First, for those who are fond of bashing Korea by saying the rest of the world doesn't care about what happens here, the sad reality is that global finance and economic concerns are quite vulnerable to political tension and other problems on the Korean Peninsula.
Second, now that North Korea has announced it is cutting all ties with South Korea in response to South Korea announcing it was cutting almost all ties with North Korea, we can now watch as the regime in Pyongyang crumbles and becomes dust in the winds of history. Because if there's one theme I picked up on during the past half decade of religiously following K-blogs, it's that Seoul was providing the lifeline without which Pyongyang couldn't continue to exist.
Me, I always thought it was Beijing that was providing the clear-and-sufficient aid to Pyongyang to keep it propped up indefinitely, but that was written off as apologism. So I am excited about the prospect of buying an affordable summer home in Hwanghae-do Province in the next couple years.
Yeah, I thought it was so ridiculous that many of the major headlines yesterday were saying that NK was severing ties and trade with the South. Kind of ridiculous after SK announced first that they were severing ties. That's like saying "Well, we're not going to trade with you EITHER then!". And you're so right about SK being the economic lifeline these past few years to the North. I really wonder what is going through their heads now as the money slowly stops trickling into their economy. It's just sad that it will be the commoners who suffer.
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