China is North Korea’s most important ally.
It’s the North’s biggest trading partner –
90 percent of all of North Korea’s trade is with China –
and China is the North’s
main source of food and energy.
So China has enormous leverage over the regime of
Kim Jong Un and, globally, is in the best position to apply real pressure
over North Korea and its nuclear and weapons program.
So here’s why China’s reluctant to put
pressure on North Korea.
The two countries share an 870-mile border
that, at the moment, is a relatively quiet one
with Chinese troops on one side,
and North Korean troops on the other.
But hundreds of miles beyond that border is
South Korea, home to 29,000 U.S. troops…
troops that China does not want
along its border with North Korea.
Because that's what might happen
should the North Korean regime collapse.
You see, China sees North Korea as a buffer between
itself and a world that it sees is on the
side of the United States.
In fact, China has long believed that the positioning of
U.S. military bases throughout the Pacific is a strategy
to contain China and prevent it from gaining
influence in the region.
Should that buffer be eliminated,
not only does China have the U.S. military at its doorstep
making Beijing feel even more contained by the U.S.
and its allies, but it also suddenly has to deal with
hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees
pouring into China, creating even more instability.
This is why China is reluctant to take any measures
that could lead to the collapse of North Korea.
