> Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either.
Name one.
> North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world.
No, it doesn't. The US, China and (India, IIRC) all have larger standing armies.
> Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship.
This is a poor and complex example. Several quite Japan-specific cultural issues are at play here. It's also not as welcoming to non-Korean foreigners as you seem to imply.
> The united Koreas... maybe they will start another crazy war and attempt to conquer Japan or China.
This is ridiculous.
> ...every time one Korea is losing advantage in the stalemate, that Korea gets some sort of clandestine or official help, in a way to force the stalemate to continue, and the biggest army of the world divided in half and turned into itself.
Aside from the factual inaccuracies ("biggest army of the world"), this feels like a half cooked conspiracy theory. Do you have any evidence whatsoever?
Division of the Korean peninsula was as a matter of fact a capitalism vs communism thing. Its a cold war baggage.
North Korea was a proxy for the USSR and South Korea a proxy for the US.
US wants a strong presence in the area given how Chinese are growing on the world scene currently. I am not saying that the Kim family are saints, but US is not present in South Korea for charity work. Everyone in the game is for their interests.
It's still a misleading stat, The North Korean stats are essentially a "Total War" stat (as that reservist number is the ~ number of Males). To suggest that any countries are scared of another's simply by it's population is ridiculous. Let alone suggesting that "The West"s combined forces would be intimidated by that...
"Human Wave" [1] Tactics didn't work very effectively in the Korean war, they would work even less in a modern combat theater.
The point is that no-one actually has those faulty assumptions. They are make-believe, and thus do not form the basis for any decisions that have been made (or will be made in the future).
Historically societies have based foreign policy on equally or more ridiculous assumptions so I'm not so quick to dismiss the idea of fear, prejudice or historical animosity being a factor.
Regardless, you clearly were not making the point that no one has those faulty assumptions, you were pointing out that they were faulty. That was my entire point.
> Historically societies have based foreign policy on equally or more ridiculous assumptions so I'm not so quick to dismiss the idea of fear, prejudice or historical animosity being a factor.
As a generality, sure. However, "fear of a united Korea" is not a driving factor behind any "Western" plot to keep them divided. It's preposterous to anyone who knows anything about geopolitics in the region.
> Regardless, you clearly were not making the point that no one has those faulty assumptions, you were pointing out that they were faulty. That was my entire point.
You're interpreting my post a little narrowly.
The "assumptions" are faulty to the point of being ludicrous. It's implied that no-one actually believes it to be true.
It's a bit like saying terrorists "hate us for our freedom".
> It's a bit like saying terrorists "hate us for our freedom".
Excellent example!
My point is that that preposterous assumption is widely believed by people who vote and is therefore a large factor in foreign policy, even if those who are using it as a talking point have other motivations and don't actually believe it.
Then there are also those that are in office and do believe this kind of stupidity, optimists generally feel these types of politicians "can't exist" because how would they get into office without being smarter than that. As I got older and actually met a decent number of politicians I realized they were normal people who can be just as stupid and confused as the public in general, especially when it's in their interests to believe these things.
> Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either.
Name one.
> North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world.
No, it doesn't. The US, China and (India, IIRC) all have larger standing armies.
> Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship.
This is a poor and complex example. Several quite Japan-specific cultural issues are at play here. It's also not as welcoming to non-Korean foreigners as you seem to imply.
> The united Koreas... maybe they will start another crazy war and attempt to conquer Japan or China.
This is ridiculous.
> ...every time one Korea is losing advantage in the stalemate, that Korea gets some sort of clandestine or official help, in a way to force the stalemate to continue, and the biggest army of the world divided in half and turned into itself.
Aside from the factual inaccuracies ("biggest army of the world"), this feels like a half cooked conspiracy theory. Do you have any evidence whatsoever?