Sino-NK Axis to Be Destroyed before Kim Regime Collapses

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On Thursday, Hwang Jang Yop, president of the North Korean Democratization Alliance, said, in the 1st Democratic Ideology Forum held by the Democratic Ideology Society, that the key to North Korea’s democratization and reformation depended on Beijing and its alliance with Pyongyang.

Hwang, former North Korean Workers’ Party’s international secretary, in his first appearance in an open debate since his defection to South Korea in 1997, argued for removal of the Kim Jong Il dictatorship in order to eliminate all the current problems in North Korea, including the nuclear issue.

“The Kim regime’s lifeline,” Hwang emphasized, “depends on the Chinese hand. If the Sino-North Korean alliance is broken, Kim Jong Il is doomed.”

However, as long as the Beijing-Pyongyang axis is sustained, Hwang expected, the Kim Jong Il regime would not collapse.

Hwang continued that, for China, it would be beneficial to keep the stalemate on the Korean Peninsula to prevent American-type liberal-democracy to cross the Yalu River and to feed the pro-Kim Jong Il/anti American group in South Korea.

[imText1]The most significant reason for China to maintain the alliance with such an international criminal gang of Kim Jong Il, according to Hwang, is to avert liberal-democracy infiltrating into China.

Thus, he anticipated that China would oppose North Korea’s transformation to the liberal-democratic regime.

Lee Dong Bok, representative of the North Korean Democratic Forum, suggested it might be unrealistic for the United States to ask China to sever its relationship with North Korea, and therefore, preparations for such a scenario would be necessary.

When asked by Ryu Geun Il, former editor-in-chief of the Chosun Daily, how to persuade China to force NK’s change, Hwang responded that there would be no reason for China to resist North Korea’s transformation into Chinese-type ‘openness and reformation.’ And to persuade Beijing, Hwang added, American efforts were critical; for example, it would be effective for the U.S. to tell China Washington’s approval of peaceful reunification of Taiwan and the mainland.

If Kim’s totalitarian regime were removed, Hwang concluded, and the current border between the North and South remained, South Korean capital and technology could be deployed to help the North modernize, and then the two Koreas would be assimilated in 10 to 15 years. Hwang denied the possibility of China’s absorption of NK due to international and domestic pressure.

There were more than 300 audience members who attended the forum to see Hwang, the highest-ranking defector from Pyongyang who had been devoted to democracy in North Korea since his defection.