Why Did China Amass Its Tanks At The North Korean Border This Weekend?

This photo, showing the transport of a 155 mm self-propelled gun, was variously identified as having been taken near the North Korean border and outside of Beijing. (Credit: Weibo/ 北京人不知道的北京事儿)

Shannon Tiezzi, The Diplomat: Why Did China Amass Tanks at the North Korean Border?

Was it simply good preparation — or was Beijing trying to send a message to Pyongyang?

Even as North and South Korea engaged in hours of talks over the weekend, in the hopes of defusing tensions, China was apparently making its own preparations for a worst-case scenario on the Korean peninsula.

On Saturday, Chinese social media users began posting pictures of tanks and other military equipment moving through city streets. The photos were purportedly taken in Yanji, China, the capital of Yanbian prefecture in Jilin province, which lies along the China-Korea border.

WNU Editor: I know among my own Chinese contacts .... both official and unofficial .... they are all "fed-up" and embarrassed by North Korea. This deployment of tanks was a definite message to the North Koreans .... BUT .... it was (and is) also a message to the South Koreans. A war on the Korean peninsula would be considered by Beijing as a national security crisis of the greatest magnitude .... and they are right .... such a conflict would involved numerous countries, produce a massive refugee crisis, and would severely disrupt all economies in the region .... China included.

Update: The following is an interesting analysis on why China was concerned with this weekends "flare-up" in tensions between South and North Korea, and how North Korea may have manipulated the situation to its advantage .... What the blow up between North and South Korea may really have been about (William Johnson, Reuters).