China’s reluctance to censure the North is not rooted in affection for its policies. In private discussions, one American analyst said Sunday, Chinese officials express frustration will North Korea’s growing belligerence. But like their Washington counterparts, they say, they have no good option to deal with it.All of the regional powers - South Korea, Japan, China - as well as the U.S. feel stuck without any useful options. All of these powers, therefore, have an excellent incentive to findsomething they can all collaborate on to deal with the DPRK’s increasingly shrill threats to commit suicide.
The problem is that no one has a storyline for how to fix the status quo. Until we have that, we cannot coordinate action or make credible threats to the North Koreans. If we had an agreement among all the regional powers about how we would deal with a collapse of North Korea, then we would have the initiative. Currently North Korea has all the initiative and consequently we’re always reacting to the crises it starts. With a regional agreement in hand, we would have the leverage to approach them (ideally the Chinese would do this) and say: “We have a plan for dealing with your collapse. We won’t let you hold us hostage anymore. If you will change your behavior, then we’ll cooperate. If you won’t change your behavior, then we’ll wait you out and pick up the pieces once you’ve collapsed.”
