North Korea Now Making Missile Ready Nuclear Weapons

[Anomalocaris]

There is nothing we can afford to give up that china would think is adaquate compensation for their giving up North Korea.   That being said, if we launch surgical strikes against North Korea, or really bomb the stuffing out of North Korea, as in the case of retaliation against their strike against Guam, The Chinese won't shoot at us.

They don't mind if we take out North Korean nukes so long as Kim's government survives.

If North Korea invade South Korea in retaliation and it turns into a land war, where it is all or nothing for Kim, and losing mean South Korea/the IS topple Kim's regime, then they will get directly involved.

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Read a detailed account of the behind the scene diplomatic maneuvers between the US, United Nations and china in 1950 leading up to the Chinese involvement in the Korean War.  It is very instructive.  The Chinese don't mind their buffer state gets a bloody nose.   Particularly if the buffer state is engaged in actions they didn't approve.   But they do mind if the buffer state is in danger of collapse, or American forces approach Chinese border.


Chinese interest relative to the Korean Peninsula has not changed significantly.   The only difference is back then, their only option to get involved was to fight a ground war against the US in Korea.

Now they can fight a multi-faceted struggle against many dimensions of American interest at many different locations at once. They can directly attack American allies throughout west pacific by air and by sea, they can engage us by air and land in Korea.  They can attack our space assets, they can wage economic and resource warfare against us.  Ultimately they can retaliate against us with nuclear weapons that work.

There is probably one thing that China would accept, the Finland option, ie a united Korea with full sovreignty inside its own borders but effectively trusting its military defence to China (ie no US troops) and acting as a genuine neutral in foreign affairs.

Trouble is, it's probably too late to get the power centres in Pyongyang to bow out, and taking over a ruined North would probably destroy the South (in fact taking over the North as it is, even peacefully, would be a nightmare).

I think both South Korea's actual strength and self perception is really being underestimated here.

South Korea sees itself as a advanced regional power similar in caliber to Japan with realistic hope of surpassing these and becoming by 2050 the number 2 power in east Asia and a global power in its own right.  Never will South Korea accept being de jure a protectorate of china with foreign policy dictated by Beijing.

Also, South Korea is the second most advanced economy in east Asia, catching up or surpassing Japan on multiple fronts, well ahead of china in many key high value added areas.   South Korea's economic prosperity depends on maintaining its technological edge over china for as long as possible.  If china gains a position over Korea such that china can appropriate south Korea's economic and technological know how, South Korean economy is doomed.    So being independent of china is a matter of economic life and death for South Korea.