THE DAILY BEAST2016.2.17---Gordon G. Chang ::金正恩會發動戰爭嗎？

THE DAILY BEAST2016.2.17---Gordon G. Chang :Will Kim Jong Un Go to War?
With South Korea’s president flinging insults and his country losing important sources of income, Kim is facing a huge crisis—and it might just push him to the brink of invasion.
In a nationally televised speech Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun Hye defended her controversial decision to close the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea. She also delivered comments sure to enrage Kim Jong Un, the leader of that destitute and dangerous state.
For instance, she promised her government would take “stronger and more effective” measures to impress upon Pyongyang that its nuclear program would hasten “regime collapse.” She talked about Kim’s state as “merciless” and mentioned its “extreme reign of terror.”
Park also broke other taboos, mentioning Kim by name, taunting him. Compounding the affront, she chose his father’s birthday to make her remarks.
Park’s insults helped make this year’s Korean crisis one to remember. And once Kim decides upon a response, expect him to retaliate with swift and fierce moves.
For the moment, the young leader in Pyongyang has only hurled words back at Park’s government. The restraint is not surprising because the closure of Kaesong, which sits just north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, is a crisis for Kim.
On the 10th of February, Park ordered the “complete shutdown” of the industrial complex. The North Korean army then seized the facilities, where 124 South Korean businesses employed nearly 54,800 North Koreans.
Park’s move was stunning. Her office on Feb. 3 had promised there would be “searing consequences” if the North launched a missile. At the time, that appeared to be just more empty words from Seoul, but she shut down Kaesong after Kim launched his Unha-3 rocket on Feb. 8—in reality a cover for a test of ballistic-missile technology. The closure of Kaesong will hurt the North Korean regime. Last year, by Seoul’s accounting, the industrial complex shoveled $120 million into Pyongyang’s coffers.
Wages were paid in dollars, but workers never saw the greenbacks. They received only North Korean won and vouchers. The foreign currency, Park said in her National Assembly speech, ended up in the hands of the government and then was funneled into its weapons programs.
Shutting Kaesong will, by various estimates, reduce North Korean exports by a quarter to a third.
And Kim has other punishments to worry about. Congress will almost certainly pass H.R. 757, the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, which the Senate toughened and adopted by a 96-0 vote, and the Obama administration will be under pressure to enforce it. Further, China, at least according to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, will agree to a fifth set of UN measures to restrict Pyongyang’s weapons programs.
“The Kim Jong Un regime desperately needs hard currency in order to keep core elites loyal and to develop the tools of death it needs to stay in power,” wrote Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, to The Daily Beast on Tuesday.
“The closure of Kaesong, combined with the nearly certain enactment of sanctions legislation in the U.S. and efforts spurred by UN Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman to hold the Kim regime accountable for crimes against humanity, will result in unprecedented international pressure. The choice facing Kim Jong Un is clear: Abandon your nukes and missiles, improve your abysmal human-rights situation, and accept reform—or disappear.”
Kim has no intention of abandoning weapons, improving human rights, implementing reform, or disappearing. On the contrary, he is absolutely determined to prevail in his family’s three-generation, eight-decade struggle with the other Korea. In fact, that goal is the core of his legitimacy. From its founding, Kim’s Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has sought to unify the peninsula under Northern rule, and the massive invasion that started the Korean War in 1950 was just one such effort in this regard.
Everyone assumed that Pyongyang was just engaged in bluster when it said on Feb. 11 that the closure of Kaesong was a “declaration of war,” but war has always been a possibility on the Korean Peninsula.
And now the chances of a conflict are rising. For one thing, Park’s National Assembly speech marks a crucial turn in Seoul’s policies toward the other Korea. Prior governments in Seoul—even the army-backed and conservative ones—had adopted a live-and-let-live attitude. Similarly, Park had tried to get along with Pyongyang at first with her much-praised “trustpolitik” policy of engagement.
But years of failure of engagement have pushed Park in the other direction. As Robert Collins, a 37-year veteran of analyzing North Korean politics for the Defense Department, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday, Park’s speech “demonstrated South Korea’s willingness to see the Kim regime fail and that’s a public warning that her government has no intention of being bullied by Kim Jong Un.”
Meanwhile, for Kim not to act against Park makes him look weak at home.
Domestically, he is now engaged in a struggle with the generals and admirals. And that contest is not going well, as recent executions and disappearances of flag officers indicate. Kim, from the moment he became supreme leader in December 2011, has been relentlessly reducing the influence of the Korean People’s Army, and so the army has every incentive now to recapture that influence. The best way for senior officers to do that is bring North Korea to the brink of hostilities.
President Park does not speak of war, but in recent times she has been talking about “unification” of the two Koreas. For the North Korean leader, that word, in her vocabulary, means the destruction of his state.
The world does not want to destroy North Korea, but it is adopting a “strategic strangulation” approach as other tactics fail. And as South Korea abandons Kaesong and other nations take their own measures, the fragile Kimist state could come apart.
Staring at the prospect of failure, Kim has some difficult choices. “When faced with imminent collapse,” David Maxwell of Georgetown University told The Daily Beast, “Kim Jong Un may make the deliberate and from his perspective very rational decision to execute his military campaign plan to reunify the peninsula by force.”


================看中國記者許家棟編譯===================

THE DAILY BEAST2016.2.17---章家敦:金正恩會發動戰爭嗎？
在本周二全國電視轉播講話中，韓國總統朴槿惠捍衛了自己做出關閉朝鮮開城工業園區有爭議性的決定。她所發表的評論也會激怒貧困和危險國家朝鮮的最高領導人金正恩。
例如，朴槿惠承諾將採取“更強大、更有效”的措施給平壤留下深刻印象，金正恩的核計劃將加速朝鮮“政權的垮台”。她談到金氏家族是“無情的”，並提到其“極端恐怖的統治”。
朴槿惠還打破禁忌等，直接點名金正恩。為了加重侮辱的用意，她選擇了金正恩父親生日的時候發表了這次發言。
朴槿惠的侮辱行為有助於使人們記住今年正在發生的朝韓危機。一旦金正恩對此有所響應，估計他會採取迅速而猛烈的動作來進行報復。 目前，這名平壤的年輕領導人只是對朴槿惠政府施以言辭上的回擊。坐落在分隔朝韓兩國非軍事區的開城工業園被關閉也是金正恩面臨的一場危機，所以這種收斂行為反應並不使人感到吃驚。
開城工業園關閉將會傷害朝鮮政權
2月10日，朴槿惠下令工業園區“完全關閉”。隨後朝鮮軍隊就奪取了這裡的設施，工業園區里曾經有124家韓國企業，雇傭朝鮮人員近54800人。 朴槿惠的舉動是令人驚嘆的。2月3日，韓國總統辦公室已承諾，如果朝鮮發射一枚火箭，那麼將會帶來“嚴重的後果”。當時感覺首爾似乎僅僅是在說空話，但2月8日在金正恩當局發射了“Unha-3”火箭（實際上是為了掩蓋一次彈道導彈技術試驗）之後，朴槿惠隨即下令關閉了開城工業園。 開城工業園的關閉將會傷害到朝鮮政權。去年，根據首爾的核算，工業園區輸送了1.2億美元給平壤當局。
雖然工人工資是以美元支付的，但工人從來沒有見到這些美鈔。他們只收到了朝鮮圓和折扣券。朴槿惠在她的國會演講中說，這些外幣最終落入了朝鮮政府的手中，然後被輸送去支持朝鮮的核武器計劃。
通過各種估計，關閉開城工業園會降低朝鮮出口量的四分之一到三分之一。
金正恩需要用錢和殺戮來維持獨裁統治
金正恩還面臨著其它的懲罰措施。美國國會幾乎肯定會通過H.R.757（即2016年對朝鮮制裁和政策的增強法案），這個法案是美國參議院通過96-0表決通過，奧巴馬政府將在壓力下強制執行。此外，至少據國家安全顧問蘇珊•賴斯（Susan Rice）稱，中國將同意限制朝鮮武器計劃的聯合國第五組措施。
朝鮮人權委員會常務理事格雷格•斯克爾勒托尤（Greg Scarlatoiu）本周二對“The Daily Beast”網站說：“金正恩政權迫切需要硬通貨幣來保持核心精英的忠誠度，並實施它所需要的死刑來保證掌握權力。”
“開城（工業園）的關閉，幾乎可以肯定是美國立法進行制裁，以及聯合國特別報告員馬祖基•達魯斯曼（Marzuki Darusman）認定朝鮮金正恩犯有‘反人類罪’（crimes against humanity）努力相結合的結果，且受到前所未有的國際壓力。金正恩所面對的選擇是很明確的：要麼放棄核武器和導彈，改善糟糕的人權狀況並接受改革，要麼垮台。”
朴槿惠講話標誌着韓國對朝鮮政策關鍵轉折
金正恩即沒有放棄武器，改善人權，實施改革，也沒有垮台的打算。相反，他只是一意孤行地堅持“金氏家族”祖孫三代與韓國八十年的鬥爭。事實上，這個目標是其政權合法性的核心。自國家成立以來，“金氏家族”的“朝鮮人民民主共和國”就一直努力尋求在朝鮮政府統治下統一整個朝鮮半島。於是，由於朝鮮發動大規模入侵而引發了1950年朝鮮戰爭是這方面的一個例子。
對於2月11日開城工業區的關閉，雖然每個人都認為平壤只是咆哮着這是一種“宣戰”，但在朝鮮半島爆發戰爭一直是可能的。
而現在發生衝突的可能性正在升高。一方面，朴槿惠國民議會的講話標誌着是一個韓國對朝鮮政策的關鍵轉折。在此前的首爾政府（甚至是軍隊支持的保守派政府）是抱着一種“和平共處”（live-and-let-live）的態度。同樣，朴槿惠起初也曾試圖以備受讚揚的“信賴外交”政策（trustpolitik）與朝鮮相處。
但多年失效的努力把朴槿惠推到另外一個方向上去。正如37歲、為韓國國防部工作的朝鮮政治資深分析家羅伯特•柯林斯（Robert Collins）本周二告訴“The Daily Beast”網站所說的，朴槿惠的講話“證明了韓國希望看到金正恩政權的失敗，並公開警告，她的政府無意被金正恩欺負”。 金正恩的回應顯出脆弱
同時對金正恩來說，沒有反駁朴槿惠讓他看起來在朝鮮國內十分脆弱。
在國內，金正恩正在參與到與朝鮮將軍和政府官員的絞殺中。而最近對標杆性的政府官員處決和失蹤的消息表明，絞殺進行得並不順利。自從2011年12月成為朝鮮最高領導人以來，金正恩一直在堅持不懈地削減朝鮮人民軍的影響力，所以軍隊現在一直致力於奪回自己的影響力。朝鮮軍方高級官員要做到這一點的最好辦法就是讓朝鮮處於敵對的邊緣。
儘管朴槿惠總統並沒有提到戰爭的字眼，但近來她一直在談論着朝鮮半島南北雙方的“統一”。對於朝鮮領導人來說，在她詞彙中的這個詞是指打垮其國家。
世界並不想搗毀朝鮮，但在其它戰術失敗之後，它不得不採用“戰略絞殺”的方法。而隨着韓國放棄開城工業園區和其它國家採取自己的方法，脆弱的“金氏家族”的國家可能會被瓦解。
面對失敗的前景，金正恩只有一些困難的抉擇。喬治城大學的大衛•麥克斯韋（David Maxwell）告訴“The Daily Beast”網站說：“當面對即將到來的崩潰，從他的角度來看，金正恩可能故意執行他的軍事行動，來用武力統一朝鮮半島。”



资料来源 :
Gordon G. Chang : Forbes.com columnist.
THE DAILY BEAS2016.2.17---Gordon G. Chang :Will Kim Jong Un Go to War?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/17/will-kim-jong-un-go-to-war.html
看中國記者許家棟編譯
http://b5.secretchina.com/news/16/02/18/600581.html