> was thinking around 20 million: Peking, Shanghai, and Canton just for
 BL> a start. I'd try not to pollute the atmosphere too much though. I'm a
 BL> committed ecologist who loves small furry animals... 

the chinese love small furry animals too, they taste really good (:


                           keith
@EOT:

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