China appears to be preparing for possible American action against North Korea. An army group from a Chinese theater command in charge of defending the Sino-North Korean boundary held a training exercise in late November.
That exercise is in addition to noting refugee camp preparations and a quote about China coping that I had noted. The authors believe China won't fight to save Kim Jong-Un.
Of course, the preparations painted as means to cope with the effects of an American-led assault might be Chinese disinformation to hide the preparations that China is making to attack North Korea, possibly for regime change to get a friendlier and more compliant buffer state, to avoid the image of America dealing with North Korea in China's backyard.
There have been signs that could point to that option, after all.
If so, America, Japan, and South Korea might restrict military action to an upper limit of air attacks in the south away from Pyongyang after a certain time to avoid accidentally hitting Chinese forces advancing on the capital; carving a no-launch zone north of the DMZ to protect Seoul from bombardment; and a joint America-South Korean ground thrust with a division-sized force supported by special forces to secure North Korean nuclear facilities if the North Korean military begins to collapse under the Chinese assault from the north.
We shall see. There are different options with different things that can go wrong. A Chinese and American-led operation at least has the advantage of great power cooperation to prevent a great power war from being triggered perhaps by accident by a unilateral mission to stop North Korea from fielding nuclear weapons that will prompt proliferation in the region that nobody--not even China and Russia--wants.
