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China always claims everything.

Ping.

This is troubling. Say China decided to bring force to their claims (I doubt it, but say they did).
Would the United States help China eliminate a dictator who consistantly causes trouble? If so, the Chinese could use it as precedent in a campaign against Taiwan.
Would the united States just Stand back and watch? It would weaken our image as global peacekeepers, and encourage conquest by other nations.
Would the United States Defend Korea? That would appear to condone ruthless dictatorships worldwide.

Definitely troubling.

Map links:

http://www.umass.edu/wsp/conferences/wswg/16/koreamap1.html

http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark/CategoryView.aspx?category=Korean

http://www.koreainfogate.com/aboutkorea/item.asp?src=menu02_03

Things which can only happen when a Korean and 10 Chinese drink together now spilled into the open. So how soon before they want Koreans to pay the tribute?

The fact is that Koguryo had middle-kingdom mentality of its own. They called themselves "children of Heaven." As such they refused to pay tribute to China once they had enough power.
China could not live with this. This resulted in the massive invasion of Sui emperor Yang-Di's 1.3million army. They ran into a quagmire, around a fortress in Liaoyang. Frustrated, the emperor dispatched 300K crack troops straight to Koguryo capital. But their planned link-up with navy's supply convoy failed.
Supply operation was disrupted by Koguryo troops. Out of supplies and in retreat, these 300K troops were ambushed by raging floods created by Koguryo troops bursting a dam in a river upstream. When the battle finally ended only 2,700 of 300,000 survived to return to their main army.

After a brief period during which Sui fell and Tang was establishing themselves, there was a peace. But after that, China demanded tributes and Koguryo princes as hostages to ensure good behavior. The previous war against China wrought serious devastation in Koguryo. Some in the royal court were inclined to make some kind of compromise, including the Koguryo king. But a group of warriors overthrew the king and wiped out those in favor of compromise. Now the stage was set for the second showdown.

Emperor Daizhong of Tang empire marshaled 260K troops crossed the dry upstream area of Liao river and took 3 key Koguryo fortresses and marched down to a key battleground near Anshi fortress next to the swampy area of Liao river. During this time, Tang's navy was supposed to bring supplies to the shore nearby at Liao-Dong Peninsula. Just as in the last campaign by Sui emperor, the supply operation was disrupted. Their navy was never able to get there due to Koguryo's shore defense. Facing stiff resistance in the battlefield and supplies not arriving, Tang's army had to retreat. It is interesting that the army retreated through the muddy swamp area rather than taking the earlier route of dry solid ground. It was hard for foot-soldiers and carriages and carts. The emperor himself had to help out by laying a wooden plank over muddy ground so that the carriages can travel. All indication is that their escape route was cut off. So they had to travel the swamp area to survive. Koguryo tried to cut off emperor's retreating entourage and capture him, but was not successful. He got really sick after this campaign and died in a couple of years.

People with a different language and root, with the big egos of their own, fought a massive do-or-die battle twice. And Chinese think that they were fighting Chinese?