How so? China is their largest trading partner and NK is building the missiles using Chinese parts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kim-j...

NK shares a border with China and obviously can't trade with SK. It'd be miraculous if China wasn't their largest trading partner.

I suspect almost all countries that don't get military hardware from the US or Russia build their missiles with Chinese parts.

How is it over-simplified? China is letting this happen because of a lot of the profits they make, and russia make, off of the dictatorship that there is.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/15/world/asia/north-korean-labor-...

Russia gets slaves from them, thats why Russia protects them. China both profits from them, but also doesn't want to deal with Refugees. So they make the selfish act of letting the child run crazy.

> China is letting this happen because of a lot of the profits they make ...

How do you know the Chinese leadership's strategic thinking about NK? Also, that hypothesis doesn't explain the massive resources, including blood, they spent defending NK.

I don't think NK's 25 million citizen labor pool, likely operating at extremely low-productivity levels and less than 1/40th of China's, makes much economic impact. Nor does China want competition from cheap labor.

NK Has strategic value to China more than anything I believe. Although, maybe China just doesn't know what to do with North Korea and therefore just tries to get along with them as best they can, or they are actually happy to have NK on a leash and remain friendly enough to keep NK from biting them.

What is the Chinese perspective?

That the US is taking advantage of the NK situation to "ring China".

I consider NK to be a serious threat to the US and her allies but I think the Chinese do not consider NK to be a serious threat to the Chinese.

Imagine if Cuba decided to start allowing Chinese anti-missile defense systems at the US' doorstep because we weren't willing to deal with our ally Mexico regarding a conflict that didn't threat us.

This assumes we let Mexico develop nuclear weapons and delivery systems while threatening China and Cuba with nuclear attack... for at least a decade.

It only makes sense for threatened parties to develop defense if not retaliatory measures. Imagine if the USSR never developed nuclear weapons while the USA threatened them with nuclear attack?

You don't have to imagine. Go look at the US foreign policy from 1945-1948. There were several instances where the threat was made.

I have a hard time seeing why we in the US should care in the least about a missile defense system in Cuba.

I would prefer that China plays a more active role in resolving the situation so I sort of hate to play devil's advocate here but...

The missile defense systems we deployed in SK could be used to track Chinese missiles. My point was imagine the outcry from the US if we perceived that the Chinese were tracking our missiles under the guise of tracking Mexico's.

Their problem isn't with the interceptors; it's with the tracking radars. They could theoretically help counteract Chinese missiles and aircraft that are supposed to deny access to Chinese coastal waters in the case of war with the US.

It's just a bomb, rather a bit larger than other bombs. What's the fuss? :)