Donald Trump, the current U.S. President, has been trying to exert pressure on China to curb North Korean nuclear weapons development. China is the main trading partner for N.K. and, since N.K. and China share a border, China definitely has a major stake in developments on the Korean peninsula. China has asked the North Koreans to suspend their missile and nuclear warhead program to little effect. While China has been cooperating on the new N.K. sanctions, Chinese companies are still trading in sensitive technologies with N.K. Shutting off the flow of technology to the N.K. weapons program would be a reasonable move for China if they really wanted to stop N.K. from building nuclear tipped ICBMs with which to threaten the world. However, there are some critics of the Chinese government who say that China has its own reasons for letting N.K. continue on its course of weapons development and belligerent threats.
Some analysts believe that N.K. will attack our military bases in Hawaii with nuclear warheads. Other possible targets would be U.S. military bases Japan and Okinawa. The Pacific Northwest has a concentration of military bases in the Greater Seattle area of Washington State including the only Trident submarine base in the Pacific Ocean. This would be a tempting target for N.K. ICBMs. Another important target on the U.S. West Coast would be the Naval and Marine bases around San Diego in California where almost a quarter of our fleet is stationed. With a few missiles, N.K. could seriously cripple our Pacific Ocean military operations.
It would not benefit N.K. to launch such an attack because we would counter attack and remove the current regime. There would be major destruction in N.K. In a poor country, the destruction of major infrastructure in and around major cities would be devastating and civil society would collapse. No matter how fast and overwhelming our counter attack, N.K. artillery would destroy large areas of Seoul, the South Korean capital just south of the border and kill millions of people. Civil order in South Korea would break down and they would need our help to restore order and prevent the death of millions more.
Some military analysts say that the main beneficiary of a conflict between N.K. and the U.S. would be China. Their major rival for military dominance of South East Asian seas would be severely weakened. The U.S. and China have been arguing about the attempt of China to control the South China Sea and its resources and a U.S. – N.K. conflict might give them more latitude in their operations in the South China Sea.
On the other hand, millions of starving and ill North Koreans would pour across the N.K.-Chinese border and there is little that China could do to prevent it. This would throw that part of China into chaos. There is also the possibility that there would be radioactive fallout over North East China if nukes were deployed on the Korean Peninsula The humanitarian crisis would overload the infrastructure and civil order would disappear in that area.
While some analysts brush off these concerns by saying that China could easily handle the refugees and the fallout, I doubt that is something the Chinese government would like to put to the test. It does not appear to me that if N.K. nuked U.S. targets, it would turn out to be a very positive development for China.
China is walking a tightrope on the Korean Peninsula. It is useful to have a weak client state in the North as a buffer against a strong South Korea and an irritant to distract the U.S. from Chinese activities. If the North attacked the U.S. and the U.S. helped S.K. defeat the North, then China would face the prospect of a unified Korea that would put U.S. troops right across the Chinese border. The Chinese are playing a dangerous balancing game and the states are very high for the whole world.
Black circle marks that location of North Korean missile base:
