How China could potentially stop a US strike on North Korea — without starting World War III

After North Korea tested a salvo of ballistic missiles designed to defeat US and allied missile defenses in the Pacific, speculation has risen about a possible US decapitation strike on North Korea.

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With the help of Stratfor's Sim Tack, Business Insider detailed how such a strike would likely play out, but in the interest of keeping the article focused, we omitted a major player — China.

Here's how China would respond if the US were to attack the Hermit Kingdom.

China has interests in preserving the North Korean state, but not enough to start World War III over.

China may not endorse North Korea's nuclear threats towards the US, South Korea, and Japan, or its abysmal human rights practices, but Beijing does have a vested interest in preventing reunification on the Korean peninsula.

Related: China's J-20 stealth fighter enters military service

Still, China's proximity to North Korea means that the US would likely alert Chinese forces of an attack — whether they gave 30 minutes or 30 days notice, the Chinese response would likely be to preclude — not thwart — such an attack.

China sees a united Korea as a potential threat.

"A united Korea is potentially very powerful, country right on China's border," with a functioning democracy, booming tech sector, and a Western bent, which represents "a problem they'd rather not deal with," according to Tack.

The US has more than 25,000 troops permanently stationed in South Korea, but no US asset has crossed the 38th parallel in decades. China would like to keep it that way.

And without North Korea, China would find itself exposed.

For China, the North Korean state acts as a "physical buffer against US allies and forces," said Tack.

If the US could base forces in North Korea, they'd be right on China's border, and thereby better situated to contain China as it continues to rise as a world power.

Tack said that China would "definitely react to and try to prevent" US action that could lead to a reunified Korea, but the idea that Chinese ground forces would flood into North Korea and fight against the West is "not particularly likely at all."

Overtly backing North Korea against the West would be political suicide for China.

For China to come to the aide of the Kim regime — an international pariah with concentration camps and ambitions to nuke the US — just to protect a buffer state "would literally mean that China would engage in a third world war," said Tack.

So while China would certainly try to mitigate the fall of North Korea, it's extremely unlikely they'd do so with direct force against the West, like it did in the Korean War.

Any response from China would likely start with diplomacy.

Currently, the US has an aircraft carrier, nuclear submarines, F-22s, and F-35s in the Pacific. Many of the US's biggest guns shipped out to the Pacific for Foal Eagle, the annual military exercise between the US and South Korea.

But according to Tack, the real deliberations on North Korea's fate aren't going on between military planners, but between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Chinese diplomats he'll be meeting with.

Even after decades of failed diplomacy, there's still hope for a non-military solution.

"There's still a lot of diplomatic means to use up before the US has no other options but to go with a military option," said Tack. "But even if they decide the military option is going to be the way to go — it's still going to be costly. It's not something that you would take lightly."

While no side in a potential conflict would resort to using force without exhausting all diplomatic avenues, each side has a plan to move first.

According to Tack, if China thought the US was going to move against North Korea, they'd try to use force to pressure Pyongyang to negotiate, lest they be forced to deal with the consequences of a Western-imposed order in what would eventually be a reunified Korea.

"China could bring forces into North Korea to act as a tripwire," said Tack.

Soldiers with the People's Liberation Army at Shenyang training base in China, March 24, 2007. | 
DoD photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, U.S. Air Force.

"The overt presence of Chinese forces would dissuade the US from going into that territory because they would run the risk of inviting that larger conflict themselves."

For the same reason that the US stations troops in South Korea, or Poland, China may look to put some of its forces on the line to stop the US from striking.

Related: Chinese troops are reportedly patrolling in Afghanistan

With Chinese soldiers in Pyongyang and around North Korea's main nuclear infrastructure, the US would have to think long and hard about bombing these critical targets.

It's pretty likely that China would try to force the "infallible" ruler's hand.

Even China, a country often indifferent to international opinion that has strict prohibitions on free speech internally, wouldn't want to stand up and back the murderous Kim regime.

Chinese forces in North Korea would "be in a position to force a coup or force Kim's hand" to disarm, said Tack.

"To make sure North Korea still exists and serves Chinese interests while it stops acting as a massive bullseye to the US," he added.

That would be an ideal result for China, and would most certainly preclude a direct US strike.

But even if China does potentially save the day, it could still be perceived as the bad guy.

Chinese leaders wants to avoid a strong, US-aligned Korea on its borders. They want to prevent a massive refugee outflow from a crushed North Korean state. And they want to defuse the Korean peninsula's nuclear tensions — but in doing so, they'd expose an ugly truth.

US President Donald Trump has accused China of refusing to help with North Korea.

If China unilaterally denuclearized North Korea to head off a US strike, this would only vindicate that claim, and raise questions as to why China allowed North Korea to develop and export dangerous technologies and commit heinous human rights abuses.

So what happens in the end?

For China, it's "not even about saving" the approximately 25 million living under a brutal dictatorship in North Korea, but rather maintaining its buffer state, according to Tack.

China would likely seek to install an alternative government to the Kim regime but one that still opposes the West and does not cooperate with the US.

According to Tack, China needs a North Korean state that says "we oppose Western interests and we own this plot of land."

If China doesn't exert its influence soon, it may be too late.