China policy makers 'are discussing how to remove Kim Jong-un as North Korean leader' [tr]

As bad as the Chinese treat their citizens it is a million times better than the Norks...

I think the Chinese should draw a new parallel and give the bottom half of North Korea to South Korea and they can keep the northern part.

I would believe the NK populace freed from the Peoples Tyranny of NK would be contained willingly in their own land as long as they see progress, jobs, but primarily food coming their way. Certainly some would want to join family in the South, but primarily they would be happier at home living free of the oppressive regime.

Amazing what a good meal, and prospects for more such good meals, as well the prospect of jobs, and education, self sustainment will do. Home is where the heart is no matter the conditions, but if conditions improve the heart grows fonder.

This is Chinese grandstanding. They can end this with a phone call. Having rogues like this one and Pakistan keeps as allies gives the Chinese strategic clout.

I don’t believe that people would be thanking us .. I believe Russia and China would make a big deal of it .. and would see it as an opening to attack us.

Why don’t people see that ..??

And it would also bring in the Russians, who also have interests in South Korea.

It could be a trial balloon or merely a lip service. In the past, it has been the latter. They make this kind of comment, raising our hope only to return to their old party line.

I hear that Chinese officials have been bitching about N. Korea for years, but it had never led to any real action.

Cross-border trade between two countries are reported to be returning to normal. Since Chinese pressure failed to stop S. Korea from allowing THAAD to be deployed on her soil, they have less reason to put N. Korea on shorter leash.

So what would make China take serious action against N. Korea? Where is their red-line? More nuclear tests? Deployment of operational nuclear missiles? S. Korea and Japan going for developing their own nuclear weapons?

The last one would be the most serious challenge to China and it could make them act, which may or may not be favorable to us, but there is likely to be a real action. Unfortunately, U.S. opposes it as strongly as China, for now. China knows it, too. Recently, some U.S. officials are floating their own trial balloon hinting that U.S. may be unable to stop two countries from developing nukes. Unless there is some back-channel communication I do not know of, it could be also a lip service at this point.

U.S. has been trying to finesse it by imposing economic sanctions on N. Korea which is usually ignored by China. Now U.S. is dabbling with punishing Chinese companies who are breaking sanctions. It is not hard to camouflage smuggling operation in many different ways. They can use shadowy organized crime syndicate to do it instead of publicly listed large Chinese companies. So unless U.S. wields big stick like punitive tariffs on Chinese good, enlisting China's help won't be easy. Furthermore, there will be many in business community who would be hopping mad about such an idea.

Going back to China's problem, I doubt that they have a red line. Whatever N. Korea does China accepts eventually, because either they are convinced that it is better than alternatives or such a belief may be a way of rationalizing their inability to confront this problem. The end result is still the same. We have been waiting for that magical moment when China no longer protects N. Korea for more than a decade but it has never arrived. This is also leading to annoying attempt to resurrect Clinton-era appeasement talks pushed mostly by the same group of people who worked at the Foggy Bottom during that period.

There is no doubt that Kim Jong-un will do everything to complete his country's decades -long quest for operational nuclear weapon system.

In the end, from N. Korea's perspective, we are all chickens. U.S. cannot control N. Korea, which curiously harden her resolve to hang onto things they do control: deterring her regional allies from pursuing nuclear weapons. U.S. is not going to use big stick against China, for fear of escalating conflict. China seems to believe that any kind of N. Korea would be acceptable as long as N. Korea dutifully remain hostile to U.S. and its allies. N. Korea has been raising a stake incrementally, but nothing has been too much to tolerate from China's part. Even the prospect that N. Korea may use its nukes to threaten Beijing when it suits them does not seem to faze China.

So it is natural that N. Korea feels little pressure to relent their quest for becoming a nuclear power. N. Korea believes that it will elevate her international standing on a par with U.S. and other major powers.

All major powers around N. Korea are so invested in status quo, which boils down to no real action against N. Korea. Their obsession with status quo is the best weapon N. Korea has, and uses it to further push the envelope. Now it is rattling its non-nuclear neighbors. Things are reaching to a point that these countries are forced to break out of status quo regional nuclear powers are keen to preserve. Untenable situation may go on for a while, and may show no indication of imminent trouble, until some accidental event would spark a full-blown chaos without warning.

Dogged attempt to preserve status quo only emboldens N. Korea to further threaten the status quo. Both parties, whether they want the status quo to be preserved or threatened, seem to think this could go on indefinitely.

That may be true. But S. Koreans do not feel the kind of threat they feel from China. Japan is an old enemy still bothering them, but China is an older enemy which was off the stage for a while, now back in vengeance. In terms of threat, from their point of view, China is much worse than Japan.

Teaming up with China to fight Japan is really a non-starter, unless Japan attacks S. Korea first.