ParaPundit is on to a very big story but he doesn't quite understand what a tiger he's got by the tail. He thinks that the PRC will export their female shortage to North Korea by massive purchases of North Korean brides.
What he's missing is that there is no reason whatsoever for the PRC to be either especially attracted to N. Korea or limit their female poaching to that benighted land. Anywhere there are females who are within the available price range is a potential source of bought brides and forced prostitutes. You just have to map out the economics of it to see how this can be a regional problem and even a worldwide problem if sex selection abortion continues in both the PRC and in India, another country that is on the anti-female abortion express ride to social instability.
Once you see how this female shortage is going to be arbitraged away, the question is whether the resulting shallower shortage, spread out over many more countries, is going to be sufficient to cause regional stability problems and if so, how much? When the low hanging fruit of the N. Korean "market" is cleaned out, single PRC men are not going to stop looking. Look for all the PRC border states to see pressure for their poorest and most desperate females to cross the border.
The only positive (and it's a very small one) is that this is going to vastly increase genetic mixing in east Asia and will possibly have a small effect in lowering racism, a perennial problem for outsiders.
Posted by TMLutas at May 26, 2004 06:11 PM