[quote=TheMadAsshatter]
Maybe there's some coup in the works to re-unite the Koreas and it's uber hush-hush, though that's probably being hopelessly optimistic. It's probably more likely that China is pulling some black ops shit to annex NK.
[/quote]

China's behavior is best explained by wanting [i]nothing whatsoever to do with[/i] running North Korea. The whole stand-off between the US and China is misunderstood. Nobody likes NK, nobody wants NK, we're all arguing over who's going to get stuck with it. The Kim dynasty has carved out a niche as the world's inoperable tumor. Nobody wants the tumor, not us, not China, nobody. Trouble is, cutting the tumor out is going to cause damage, and we haven't figured out how to mitigate that yet. Or maybe we have, and this whole mysterious disappearance is phase one. Who can say? My point being, NK falling apart is a [i]very[/i] bad thing to wish for, and of all the shitty China stuff in the world, NK is probably the one you shouldn't blame on them. Once the jig is up and the Kim's go down, you're going to *immediately* see China on our side of the field. Anything that the PRC says or does between now and then, it's just to keep their own country together.