The Chinese may not want a North Korea with a nuclear bomb, but they don’t want a world without a North Korea either, which why they will continue to do business with the regime to keep it afloat:

Thanks to China, foreign trade has soared since Kim Jong Il’s government began detonating nuclear bombs nearly three years ago.

As U.N. sanctions mount and business between the two Koreas fizzles, North Korea’s trade with China is setting new records. It rose 41 percent last year, while China’s share of the North’s overseas trade mushroomed to 73 percent.

In recent months, exceptional eruptions of North Korean belligerence have been attributed to the murky logic of hereditary succession as Kim, ailing since he had a stroke last year, positions his third son to take command of the communist country.

Kim Jong Un is just 26, and many analysts have explained the North’s missile launches, a second nuclear test in May and repeated threats of “merciless war” as a way of cementing the young man’s credibility as a fearsome and deserving heir.

While that may be true — and few outsiders really know what’s up in Pyongyang — there is another way to understand the North’s willingness to antagonize much of the world: Chinese buyers of North Korean minerals don’t seem to mind.

Increasingly, revenue from these buyers is going directly to the North Korean military, which has taken control of exports of coal, metals and other key economic sectors, according to the Seoul-based Institute for Far Eastern Studies.  [Washington Post]

Remember all this money the North Koreans have been making due to their business with China is going directly to the military which has been continuing to expand their nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities to threaten its neighbors with.  Also remember the North Korean military also took over control of all the regime’s international financial activities to include the illegal operations as well.  So the miliary is awash in cash, which should show anyone paying attention that the North Koreans are committed to advancing the military’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities as quickly as possible.

As the Washington Post article points out, as long as the US continues to depend on China to finance its debt for massive domestic spending sprees there is nothing the US can do to pressure China to change its policies towards North Korea.  This is just another reason why the US needs to get domestic spending under control.  No matter who is in charge the domestic spending continues to get worse and worse.  Just ask the Pentagon.