China is in a Win-Win situation on Korea crisis

[Reality Check]

China is in a win-win situation in the Korean crisis.

There really is no downside here for China.

China's potential enemies ( Japan, Russia, Vietnam, India and the United States ) have no interest and/or no ability to exploit this crisis for their own purposes at the expense of China.

Obama has officially removed the threat of regime change in North Korea as an option if North Korea does not stop developing nuclear weapons.

Obama has promised that the U.S. will only support very limited tit for tat responses to aggression by North Korea.

Obama has dispatched members of his government to South Korea to threaten the government in Soul that U.S. military support may disappear if they retaliate "too effectively" to an attack by North Korea.

Obama is begging China, as the only country with the power to stand up to North Korea, to "use it's influence" to reduce North Korea's threatening statements.

China has many big win potentials here:

1. Negotiate a demilitarized Korean peninsula free of foreign troops, massive armies and nuclear weapons. Limit both the North Korean and South Korean standing and reserve armies and militias to just a few tens of thousands each. In return the west would pay for billions of dollars of humanitarian aid to North Korea with no strings attached. Billions more in food, oil and goods would be purchased by North Korea from China. China would be the hero in this scenario and Obama would also claim victory for bringing "peace in our time". This would also delay Japan and Australia embarking on a crisis mode program to develop nuclear weapons and allow China to continue is accelerating expansion of both it's nuclear and conventional armed forces. With no interruption of trade with South Korea.

2. Negotiate a re-unification of Korea based on a democratic vote. This would also include all of the De-militarization requirements of the above scenario plus the strong likely hood of a socialist government being voted for by a united Korea. This would have the added benefit of permitting no foreign troops, ships or airplanes anywhere in the Koreas.

3. Third scenario is that the status queue continues. North Korea continues to threaten Japan, South Korea and the United States with immediate nuclear destruction and North Korea continues to build it's nuclear weapons capability while defying the will of the United States making the U.S. look weak to the other Asian neighbors of China. This scenario has the down side of potentially causing the Japanese, Australians and the Vietnamese to embark on a crisis mode programs to build nuclear weapons as fast as they can.

4. Fourth scenario is that China moves troop's into North Korea to protect them from the United States and South Korean aggression while at the same time supporting a coup by a North Korean military leader against the "crazy leader" in North Korea. China would again be the hero in this scenario and the United States would again appear impotent. This would allow for ground troops from China to engage U.S. troops far from China's borders, if war between the U.S. and China occurred in the future. This would be inferior to options one and two, because China, not China's potential enemies, would be subsidizing the failed North Korean economy.

Any outcome that removes the incentive for Japan to immediately build large numbers of nuclear weapons, and turns the entire Korean peninsula into a no-go zone for U.s. Military forces and equipment, and retains South Korea as a major trading partner of China, is a Win-Win-Win scenario for China.