For the life of me I cannot understand what the Chinese gain by continuing to support Kim. They are way overdue to throw him to the dogs and let him stand all on his own.
” . . . is becoming increasingly fed up with its provocative neighbor, analysts say, but it is willing to bankroll Kim to prevent chaos on its border.”
Nonsense. The Chinese affirmatively want an insane commie regime on their border. It would cause a lot of problems for China were they to share a border with a modern, westernized country like SK. They will put up with whatever they have to put up in order to maintain the status quo.
The South will not take steps to dethrone the nutjobs in NK for two reasons: (1) Seoul is very close to the border. The artillery on the NK side could and would reduce Seoul to rubble in a few hours—far sooner than SK could take the artillery out with non-nuclear weapons; (2) Even if SK dethroned the nutjobs and took over the north, they would still have to face China. At that point, it’s pretty much Korean War redux and we all know how that went.
IMHO, the status quo on the Korean peninsula is pretty much locked in stone for decades to come. Even if the NK citizens or army revolted and threw the bums out, the Chinese would just put replacement nutjobs back in by force if necessary.
The leaders of NK are amongst the least constrained leaders in the world for these reasons. You can see this in the preposterously muted SK reaction to NK blowing up a SK frigate. That’s an act of war. SK will send a forceful letter.
Good luck Kim.., R.I.P., or not.
Good luck Kim.., R.I.P., or not.