Superficially, Beijing would seem to have managed the North Korean crisis adroitly. It has certainly outperformed Washington, where the split between hawks and doves has prevented the Bush administration from making progress toward either a negotiated settlement with Pyongyang or the organization of a coalition to compel President Kim Jong Il to give up his nukes…
On a strategic level, however, China’s policy has suffered from a serious flaw. Put simply, Beijing has been so preoccupied with its two highest geopolitical objectives that it has neglected a tertiary, but nonetheless critical, stake in North Korea’s denuclearization.