A new stretch of China's G12 expressway arcs toward the northernmost tip of North Korea, connecting one of the world's most vibrant economies to probably its most stagnant. It is a symbol of China's long-term goal of building economic ties with its unpredictable neighbor.
But the thin traffic along a highway lined with fallow fields in China's Jilin province, two years after it was finished, shows how far there is to go and why plans for high-speed rail links to Chinese cities along the border look misplaced.
This expressway is misplaced? So this article, tagged as "insight," doesn't consider that if China wants to intervene in North Korea that having an expressway up to the North Korean border would be really useful to deploy an army to that border and then supply an invasion force that crosses the border? Really?
I cannot wait for the next insight on the scatological habits of bears in woods.
UPDATE: In unrelated news, the Chinese--while denying a build up of forces on the North Korean border--carried out live-fire exercises:
China’s military and defense ministry on Sunday confirmed that military forces in a border region near North Korea conducted live-fire drills amid tensions between North Korea and the United States. ...
The [Chinese Communist Party] newspaper, quoting the official newspaper PLA Daily and the Chinese Defense Ministry, said tanks and armored vehicles from a Shenyang military region mechanized infantry unit took part in the drills during a snowstorm.
Despite Chinese denials of a build up near North Korea, we did identify one brigade--the 190th Mechanized Brigade--as moving to the border. While the Chinese may be correct that they are not massing on the border (since a single brigade is hardly much of a mass), they have mobilized troops in the northeast near North Korea.
The 190th is said to be there in case of refugees crossing into China, but putting a unit of China's best mechanized force in for that role seems a waste. Why not People's Armed Police or other light infantry forces? Refugee control is manpower intensive rather than requiring mobility and firepower.
The 190th seems better suited to be the lead unit that can push into North Korea while the rest of the mechanized army it is part of (two mechanized and a tank division) moves along that nice expressway to the border and into North Korea. That's how we once used armored cavalry regiments.
China may not intend to move into North Korea, but they sure seem like they are preparing to do so just in case they want to.
Would it be to overthrow the current Pyongyang regime to put a more pliant government in charge? To take over all of North Korea? To simply get as much land as they can if South Korean forces advance north if North Korea collapses or starts to bombard Seoul?
And if the North Koreans think that China is going to invade North Korea to install a new regime, would the Kim Jong-un crowd think that invading South Korea would compel the Chinese to change the objective of the 39th Army moving into North Korea from regime change to regime save?
That is, would China quickly decide that saving even as difficult an ally as Kim Jong-un is the price China has to pay to keep North Korea from losing a war with South Korea and seeing South Korean troops on the south bank of the Yalu River?
People keep saying that North Korea won't start a war because they'd lose the war. But this is certainly a scenario where regime preservation makes a sure-lose war the best option for the nutballs in Pyongyang.
UPDATE: Oh, to clarify, the new expressway goes to the northeast corner of North Korea. Supporting an invasion that way would allow Chinese forces to move down North Korea's east coast, possibly preempting a Russian grab at a corner of North Korea. There is already a major highway that goes from Shenyang down to Dandong just across from the western invasion corridor down to Pyongyang. That's the route I assume 39th Army would drive.
