China helpless to curb North Korea nuke ambitions: experts

China is unlikely to take strong action in response to North Korea’s claimed test of a hydrogen bomb, according to experts who say Beijing prefers the devil it knows to the uncertainty that could follow a confrontation.

 

And whether Pyongyang would even listen is highly questionable, they say.

 

Governments around the world have long pushed the Asian giant to moderate its wayward neighbour’s bad behaviour, arguing that Beijing’s support for Pyongyang gives it particular influence over the hermit kingdom.

 

But that is ever less true, experts say. Relations forged in the blood of the Korean War — with the countries once called “as close as teeth and lips” — have taken a licking since Kim Jong-Un took control of North Korea following the 2011 death of his father.

 

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