Kim Jong il Is Toast

The devil's in the details below. China news today:

China has agreed to search N Korean ships. Today a top Chinese advisor outlined plans for China-Japan relations. China just announced they are buying 12 Boeing planes. China vows to improve performance of foreign capital. China builds fence on border.

Are they placating the West so as to continue to prop up N Korea? Somewhat, perhaps. But dictatorships cannot afford to lose face and hope to remain in power ... China is making Kim look like less than a fool and now previously undisclosed coup attempts are being openly discussed by China below.

h/t Instapundit for this one Read it all, realizing the dateline for about every link here is China. If these are signals, Kim better not be holding his ears. I wonder if they'll rename it North China Beach?

THE Chinese are openly debating "regime change" in Pyongyang after last week's nuclear test by their confrontational neighbour.... However, since Monday, Foreign Ministry officials have started to make a point of distinguishing between the North Korean people and their Government in conversations with diplomats..... More than one Chinese academic agreed that China yearned for an uprising similar to the one that swept away the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu .... Chinese online military commentators have exposed plots and purges inside North Korea that were previously unknown or unconfirmed.

Comments

[Dr. K]

I lived in China for a year and recently returned to the US. If the story is true, it is more information than the Chinese typically let out. I spoke to some Chinese colleagues visiting from China last week, and they had no knowledge of the North Korean test. My take from the news reports I have seen is that the Chinese are sincerely pissed off. A lot of the time they are not be so open about their moods, and always play "close to the vest". The fact that they are openly talking this way means they are serious and that it is coming from high levels, because people in those positions do not talk unless given permission.

[gringoman]

China/NKorea: A real rift? This could be big if there's anything to it. Is there anything to it? The gringoVision think tank has long pointed out that the solution to Kim-Soong Mentally ILL is in Beijing, not Pyongyang. Now The Australian reports on signs that China, finally, as in building a border fence, airing news of coup attempts and debating regime change---repeat--debating regime change for NoKo, may be re-considering the value of its porno-collecting little Pyongyang puppet with the strange hair. Puppets, you see, when they get too creepy and too unpredictable in Beijing strategies against America, alarming even potentially nuclear Japan, can become dangerous---possibly too dangerous to humor and patronize much longer. True, nobody knows if Beijing is really ready to dump its top NoKo dog-eater. The politburo,especially the generals, determined to grab free Taiwan, their so-called "renegade province," may still find The ILL One useful in their maneuvers against U.S. security for Taiwan. Still, the Chinese, at bottom, are not nutty ideologues or religious fanatics. The increasingly prosperous Chinese are practical realists.(h/t bluecrabboulevard) ....According to Riehl World View, "Kim Jong ILL is Toast."