By WENDELL MINNICK
TAIPEI — Chinese scholars and think tankers doubt there will be serious change in China’s policy on North Korea at a strategic level, although tactical changes are inevitable as North Korea continues to thumb its nose at its old friend.
Street protests and a flood of angry media reports in China have demonstrated a sea change in China’s attitude toward its old comrades.
“North Korea’s continuous provocations defying China’s demands, warnings and brazen neglect of China’s key strategic and security interests certainly drive many in China, both in the public and among elites, to ‘soul-searching’ on its North Korea policy,” said Wang Dong, director, School of International Studies, Center for Northeast Asian Strategic Studies, Peking University, Beijing.
Despite the “soul searching,” it still appears unlikely that senior members of the Chinese Communist Party will do much more than tweak current policy guidelines on North Korea.
“My own impression is that there ... [have] been growing voices, primarily among scholarly and policy circles, urging rethinking of China’s policy toward North Korea,” Wang said, but whether such scholarly debate will lead to eventual concrete changes in policy seems remote.
Read the full story at DefenseNews