Reunification of the Korea peninsular is unaffordable  Estimates of the cost of reunification vary wildly but one thing is clear, they’re all very large. One recent estimate put it at $5 trillion – or $40,000 per capita for South Koreans for 30 years. [1]  The economy of the North is virtually non-existent, it was never that healthy even when Moscow was propping it up, in 1992 it collapsed completely. Now only the military has any money at all. A whole series on unfinished and unnecessary vanity projects are the only thing resembling an infrastructure and roads and factories would simply need to be built from scratch.  Although it is tempting to make the comparison with the reunification of Germany, the two situations are very different. Incomes in the East were about one third to one half of those in the West and the population was about a quarter that of its more populous neighbour.  The population of the North is about half of the South and incomes are at about 5 per cent. [2]  The Republic of Koreas simply could not pay the bills and so the burden would fall on other nations, presumably China and the US.  Such a commitment would seem unlikely, it would be fantastically unpopular in the United States and unlikely to be supported for more than a couple of years. In the case of China, since they have shown little interest in developing many of their own backward, rural provinces it seems unlikely that they would commit to someone else’s.  [1] Beck, Peter M., ‘The Cost of Korean Reunification’, Atlantic Council, 7 January 2010  [2] Ibid