As nice as it would be to get rid of Chia head, I'm not sure we need Chinese expansion to the Korean penninsula.
I think South Korea's economy would benefit greatly from a Chinese NK. Wouldn't the borders be basically open? SK would no longer have to worry about a crazy neighbor as well.
> As nice as it would be to get rid of Chia head, I'm not sure we need Chinese expansion to the Korean penninsula. <
Well, I'd say we "need" Chinese expansion a lot more than we need a North Korean arms industry that supplies suitcase nukes to Al Qaeda.
Or to coin a phrase, The Lesser of Two Evils.
Sounds good to me. You must look 20-30 years out to see the benefit here. Koreans are more xenophobic than...they are the most xenophobic people on earth, and historically extremely suspicious of China and Japan.
A Chinese backed coup or better a Chinese invasion, would leave behind a North Korea that the Chinese wouldn't want to have. Any communist government they set up would likely come unglued leading to unification on the South Korean model. The Chinese are not all that worried about the South Koreans. If not for the thorn that NK continually sticks in our eye, China would prefer a stable South Korea on its border, to nut-boy flinging nukes.