More reports are coming out about Chinese troop increases along the North Korean border:

The Chinese military has boosted troop numbers along the border with North Korea since September amid mounting concerns about the health of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, according to US officials.

Beijing has declined to discuss contingency plans with Washington, but the US officials said the Peoples’ Liberation Army has stationed more soldiers on the border to prepare for any possible influx of refugees due to instability, or regime change, in North Korea.  (….)

One official cautioned that the increase in Chinese troops was not “dramatic”, but he said China was also constructing more fences and installations at key border outposts. Wang Baodong, the Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington, said he was unaware of any increased deployments.  [Financial Times via One Free Korea]

These reports of Chinese troop increases which are reportedly over 150,000 soldiers comes at a time of mounting speculation about the stability of the North Korean regime due to the poor health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.  The Chinese have been taking North Korean regime collapse seriously for years and in recent months signs have been mounting that the US is finally taking North Korean regime collapse seriosly as well.  So serious in fact that Defense Secretary Robert Gates brought up contingency planning at the last 40th bilateral Security Consultative Meeting between the two allies.

It is great that Secretary Gates is bringing up the contingency planning issue but I have to wonder what exactly are they planning for?  So far most reports have the allies planning to cooperate to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the exodus of refugees if the regime was to collapse.  These are both extremely important, but as the U.S. military’s experience in Iraq has taught us, providing for security, the rule of law, and government services immediately after a conflict is also essential.

Who will stop the inevitable looting that will begin after a regime collapse? Who will prevent North Koreans from taking revenge against regime security forces and others who had oppressed them? The Koreans rely on government food rations. If the regime collapses, who will provide food for the country’s 23 million citizens? Several infectious diseases—scarlet fever, measles, typhoid, paratyphoid, and typhus are reportedly spreading inside North Korea now. Who will enforce quarantines and treat the sick? Who will establish law and order in a country filled with small arms and explosives? Who will stand up a government that the citizens of North Korea will accept after a collapse?

These are just a few of the questions that need answers with any operational plan being constructed to deal with a North Korean regime collapse.

However something that continues to concern me was Secretary Gates statement during the meeting that the US would provide “fighting power” to South Korea in case of regime collapse.  This would be the worse thing the US could do in the advent of regime collapse. 

US forces moving into North Korea would only legitimize any Chinese action into North Korea plus cause a host of other issues such as causing the North Korean population to question the legitimacy of the South Korean government.  North Koreans have been brought up since the day they were born on anti-US propaganda saying the South Koreans are just puppets of the Americans and any US occupation force into North Korea would only confirm this in the minds of North Koreans.  It will be imperative after any regime collapse to establish the legitimacy of the South Korean government with the people of North Korea and any US intervention force will greatly compromise this.

Additionally a US force even planned to move into North Korea in case of regime collapse would only raise Chinese suspicions of the US’s intentions and only further increase their own efforts to intervene if North Korea was to collapse. 

Any occupation of North Korea will not be easy even with detailed planning.  The 60 years of indoctrination has brainwashed the population against the outside world and left the country with a shattered economy.  However, detailed planning in the event of a North Korean regime collapse will at least contain an extremely dangerous situation from turning into an international crisis and a possible stand off between the United States and China.

The bottomline is that any occupation of North Korea should be a South Korean only operation with only US diplomatic, logistic, and financial support.  The dream of a unified Korean peninsula should be left to the Koreans to make possible not American soldiers.