Friday, September 05, 2008

Is Stalinist North Korea's present to be Communist China's future

Yesterday, I wrote on the similarities between Communist China and its Korean colony. As it turns out, that analogy may be stronger than even I knew.

Ji Da of the New Epoch Weekly presented a detailed, focused, and frightening account of how the Communist regime has knocked the domestic food market badly out of whack. I'd recommend reading the whole thing (Epoch Times), but the final two paragraphs are critical:

In the mid-1990s, residents of four major Chinese cities (Beijing, Shanghai,
Guangzhou, and Shenzhen) consumed an average of 600 kilogram of grain each year.
Even if the nationwide standard of living increases to that of these four cities in the 1990s, China’s grain consumption will increase by more than half. In other words, China needs 750 billion tons of grain to meet domestic demand.

However, to the Chinese government, purchasing food from the international market does not provide real security. A significant portion of the imports may need to come from the United States, Canada, and Australia. On the other hand, it is not realistic for China to meet its own domestic demand in the longer term. Two-thirds of China’s land mass consists of mountain, desert, and arid regions. Very little new land can be developed for agriculture use. Urban expansion, pollution, and limited water resources also constrain the growth of food production. In fact, Chinese food production has been flat for the last decade. This will be an issue of increasing global concern.


In other words, the famines wracking northern Korea could cross the Yalu River very soon. Given how the Stalinists have reacted (BBC and One Free Korea), this is a cause for grave concern. To see why, just combine Kim Jong-il's brutal starvation of his own people and nuclear brinkmanship with the large, modernizing "People's Liberation Army," Beijing's long and deep ties to terrorism, and the regime's desperate reliance and radical nationalism to survive.

This is a danger barreling in from the horizon. The democratic world must take heed. America and her allies will never be secure until China is free.

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