And so it goes on. North Korea continues to challenge the international community with its nuclear weapons, missile and space programs. Last month Pyongyang carried out a fourth underground nuclear test and now it has announced that it is to launch a third satellite since 2012. The launch is less about putting a satellite into orbit than testing a long-range missile which could be used to deliver a nuclear warhead. A pariah state North Korea may be, in the eyes of every other country except China, but ironically the Pyongyang government has seen fit to abide by the rules and this week warned international organizations responsible for air and maritime traffic that the rocket will be launched at some time this month. Of course, using concern over the safety of aircraft and shipping is an adroit way of once again cocking a snook at the outside world. The inevitable condemnations have followed, but nothing is going to stop the long-range missile being hurled into space. The Kim Jong-un dictatorship is ringed with sanctions. Only China's refusal to close the door on Pyongyang by interdicting energy supplies and cross-border trade allows the regime to survive. Even five years ago, when relations between Beijing and Washington were still warm, there remained the outside chance that the Chinese leadership would pressure the North Koreans into some sort of neutralization, if not actual abandonment of their nuclear weapons program. Suspicions that Beijing did not take firm action were based on the belief that the Chinese wanted to keep the unpredictable and volatile North Korean dictatorship as their regional "ace in the hole". And so it is proving. Beijing is bent upon a naval expansion program designed to challenge US postwar military hegemony in Asia. The face-off over the occupation and construction projects on South China Sea reefs that are considered to be in international waters is the most obvious evidence of this new assertiveness. In this context, the looming dangers to South Korea and Japan posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea with the long-range ballistic missiles to deliver devastating attacks suits Beijing very well. Washington analysts had hoped, rather too fondly, that since Chinese cities would also come within range of Pyongyang's nuclear warheads, there was a shared interest in reining in the Kim dictatorship. But this is not about to happen. Indeed, with Washington's attention increasingly focused on the fight against Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS), the North Koreans clearly judge that they have a window of opportunity in which to once more tweak the nose of the international community. The Chinese will be quietly satisfied with any extra stress that this imposes on the US and its regional allies. It may even be the case that, this time, they will not produce their normal half-hearted protest at Pyongyang's latest challenge to the outside world. Yet in another respect, the price Beijing has to pay for sustaining the maverick Kim dictatorship is the continued presence of large numbers of US troops in South Korea. And as the threat from North Korea increases, so too does the willingness of Japan and other US regional allies to bolster the local American military cooperation and close ranks with Washington. The Chinese are, therefore, actually forcing the emergence of a concrete challenge to their desire to project their own military power.
