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Buying goods from companies that do business with North Korea?

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ex_banana-eater

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North Korea currently has tonnes of missiles and artillery pointed at me. However, a lot of the companies here do direct investment in North Korea which feeds their army. One of the biggest supporters is Hyundai, which is also the biggest conglomerate in my country. Apartments are manufactured by Hyundai, our appliances, cars and other things. Would it be wrong to buy from a company like this?

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I don't think you can make a general claim about buying from this company as "wrong." Certainly, other things equal, financially supporting countries which are enemies of the United States, and especially dictatorships like NK is against your own interest. However, the world economy is so interconnected that it would be impossible to parse out exactly where all of your money is going after a purchase. Advocating complete avoidance of NK or any dictatorial country in all economic purchases is thus not a tenable policy. Ultimately, whether or not the purchase is worth the fact that the product is from NK depends on the individual context and value hierarchy of the buyer.

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It would only make sense to start boycotting a company like Hyundai if it was part of an organized campaign, with a realistic chance of reaching them and changing their policies.

Unfortunately, if the country you're talking about is South Korea, the problem is not Hyundai at all. It's the government, and the culture which lead to that government. South Korea (and Japan) are failing to act in their self interest with regard to NK, in general. It's not just one company going against the grain.

The way to affect change would be through arguments, not boycotts.

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I agree that Japan and Korea haven't been proactive enough, but they are USA's lapdogs, militarily, so I think responsibility for not being tough enough on the China/NK axis falls on US diplomacy lacking the nuts to challenge China.

Allow Japan to rearm, and I expect the political landscape would change dramatically ...

- ico

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I agree that we have come to the point where we should let Japan rearm. Not only do they have a great deal of tension with the Chinese, but they have become relatively strong allies with the United States. Given the rising threats within that general region it would definitely give us another deterring force.

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Japan can rearm if they want to, there's very little anyone could do. In fact I bet the US would gladly sell them the same weapons sold to other allies, if they were willing to buy them.

They are holding themselves to that 3% of GDP limit for funding their military, and taking advantage of US protection. The US would have only to gain if Japan started to pay for their own defense.

In fact, they've started doing that recently, in terms of missile defense. The US should probably nudge those efforts along at a faster pace.

Edited by Tanaka
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Well I found out that the bulk of the economic development in North Korea is done by a division (which is separately publicly traded) known as Hyundai Asan. Hyundai car, Hyundai construction and other major divisions are not developing the Kaesong complex and bringing tourists to Pyeongyang, from my understanding. At least not to any large degree.

The other thing is that my sweetheart might get a job at a company that does a lot of manufacturing in Myanmar. I don't think that's as bad since Myanmar is not really threatening me, just its own people. And they can escape in the millions and have done so. I met a lot of Burmese people in Thailand. They aren't able to get citizenship there and thus cannot go to government schools and are forced into underground economy jobs, but they were able to leave Myanmar which is different than North Korea.

Burma is a scary place. I went there for a day, armed military with automatic weapons attempted to seize my passport but I said no and I guess they went to someone else easier to deal with. And I forgot to bring enough money to bribe them but an American girl came to my rescue and paid for me.

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I agree that Japan and Korea haven't been proactive enough, but they are USA's lapdogs, militarily, so I think responsibility for not being tough enough on the China/NK axis falls on US diplomacy lacking the nuts to challenge China.

I don't think South Korea is weak because of the US, but because of their own philosophy. North Korea was set to collapse just like the rest of the communist states until the Kim Dae Jung and Rho Mu Hyun governments went on a massive spending spree to bring up Kim Jung Il's standard of living. But it certainly doesn't help that the US under Clinton gave the North light water nuclear reactors, fertilizer, and oil to run their tanks.

The current administration is almost Ghandi-esque in its passivity in response to the recent murders of over 50 young sailors aboard the Cheonan and the shelling of a small island town. To its credit this administration has stopped massive aid payments although it still allows production in the multi-billion dollar South Korean built Gaesong industrial complex. Recently it started sending propaganda leaflets on balloons over to the North with information on the fall of the Arab dictatorships. Yesterday the North responded saying that they will retaliate with force in response to our "psychological war tactics" that are attempts to undermine their socialist state.

If you read Xinhua (the Chinese internet news agency), their reports on the DPRK are nearly word for word what the DPRK state news agency puts out. That gives you an idea on China's position with regard to the North still. Every Chinese exchange student I meet here is a deluded and ignorant idiot; they don't know anything about politics or their country's government. The defeat of the Americans and the South with their bloody wave of disposable human corpses in the Korean war is still a source of pride for them and represents China's coming of age after its long period of shame on the international scene (following their defeat by Britain a hundred years earlier).

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