fair enough, but the vote was a message in any event. A message to NK or a message to Japan or a message to the US ... but a message.
How can one transition NK into a more open interactive state while still somehow preserving the oligarchy?
That is the solution China wants, is the onyl solution NK will accept, is not the solution Japan India and likely not what the US wants (although who knows). THe US is likely divided, some "democracy" right wing reunification folks, some more pragmatic "we can work with China we can likely work with a new and improved NK - they would definitely be a good source of cheap labor for some time) and one could imagine even SK being good with that (would it really bother Samsung to chop labor costs by 95% as long as they could rely on binding capital contracts?
NK would be like the modern NFL draft, where one gets a rookie salary lock-in for 4 years. Samsung gets NK labor for 20 years ... but the oligarchy needs to see their preservation in order to move on this, and the fact is they are all of a county in size and economic value as it currently stands. China had leverage in its opening-up without democratization gambit, NK? not so much.
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