Strange but True in the Far East

Now and then, it’s good to check in with the other side of the world.  U.S. cabinet secretaries John Kerry and Chuck Hagel have been doing that this past week – and you might think it would be hard to top the strange-but-true message their respective diplomatic displays have sent.

But you’d be underestimating the Far East if you did.  To set the stage, we note that U.S. and foreign analysts believe North Korea has restarted the plutonium reactor at Yongbyon in the last few weeks.  This is, of course, a move against which Pyongyang has been warned.  It comes on the heels of

Wrong, hackneyed, overworked: Beyond the usual analysis of “China and North Korea”

Is there any piece of received wisdom more universally invoked than the inane piety that China wants to calm North Korea down, and gets annoyed when the Kims act up?  It’s hard to think of many.  This hoary premise gets trotted out every time.  And every time, it comes up short on explanatory or operational value.  It’s never relevant to why the Kim went crazy.  Nor is China coming down on a Kim ever the key to settling the Kim’s hash.  If the snarling Kim stops yelping for a while, it’s always because the U.S. was induced to do something – intensify some negotiating stance, make some offer, fork over some “aid,” make a concession to China; or maybe just look alert enough to make it the wrong time for a showdown.

You’d think someone would figure this out.