In this case, the dictatorship that matters is not North Korea so much as it is China. North Korea is totally dependent on China — for energy, for aid, for trade, for banking, and most of all for helping to enforce North Korea’s border, without which the country would suffer the same kind of internal collapse East Germany did in 1989 when its citizens found they were allowed to escape by way of Czechoslovakia. It’s clear that the North Korean regime exists and causes trouble because the Chinese leadership wants it to exist and cause trouble. China’s Communist leaders think this serves their interests, particularly because they are paranoid about the prospect of sharing a substantial border with a free nation allied with America.

With China’s Xi Jinping imposing one-man rule and making himself president for life — a relapse to Maoism after decades of halting reform — do you think he is going to decide these interests have changed?