It’s plain that the ChiComs’ obsession with “stability” in NE Asia precludes them from being any help with North Korea.
Playing the Japan card (i.e.
trying to scare the ChiComs by saying: “Look, if you don’t help us out here, Japan will go nuclear”) just seems to have riled them up.
We’re on our own with this thing. In hindsight, it would have been a wise, good, and just move to make a strike against NK in 2001 or 2002.
Our grandchildren may curse us for not having done so.