Smoke

Why has China not smacked down North Korea's half-pint despot, Kim Jong-un, for his dangerous game of nuclear brinkmanship? Clearly China has much to lose from this saber-rattling in that both South Korea and Japan might now be tempted to develop nuclear capabilities of their own. And it is still possible that an actual nuclear Holocaust might be triggered.

Is it that China is allowing this insanity to happen in order to smoke-out the United State's defense capabilities vis-a-vis such a nuclear threat?  Might China want such knowledge so that they could develop counter-counter measures for the time when it might be China that was posing an equivalent threat?  Clearly the United States has taken preventative measures such as deploying sea-platformed radars (see: CNN Story) and anti-ballistic capabilities (see: The Aviationist Story) to the region. This is providing valuable information to China about the speed and extent of our deterrents.  Might China also be testing our neophyte Secretaries of State and Defense to see how effectively they respond to such a crisis (see: AP Story)?

To China, all this smoked-out intelligence might more than offset the downside risks mentioned in the first paragraph above.