China is seen as holding the key to solving the North Korean problem. This is a belief widely shared in the West. And that in turn leads to the assumptions that U.S.-China relations, South Korea-China relations and China’s fear of North Korean collapse are the key variables in China’s North Korea policy.

Now, however, we are witnessing a possible transition in China’s North Korea policy. First, one unintended consequence of North Korea’s brinkmanship policy has been the discourse on the establishment of U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) on South Korean soil. That has made China the biggest stakeholder in North Korea’s nuclear tests.

Second, North Korean belligerence could pose a grave threat to China’s rise in world politics, a rise that requires a stable external environment for focused resource allocation. Whether or not China will become the potential challenger that the “China threat theory” predicts, only the future knows.

bbabo.Net