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North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

author:Observer for Rome
North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?
In mid-March, KCNA reported a significant news: in the first half of 2023, more than 800,000 young North Koreans enthusiastically signed up for the army or were demobilized to resist the provocation of nuclear war by US imperialism and puppet thieves (referring to South Korea).

However, this news cannot be fully understood according to the KCNA report, after all, North Korea's population is more than 26 million, and the total number of North Korean troops after the expansion of the army in recent years has reached about 5% of the population, reaching 1.3 million people. However, the annual turnover of personnel will certainly not reach the level of 7.8 million.

Specifically, the annual recruitment of posts in a country depends mainly on the total number of active troops and the length of military service, with longer military service resulting in fewer personnel turnover and shorter military service resulting in more replacement.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

Although North Korea has limited military spending, its pursuit of a crack military system in military construction and South Korea, although it is also a full-militia service, but the specific implementation is different, North Korea's military service period is longer, the minimum army service period is 6 years, and the longer military service period helps to improve the basic quality of soldiers.

The global general 2-3 years of military service is actually not enough to train professional professional soldiers, but more of a habit formation, for example, Russia in this Russian-Ukrainian war will not let those short-term service soldiers go to the battlefield, sent to the battlefield are contract soldiers and non-commissioned officers with a longer service period.

After extending the military service period, the turnover of personnel is not so frequent, and the number of discharges and enlistments each year decreases accordingly, so the turnover ratio of the North Korean army is not as high as that of South Korea, and in fact, the number of conscripted soldiers every year is less.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

The KCNA said that "800,000 people enthusiastically signed up for military service and demobilization," but in fact, the proportion of people who ended up serving in the army was probably much lower, less than 150,000, and more were actually military service registration or participation in reserve service, which is another matter.

The "provocation of nuclear war" they mean most likely a military exercise by US strategic bombers around the DPRK in the middle of this month, when two US B-52 strategic bombers took off from the US mainland, crossed the entire Pacific Ocean, passed through Japan, and made a brief stop in the airspace off the eastern coast of North Korea.

Because the U.S. nuclear policy emphasizes actual combat, in the U.S. strategic vision, if nuclear strikes are to be carried out against North Korea and Iran, their main means of strike is to carry out tasks through tactical nuclear forces such as strategic bombers.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

Because the launch of ballistic missiles is very sensitive, it is easy to cause fierce reactions and even strategic miscalculations between China and Russia, and the nuclear strike missions under the existing system of the US military are mainly B-1B and B-52 platforms, so from the perspective of North Korea, two bombers stationed in the United States to their doorstep is essentially equivalent to Americans fiddling with nuclear weapons at their doorstep, which is very serious in nature.

However, although the United States occasionally makes some tests, in fact, the United States may not dare to really provoke North Korea, after all, North Korea is not Iraq, it really has weapons of mass destruction, and it can hit Washington.

Looking back at the military-political developments on the Korean Peninsula in recent years, as well as the development and evolution of US policy toward North Korea, although it has received relatively little attention, it has become a storm under the table.

If the timeline goes back to the time when Park Geun-hye was in power, who would have thought that in just a few years, North Korea's nuclear technology would be fully mature and it would break through the technical threshold for miniaturization of many nuclear weapons?

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

Who would have thought that North Korea would be able to rank among the world's top five in ballistic missile technology and develop and equip a wide range of long-range, medium-range, short-range missiles with different multi-functions, as well as large-caliber long-range rocket artillery?

At the same time, U.S. policy toward North Korea has quietly undergone earth-shaking changes, and since several Kim meetings in 2018 and 2019, the United States has hardly exerted political pressure on North Korea.

As for occasionally driving bombers for a ride, to be honest, it is actually "mediocre" in politics, if this is a big deal, in 2020 and 2021, almost every week in 2020 and 2021, US reconnaissance aircraft arrived at a distance of tens of kilometers beyond the territorial waters of China's southeast coast, is the sky about to fall?

In 2022, North Korea launched more than one missile per day on average throughout the year, and the intensity of missile tests remained unabated during the beginning of 2023.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

In fact, from the perspective of the United States, the development of North Korea's military strength, especially its strategic strike capability and the maturity of its nuclear forces, have had a great impact and impact on the US Northeast Asia strategy, but even so, we can see that the US response is very weak.

The current U.S. sanctions policy against North Korea is mainly the "United Nations Resolution 1718" of 2006, the only change is that this year's US-led sanctions resolution has been extended, in addition to the political response and response to North Korea is weak.

From this point of view, in fact, there is not even a need for China to intervene, although the Korean Peninsula is half a powder keg, but from China's point of view, North Korea has initially had the ability to stabilize the situation.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

North Korea has been relatively successful strategically in recent years, and the improvement of its nuclear capability and strategic deterrence has not only met North Korea's own national security needs on the one hand, but also basically realized China's strategic requirements for them on the other hand.

From China's point of view, the fact that the Korean Peninsula has become half a powder keg is inevitable in itself and is an inevitable historical result after the United States and the Soviet Union divided the north and the south.

But China also does not want to see a hot war break out on the peninsula, which is not in China's interests, and Northeast Asia is economically very important to China.

It must be known that China's bilateral trade with Japan and South Korea exceeds $700 billion in goods every year, and if you count the service trade part approaching trillion dollars, accounting for nearly 20% of China's foreign trade, especially now that China's northern economy itself is in a bad situation.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

The industrial circle with Bohai Bay at its core is entirely supported by bilateral trade with Japan and South Korea, and any local military conflict in Northeast Asia would have a considerable negative impact on China's economy.

On the other hand, at present, China's limited military forces should concentrate on military challenges in the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, and of course, there are preparations for the Korean Peninsula, mainly because more than three-quarters of the heavy armed forces of the Chinese army are deployed in the north.

But the gradual maturation of North Korea's nuclear forces in recent years has indeed greatly reduced the military pressure on China in this direction, and it is very interesting that we can occasionally see some voices wary of North Korea's nuclear forces.

But I must point out one point: the scope of the DPRK's nuclear forces has covered the entire territory of China for more than a decade, and covering the entire territory of the United States is still a matter of recent years. That's very interesting.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

At present, the DPRK has initially achieved the goal of "stopping the war with war", and the DPRK's posture of actively preparing for war is to serve China's strategy on the one hand, and its own security on the other.

North Korea is one of the countries in the world that is most dissatisfied with the current international order, and Russia holds a similar position, in fact, it is not difficult to understand which countries prefer the outbreak of war, except for the dominant United States is a special case, for other countries, you can mainly look at the existing economic status of this country.

China is the second largest beneficiary of the current international order, so although Sino-US relations are very bad, China is willing to maintain the current international order, and the real victims, such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea, are directly excluded from the international economic system, and they are not even eligible to be exploited.

Why does Russia dare to fight Ukraine? If Russia's overseas economic interests are similar to China's, let alone Ukraine, Belarus and the United States, they don't care.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

In addition to these countries, which are almost excluded from the international economic system, the countries in the system that are most resentful of the current international order are Japan, which is exploited too badly by this system.

Since the 1990s, Japan's GDP has not developed for thirty years, the economic volume has been completely locked, its international status is seriously inconsistent with its own strength, as a nuclear threshold country is subject to others everywhere, although it is also a beneficiary of the system, but it is too deeply oppressed, so that Japan, as the most core ally of the United States, very much hopes to see the outbreak of a major war.

These countries that are relatively dissatisfied with the international order very much want to see a war between China and the United States, especially Japan, because Japan's status is very special, they have very extensive economic cooperation with both China and the United States, and their own strategic position is conspicuous, and they have relatively strong strength, which is close to having a position of "fishing for profit".

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

In other words, no matter what happens between China and the United States, Japan must be the beneficiary and must enjoy a status similar to that of a victorious country.

If China wins, Japan will be the second largest economy and will become the next important increment in China's dominant economic system, and if the United States wins, Japan will also be the second largest economy and gain an unprecedented large "colony".

So we will see that Japan has gradually freed itself from military restrictions in recent years, and in 2023, the growth rate of military spending will exceed 20%, and Japan is likely to become the biggest destabilizing factor in Northeast Asia in the future.

This is why even though the United States knows that Japan can play a great role in its China policy, they do not dare to take the initiative to accelerate the process of Japan's military expansion, and everyone knows very well that this Japan is now "long live" to the United States, and is ready to "crush jade" in their hearts, and they can indeed contribute, but they will also become a dangerous destabilizing factor and even threaten the United States' own strategic layout in turn.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

From the perspective of creating trouble, endangering the regional security situation, Japan's military strength is fully capable of achieving its goals, and therefore it is also a major source of hidden dangers around China, not that they will directly threaten China, but that they will threaten this stable regional geopolitical situation.

From China's point of view, how to balance Japan?

North Korea is an important force, and their conventional military forces are indeed very limited, but the problem is that North Korea has a full-fledged nuclear force, and the nature of things has changed, and North Korea's nuclear forces have a special deterrent effect on Japan, the only country that has so far suffered an atomic bomb.

In terms of policy toward Japan, China has many restrictions on the means of overly complicated exchanges of interests with Japan, but North Korea does not have this restriction, which means that China and North Korea have a kind of red face and a white face in their diplomacy with Japan.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

From the perspective of the United States, they are now also gradually inclined to maintain stability on the peninsula rather than to spread the flames of war to the region.

Because North Korea's nuclear forces have matured to the extent that they cannot ignore it, although they do not say it explicitly, everyone knows that if a Sino-US war breaks out, North Korea's nuclear forces can be regarded as China's nuclear forces, which is inevitable.

But the United States still wants to provoke North Korea as little as possible, so in recent years the United States has become more and more low-key on the Korean Peninsula issue.

Another example of North Korea's success in expanding its nuclear arsenal is that it has successfully curbed the arms race, which is inevitable for Japan's rapid military spending.

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

However, we should note that after the maturity of North Korea's nuclear forces, the growth rate of South Korea's military spending has been suppressed, and the growth rate of South Korea's military expenditure has slowed down for three consecutive years since 2021, and the growth rate of South Korea's military expenditure in 2023 is 4.6%.

After Park Geun-hye started the THAAD affair late in her administration, South Korea's military spending growth actually entered a small peak at the end of the 2010s, averaging 7-8% per year.

In the past two or three years, although South Korea has become tougher on its policy towards North Korea, it has flattened in actual actions, and among the relatively close allies of the United States in East Asia, South Korea is now the one with the lowest growth rate in military spending!

We can imagine that if there is no breakthrough development of North Korea's military power in the past two or three years, will South Korea lie so honestly between China and the United States?

North Korea signed up for 800,000 troops a day, the peninsula smells of gunpowder, can China control the situation?

Northeast Asia was originally an important breakthrough in the US policy towards China, on the one hand, it is China's economic powerhouse, on the other hand, almost all the major countries in the region are semi-colonies of the United States, and it is easy to manipulate and create incidents politically.

However, in the early 2020s, when Sino-US relations were tense, the United States gave up actively creating incidents in the region, and instead focused its strategy on the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, and the reason for this favorable status quo was that on the one hand, the deterrence of China's military power, on the other hand, North Korea's nuclear forces, and the determination they showed to dare to fight a nuclear war played a large role.

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