‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’

George Rebane

After North Korea’s demonstration of its ICBM a few days ago (here), I am more convinced than ever that China will do nothing to remove that threatening thorn from our side – it will never happen.  Bear with me as I weave some of my reasoning on this conclusion that I have not seen in the pundits’ press.

NK has been on a tear launching various kinds of missiles into the Sea of Japan over recent years.  The pace and variety of missiles launched costs a pretty penny, and it defies understanding how an isolated, sanctioned draconian dictatorship that is financially on its butt can develop and then test the necessary technology that the launches and nuclear tests entail.  The simple answer is that by itself it can’t, no matter how much of what it can dig out of the ground it sells, and mainly to China.

To the technically astute, the ICBM launch demonstrated that NK now has a kit of very sophisticated capabilities in not only an impressive transport vehicle, but also the means to control where that vehicle goes.  The 1,700 mile apogee combined with its landing a mere 500+ miles at sea demonstrated a set of remarkable skills.  It is hard to achieve and control such a high angle trajectory, especially into a small and politically sensitive impact area.  There is, of course, no doubt that all these launches and underground tests also serve as advertising to promote the sale of NK’s missile/nuclear technology to other rogue states – a kind of a twofer when its provoking the flailing foreign policy of the US is considered.

So, if NK cannot accomplish all this very expensive sophistication while under the heel of the fat kid, then how do they do it?  To me the simplest answer comes courtesy of applying the tonsorial tool attributed to Friar Occam – NK is the long-serving surreptitious and sinister shill of the People’s Republic of China.  More specifically, NK serves China as its test bed for missile, nuclear, and other weapons technologies developed in/by China, while it displays a different geo-public face.  The world sees China mainly as focused on expanding its commercial and economic footprint, a peace-loving country that does little to stir the pot of international crises for the benefit of its national interests.  Its South China Sea expansions are just local territorial disputes with no expansive geo-strategic impacts.

(Were I our CinC, I would order our Navy to retrieve NK’s missile components that land in the sea.  We have the capability to go down to over 20K feet deep, do useful work there, and bring stuff to the surface.  It would be most interesting to get a peek at the chipsets, pumps, piping, and other precision machined parts and confirm their provenance for all to see.)

So how does NK act as the supplier of restricted materiel and technology to its customers when we are known to stop and search their suspicious ships on the high seas?  Again, the simplest answer is that these ‘goods’ go through and/or via China on board its merchant marine which plies all oceans and is welcomed in all the world’s ports.  And so does the reciprocal trade that supplies NK’s elites with their forbidden goodies along with enough foodstuffs to keep the millions of serfs from hunger rioting. 

NK is the necessary and completely compliant component of China’s geo-strategic plan for achieving global hegemony.  China can push the buttons and turn the valves on NK to direct its irritations wherever and whenever it feels necessary, while at the same time putting up appearances that NK is a hard to manage sovereign nation-state. When one considers this explanation, it immediately becomes clear why no amount of international sanctions will have any material effect on NK’s behavior.  And NK giving hints that these may bear fruit, usefully serves to confuse the west and keep our Left active opposing the adoption and/or execution of a workable NK policy.  China has successfully managed to keep us talking to their puppet while giving scant lip-service as to who is pulling the strings.

They have successfully practiced this drill for decades.  However, we now have a president who doesn’t seem to play by any of the rules established by his predecessors, all of whom believed the political pinheads about how one more dollop of diplomacy would be just the ticket to bring NK’s current murderous tyrant into the community of peaceful and cooperating nations.  Kinda reminds me of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown.  On his G-20 trip The Donald will have a chance to set us, and perhaps others, on a new course regarding North Korea, but it should not be one that lets China continue business as usual with the fat kid as the dirty end of its anti-west foreign policy.

[update]  With profound apologies to our master cartoonist, RL ‘Bob’ Crabb.