North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a performance held for participants of the ruling party's party meeting, December 2016. KCNA/via Reuters
John Dale Grover, National Interest: Why China Could Invade North Korea
Beijing might be compelled to act militarily if Pyongyang was attacked or collapsed on its own.
Over the past few months, tensions between the United States and North Korea have increased, with Kim Jung-un testing a possible hydrogen bomb on September 3 and the United Nations Security Council voting to implement further sanctions shortly after. Writers have discussed American policy towards China, the possibility of a deal with North Korea, and the need to avoid backing Kim into a corner. However, China’s perspective and the genuine possibility of a limited or complete Chinese intervention into North Korea, has received less coverage. China might be compelled to act militarily if North Korea was attacked or collapsed on its own. Doing so would protect Beijing’s objectives of securing the border, preventing U.S. forces from nearing the Yalu River, and thwarting the emergence of a united, U.S.-allied democratic Korean state.
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WNU Editor: If you break it .... you own it. China may not be the ones who are responsible for the mess that is North Korea today, but any intervention by Beijing will mean that China will become responsible for the costs and responsibilities of taking care of a population of 25 million people who have known nothing but deprivation and suffering for generations. Is that worth the price for China to have a puppet regime in Pyongyang? From my perspective the answer is no. As for the Chinese .... they are not ready to break that connection with North Korea, but they are starting to have a debate on whether they should.
6 comments:
China will invade exactly when the following conditions are true:
1. The US can no longer be credibly inflicted a terrible loss through a North Korea missile attack (they still hope that SF will be nuked)
2. American boots are on the ground and collapse of North Korean regime is imminent
That's when there's no more reason to hold back.
As long as there is a chance for point 1, they'll pay softball with the north Korean regime. Helping them with money, trade, weapons and political backing while condemning their actions to wash their hands clean.
In a global modern wargame i played China constantly invaded Korea. While this game doesn't start off with militaries befitting each nation. It does however have decent military hardware and pretty accurate terrain.
North Korea is mostly a staging point of Japan's conquest of China.
Without airbases in Korea the operational radius of combat aircraft is hindered and can't reach deep enough into China and even Mongolia to combat air superiority of the home team, which resulted in mass casualties pushing out.
Would China invade North Korea?
No way in hell it would, Island nations are extremely powerful in the modern age. China is landlocked with a very powerful island nation nearby with its western backers.
I would argue China would be more inclined to nuke Japan before it invaded North Korea, more so Korea's on the outskirts of Chinas epicentre.
Maybe this and maybe that. I recall being on a troop ship heading for Korea in 1950 when, not too far from our landing spot--Pusan--an announcement was made that no one expected: 300,000 Chines troops had crossed the Yalu River from China and had entered Korea to support the North Koreans. We had not imagined or even thought that would happen. The Chinese had done that because they thought it in their interests. They had also helped out our enemies in Viet Nam for the same reason
Anon #1,
Yeah, China has the deniability issue. So this is not unreasonable.
If you call them on it (directly threaten them with a quid pro quo; If NK attacks the U.S> with an ICBM , then China gets lit up), then they use it for mass indoctrination at home.
To blunt that you need proof and that will be much harder to obtain and use. At home in the U.S. the 5th columnists will throw the kitchen sink. Bringing the proof will burn some sources, if we even have any, and methods.
In reality with China playing such a dangerous game of brinksmanship, having someone perceived as crazy like Trump is a yuge asset. You never know if calculation will be correct. I really mean this. When playing a game of brinksmanship and using deniability as a cover different rules apply. Old or commonplace convention do not apply. the parameters are different. The parameters are different enough that the old rules actually make you lose the game.
Just play out different parameters in say a marriage. Say you want to put 20% down, but the other wants to put 60% down. that changes a lot of dynamics. the is a domestic example.
Take Hitler. He played brinksmanship say 5 times. This was the Rhineland March, the Anschluss, Sudetenland, The rest of Czechoslovakia and then Poland.
Here is my point. If you are a process monkey like John Kerry or some other venal politician or diplomat and deal with someone like Hitler through jawboning, you will get a major war. Someone will miscalculate.
I hate when people call Hitler an evil genius. He was no genius. He was just applying common/everyday monkey/ape psychology. By this I mean that WW2 should not have happen. The supposedly smart, normal politicians should have stopped him. But they were timorous and they were process monkeys. Hitler was trying to make allies of every eastern or southern European country that had a dictator and that he was not trying to invade.
Hitler had Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, & Bulgaria
. The Brits knocked Yugoslavia out of the NAZI orbit, which helped Russia (it allowed General Winter to have a go). The Brits used asymmetric warfare. That is they used a coup. (As an aside using a coup is evil. Just ask any supporter of Allende.) Hitler was working on Greece too, but then The Duke messed that up. Hitler was not genius. He was doing the aeon's old tradition of collation building. It is common, tawdry and predictable. when he figured he had enough allies and enough muscles. He attacked. It is common. It is tawdry. It is predictable. It is monkey politics. No genius!
Just like n WW2 the politicians then did not stop the War, this one won't be stopped either.
What was that news article? Yeah, China's bullying tactics in the South China Sea worked (That article was here at WNU). China will miscalculate just like their pet doberman, North Korea, will miscalculate.
Electing Trump was great, but that merely puts off the hour. He is probably a Majorian.
If China gets tired of North Korea, because their pitbull is more of a liability than an asset, I would like to point out to "fat leader' that his artillery tubes are pointed the wrong way to stop a Chinese juggernaut.
China will either invade or eliminate Kim Jung-un when their own people start feeling the economic hardships caused by their relationship. Otherwise, China will play the US like a yoyo talking tough but doing nothing. Pretty much like Obama in Syria and now Trump in New York. Pray for peace!
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