The timing is right for them if they are watching. I think China is hoping N.Korea starts something more than a minor provocation.
We have certainly taken our eye off the ball in that part of Asia for a while. I don’t know what threat NK really poses if things were to escalate. But China’s intervention to rein in N.Korea would solidify China’s position as a “world militay power.”
The US would be to slow to react as we would mull over how to “help” South Korea.
Even their army and potemkin villagers are getting really skinny from what I have read. You can imagine that all the regular people are really starving, especially the kobetchi (however that is spelled).
Too bad commies don’t believe in welfare for the poor after they have destroyed all the for-profit enterprises. But, nah, couldn’t happen here. /sarc
The North Koreans make threats regularly. Sometimes they shoot. Usually they're trying to get shakedown money. Fortunately, if things get bad, the South Korean military is quite capable of taking care of itself without American help.
As my Korean niece's US Army recruiter said when she found out that my niece's father was in the South Korean Special Forces: “Those guys are bad-ass dudes!”
South Korea needs the United States as a guarantee against China. North Korea can cause major devastation, and the Kim dynasty is so crazy they might actually start a war, but what the North starts, the South can finish, with or without America.
Why? South Korea is one of China's largest trading partners. The only value of North Korea to China is as a buffer zone against forward U.S. military deployments on their border. Today isn't 1950. A hot war, where China faced losing trade with the U.S., Japan, and South Korea would be disastrous for China.