North Korea's aggressive behaviour has sent tensions soaring on the Korean peninsula. But it is also placing serious new strains on already fraught relations between China and the US. This development is neither sensible nor rational, since both superpowers stand to lose much more than they could possibly gain from intensifying confrontation. Perversely, it may suit North Korea very well.
What Chinese officials repeatedly state, and what the Americans evidently cannot bring themselves to believe, is that Beijing's influence and leverage over North Korea's leadership is limited.
And what the US fails to explain is exactly what it thinks China has to gain from a nuclear-armed rogue state randomly threatening its neighbours and China's own national interests.
Precedents suggest that after a certain point is reached, the North does not behave rationally and does not listen to its Chinese ally. That point may be about to be reached again. Obama should stop blaming China, stop pressurising North Korea militarily, and start talking – which, after all, is what he's good at.
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