This article is too busy looking at the trees to see the forest.
Three of China's top 5 trading partners are the US, Japan, and South Korea - it's economy has thrived for the last decade+ because of those nations most impacted by North Korean threats. China may not have that much leverage, but they know where their bread is buttered. More importantly, China wants to be a global power. The US government policies while directly failures vis-a-vis North Korea, also highlight China's impotence to other players on the world stage. To take that final global power stride, they will need to deal with North Korea at some point.
Bigger picture, I feel like whenever these kind of analytical pieces surfaced in the past, they rightly always included a point about proliferation, something that seems missing these days. If the world moves on and grudgingly accepts North Korean nukes, what stops Japan from getting one? How about Taiwan or South Korea? Same concern goes with Iran's program - what stops Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Egypt from getting one?
It is a slippery slope argument, but the consequences of the number of nuclear powers doubling are pretty dang grave, maybe it is one slope we can keep an eye on.
I agree with your premise here and might be taking it off topic but Western media tends to portray China striving to be a global power but, I would propose, aren't they already there?
They're a key manufacturer and exporter in the world economy, are making inroads in terms of military prowess, and has some of the biggest influence in their region and probably soon, via the soft power infrastructure projects, in Africa as well. The US and Russia are still playing games in the Middle East but there's not a day that goes by that you don't see some news out of China.
Three of China's top 5 trading partners are the US, Japan, and South Korea - it's economy has thrived for the last decade+ because of those nations most impacted by North Korean threats. China may not have that much leverage, but they know where their bread is buttered. More importantly, China wants to be a global power. The US government policies while directly failures vis-a-vis North Korea, also highlight China's impotence to other players on the world stage. To take that final global power stride, they will need to deal with North Korea at some point.
Bigger picture, I feel like whenever these kind of analytical pieces surfaced in the past, they rightly always included a point about proliferation, something that seems missing these days. If the world moves on and grudgingly accepts North Korean nukes, what stops Japan from getting one? How about Taiwan or South Korea? Same concern goes with Iran's program - what stops Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Egypt from getting one?
It is a slippery slope argument, but the consequences of the number of nuclear powers doubling are pretty dang grave, maybe it is one slope we can keep an eye on.