Thursday, December 02, 2010

The Council Has Spoken!!



The votes have been cast, the sacred runes read and this week’s Watcher’s Council results are history.

Many of the entries this week focused on the Wikileaks story but our winner this week, The Razor for America's China Problem focused on a different area, an interesting analysis of the China, US, and Korea relationship, and how it might resolve itself:

To paraphrase Gordon Chang writing in Forbes magazine, we don’t have a North Korean problem, we have a China problem. Chang made this observation over a year and a half ago after North Korea tested a second atomic bomb, and it applies even more today. So far this year North Korea has killed 50 South Koreans in unequivocal acts of war – 46 in the sinking of the South Korean destroyer Cheonan and 4 in the shelling of Yeonpyeong island.

China’s continued support of North Korea is self-defeating. It would like nothing more than to drive the United States out of the western Pacific, yet paradoxically China’s unqualified support of North Korea’s belligerence pushes South Korea and Japan closer to the United States and sucks America deeper into the region. Protests in Seoul against the American presence have been replaced by protests demanding immediate retaliation – with American involvement.

China is worried about two events: a mass influx of refugees in the near-term and a unified Korea allied with the United States in the long-term. By propping up the Kims they may have created the conditions where both outcomes are likely.

Our non-Council winner was the one and only Iowahawk for White House in Talks With Elusive Taliban Leader an absolutely hilarious satire based on the unfortunately true story that surfaced last week - diplomats in Afghanistan have been negotiating for some time with a supposed Taliban leader who was nothing of the kind!


Here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners



Non-Council Winners



See you next week!


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