Very Interesting. North Korea seems intent on pissing everybody in the area off.
I think a problem we are overlooking is the possibility of the Chinese seriously considering regime change in North Korea.
It would have the effect of removing a viable threat to the peace and economies of the region 7 china itself and would allow China to put in a more reliable and stable puppet government for their own interests. Odd that China is now as much a capitalist in many ways, as it is communist - though I would never make the mistake of calling them a free market society, just a bunch of communist with capitalist tendencies.
This would do two very important things for Beijing (if they were to pull it off). One, they would gain greater standing in the region as the superpower capable of keeping the peace in Asia. Second, they would give Taipei a reason to rethink they're 'independence' tendencies. Though in all put name only Taiwan is independent, just don't tell the Chinese that.
Either it is a joint move, or it was a warning by China to North Korea to behave. (It so happens that North Korea cut short their highly provocative missile exercises as the Chinese started deploying on the border.)Or China could be about to stab both the North Koreans and the U.S. in the back and instead of undertaking a "corporate reshuffling" in Pyongyang with regime change, they perform a "friendly takeover" and set up shop themselves (they become the de facto regime). I'm all for regime change. I'm not for China establishing themselves inside North Korea and dictating a reunification where the reunfied Korea becomes a vassal state within a Chinese sphere of influence and neutralized as an American partner. I think the North and South Koreans would resist that as well. If China invaded North Korea and it was apparent that North Koreans were dying in large numbers to defend their homeland, I expect the South Korean would come to their defense, and instead of averting the showdown with China, we just arrive at it in a more circuitous manner.
So either it is a good cop - bad cop routine with China and North Korea in cahoots, or China is terrified of Japanese rearmament and South Korean and Taiwanese nuclearization and is truly being the good cop by reining them in for their own self-interest, or China has decided to take the historic opportunity of exploiting temporary Korean irresolution, weakness and division, to "Finlandize" Korea for decades to come - - weakening American influence in Asia and advantaging China vis a vis Japan.
I noted the coincidental increase in Chinese and North Korean naval activity because it seems coordinated and suggests that the six-way talks and the Chinese efforts to restrain North Korea may be a strategic maskirovka. China's assertions in recent months that there is no HEU program in North Korea is a troubling indication that they have ulterior motives contrary to the stated goal of denuclearizing the Peninsula.
Maybe the North Koreans will reflect upon the fact that it is not the U.S. that is massing forces on their border.
Perhaps Pyongyang should consider asking for fraternal assistance from their brethren in the South before it is too late.