Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5590986-20180128234403/@comment-26247925-20180201163007

Sidewinder291102 wrote: China would have the most power here. Should China decide that North Korea is (clearly) messed up officially, it would only be a matter of time before support is withdrawn and the government's power wanes. A Chinese led force may end the regime or play a part in successfully facilitating a Korean reunification.

There's no incentive for China to withdraw support from North Korea. In fact, there any many downsides to doing such a thing.

Firstly, if North Korea collapses, North Koreans have four places to go to. They could go to Russia, but they probably don't know Russian. They could go to Japan, but that requires having a ship that can travel that far, and Japan isn't communist. They can go to South Korea, but South Korea isn't communist. Where's the one other place they can go? China. China's communist, right? And unlike the South Korean border, which is heavily militarized, the North Korean border is just a shallow river. So North Koreans would cross the border into China. And this is a massive problem. Because the North Koreans won't travel far. They'll go straight to Manchuria and settle down there. Unfortunately for them and for China, Manchuria is economically depressed, and so when hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers decide that they want to live there and get jobs there, they will be severely disappointed. This will be cause massive civil unrest in China, in a period when China is trying to reign in its population, for example with the Social Credit System.

Secondly, the North Korean people are communist workers and soldiers who have been indoctrinated by the state from birth. They believe in communism. If North Korea falls, it's one less nation to support China ideologically. China has even less ground on the ideology it is built on, and it could cause instability within China.

Thirdly, China has no incentive to push for a united Korea. China has always been safe, bordering only India who poses no real threat in the short or long term. However, in the age of Trump, China cannot afford a prominent US ally on the Chinese border, especially when that border is one of the weakest points in the entire country. Significant infrastructure would have to be built on that border. However, China could just occupy North Korea instead. This would bring them into diplomatic conflict with the United States, however, and this would be too costly, especially after all the time and resources they have spent gaining the upper hand in the South China Sea.

So the best option for China right now and also in the foreseeable future is to continue supporting North Korea. This protect's China, their economy, and lets China focus on South China Sea operations and social projects, such as the Social Credit System. Action with respect to North Korea would be extremely costly for the Chinese government, and Xi Jinping cannot abandon Chinese allies when he has been trying very hard to assert an aggressive foreign policy against the United States.