Quote:
In the much longer run, however, the death could also usher in a quite different challenge: the hugely expensive task of reunifying Korea and reintegrating the world's most isolated state into the global economy.
Expensive for whom? Not for me as an American I would hope, as Korea is not a state in the union last I checked so let Korea worry about Koreans. Uniting Korea is their challenge, and only if South Korea wants it, which they probably do not want.
Imagine how heavily S.Koreans would have to be taxed to support impoverished socialists with a totally different culture than them at this point. The South culture is high-tech big time capitalists with the fastest network on the entire planet right now (yup puts the US and all European countries and blows Japan away), professional video gaming is as big as football in the United States, and J-pop and commercialism that damn near puts Japan to shame.
And let us not forget that it was North Korea that attacked South Koreans in the first place, so I can't imagine South Koreans would be like "oh yes, let us unite and here take half my paycheck ya commies". If there was a cultural divide between the industrialized North and agricultural South that even resulted in a civil war here in the United States, its ten times worse now with North and South Korea.
