Let’s look on the bright sider and assume that this year the ghastly North Korean regime implodes, leading to pell-mell reunification.

Then what?

In particular, who pays the huge bill to start to put right the mess:

More than a dozen reports by governments, academics and investment banks in recent years have attempted to estimate the cost of Korean unification. At the low end, the Rand Corporation estimates $50 billion. But that assumes only a doubling of Northern incomes from current levels, which would leave incomes in the North at less than 10% of the South.

At the high end, Credit Suisse estimated last year that unification would cost $1.5 trillion, but with North Korean incomes rising to only 60% of those in the South. I estimate that raising Northern incomes to 80% of Southern levels—which would likely be a political necessity—would cost anywhere from $2 trillion to $5 trillion, spread out over 30 years. That would work out to at least $40,000 per capita if distributed solely among South Koreans.

Update: a reader rather closer to all this than I am writes:

These figures presumably don’t factor in any Gotterdammerung nuclear event from Kim and his mates. I live not far from the China/N Korea border and am none too sanguine about any forced or encouraged regime change