This part:
“Not only can Japan and South Korea be reasonably expected to develop nuclear arsenals. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other inherently unstable Arab states can be expected to develop or purchase nuclear arsenals in response to concerns over North Korea and its ally Iran with its nuclear weapons program linked to Pyongyang’s.”
Particularly as it applies to Japan and South Korea, should be a wake up call to China, as those prospects cannot seem to China as in their national interest. China should be wanting immensely to work with the U.S. to deter North Korea and avoid further nuclear proliferation in its neighborhood.
The conundrum is that we have economic leverage against China that we didn’t have in the 80s, or even early 90s, before China became a large and industrialized economy. However, if we use it, by doing what we ought to do in bilateral trade relations, they may decide they have no incentive to assist us in dealing with North Korea. Squeeze them hard enough and they may even be willing to respond militarily to anything we do with North Korea, as well as in the South China Sea. Then we would be forced to decide whether to wage war with China, which we would most definitely not want to do if it can be avoided.
Your point, about nuclearizing Japan and South Korea, may be the key to getting out of this conundrum. Deals with those countries would have to be approved and in the works. I don’t think China will respond until it is faced with a done deal. At that point, and to avoid the militarization of Japan, who China greatly fears, they might be willing to “allow” us to destroy the North Korea military and take out the Kim dictatorship. Maybe we could strike a deal that lets us do that, maybe even with their assistance, so long as we do not occupy and take away a huge buffer state from them. For that, I think they would go to war. To make NK into a more docile vassal, hopefully not.