[AU72]

The second relative of Kim Tubby to be offed that China had ties with. Chicoms probably seeing more down-side then up-side with the NORKs.

[rightwingcrazy]

Maybe Trump offered to soften his hardball game a bit if the Chinese showed that they were serious. Tit for tat.

[wgmalabama]

The Chinese want global respect for the military forces a beat down on North Korea with getting them in that respect. I’m not sure why they haven’t done it before now they want Taiwan the Korea’s want to be reunited you could cripple South Korea and show that you’re serious about reunification with that woman by taking out the Norks.

[GraceG]

At this point it would be a mercy for the entire country to given to china.

But I think the best solution would be to give north north Korea to china and put south north Korea to south Korea and let the people in north Korea choose who they want to go to. South Korea or China.

the Whole Kin Jon Crap dynasty has just wrecked the entire country..

[ek_hornbeck]

North Korea is nothing but a liability to China at this point, so if push comes to shove between NK and the US, China will do nothing to support NK except perhaps some lip-service.

China started moving away from the Maoist economics in the late 70's, while North Korea continued to entrench its version of Maoism. Today China isn't Communist/Maoist in anything but name, so it has no ideological reason to support North Korea. Economically, it has even fewer reasons to do so: China needs the US and the West as a buyer for its cheap goods and as a source of hard currency bonds, it doesn't need North Korea for anything.

[KeyLargo]

Clinton contributor, Johnny Chung makes revealing ‘life insurance’ video against the DNC over fear of assassination

http://www.catholic.org/news/politics/story.php?id=73753

[chajin]

Seoul and Beijing have to be coordinating behind the scenes. All Seoul has to do is convince Xi that they have no designs on China, which would not be hard to do, and that they will stand between China and Japan.

[Vic S]

This is going to sound crazy, but North Korea is thought by some to be a tool of the CIA (or the establishment of the west.)

Think about it, NK is a nuclear power, yet Kim Jong Un is seen with floppy discs and old computers?

James Lilley (30 year CIA veteran, friend of HW Bush and Ambassador to China during the 90s) told Wm Engdahl that if North Korea didn’t exist we would have to create it as a reason to keep the 6th Fleet in the Western Pacific.

Engdahl took this is an admission that NK was created (he also said it seemed like Lilley was drinking during the phonecall, which was late at night.)

https://jaysanalysis.com/2013/04/13/breaking-busted-totally-staged-and-hilarious-north-korean-photos/

[jalisco555]

I recently read an interesting book, North Korea's Hidden Revolution by Jieun Baek. The author is a young Korean-American scholar with strong ties to the NK defector community. Her thesis is that much of what we believe about North Korea is wrong. While the government remains a brutal dictatorship the country is no longer a hermetically sealed prison. Most citizens there have access to Western and South Korean TV, movies, books and other literature smuggled into the country via China and widely distributed. They know the government propaganda is lies and that South Korea is far richer.

Another thesis is that the country actually has a thriving market economy. The old communist distribution network collapsed during the famine of the 90's and was never rebuilt. It was replaced instead by a market that started out just providing the basics but which has grown into a sophisticated system where people with money can obtain almost anything, from American pharmaceuticals to Japanese electronics and clothing from throughout the world. Worth a read. The question is how much longer will these people put up with their evil rulers.

[arthurus]

No. Never. If there is turmoil in NK I would suspect mightily that Chnese hands are turring the moil.

[AU72]

I can see China abetting a military coup to do the deed.

[Red Badger]

I would have no problem with China annexing North Korea.....................

[Born to Conserve]

Trump is haggling. One of the many points he’s pushing is that North and South Korea will be reunified. He’s pushing dozens of points. China has never experienced an American haggler. They are coming to terms with having to pursue some points, and let others go. The reunification of the Koreas could fall in either category. In the end, we are going to win much more than we lose.

Trump! Sick ‘em boy! Win! Win! Win!

[saleman]

Some good comments at the site.

Consensus seems to be that China has a great opportunity to get rid of a great big thorn in it’s side.

[Uncle Sam 911]

The South Koreans have been studying the reunification of Germany for 25 years. They will be ready.

[trebb]

Any doubts that the Norks came up in Trump’s (and his admin) talks to date? If they want to save face, there are strings attached and the growing evidence it was the Norks that used the nerve agent on “beloved leader’s” relative probably doesn’t make it as hard for China to start seeing the light.

[Billthedrill]

You always end up trying to read tea leaves when these two countries collide. At least part of the issue is that the Chinese have been planning post-Kim Jong Un policies for some time and His Rotundity is doing his best to forestall any rivals, internally by such accidents as people being inadvertently tied to posts about to be blown away by antiaircraft artillery. Externally, however, especially in public and by VX, that's quite an escalation.

My guess is as good or bad as any, but I suspect that the Chinese will try to keep their buffer state but under new management. Unification puts a U.S. ally on their border, and they've put up with quite a lot to keep that from happening, including allowing Soviet interference in their nominal sphere of influence and invading when the latter failed. I wouldn't think unification would be very high on the Chinese agenda, but Kimmie joining the choir invisible just might. Just my in-the-dark $0.02.