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Tom Mueller is a confused person. There is no parallell between North Korea and Taiwan. South Korea (in Tom Mueller's logic) was China, then Taiwan was developing nuclear bomb against the USA and Japan??? Hello, anyone there?! South Koreans have no problem with nuclear bombs (they know these bombs will never be used against them - just China repeatedly said it will never use nuclear weapons against Taiwan) - in fact, most of them are proud of it - just like Iranians are so supportive of their nuclear development and the regime in Tehran knows it well. Many small town folks in America always undeestimate the power of nationalism (Vietnam, Cuba, China, Korea, for example) and our past involvements in the conflicts in these nations have been proven to be total diasters. I think our elected leaders in the administration and in Congress should go overseas more often and learn a foreign language and immerse themselves in other cultures. Then they will have different perspectives about the world around them.

Mr. Tom Mueller clearly still lives in the cold war era and is a big fan of boycotting Olympic games. I don't know how you define parallels, but has Japan claimed NK part of Japan lately?

The depth of China's involvement in North Korea is unkown in the West. There are NY Times, no Judith Miller's, No Pentagon Papers to reveal their Machavellian dealings. China should fear a North Korean nuclear weapon more than the US, after all, they share a border and millions of ethnic Koreans - yet China seems to have no fear. This is because they know that the present DPRK regime exists because they want it to.

China's support of North Korea is a direct and indirect threat (through sales of wmd and delivery system technology) to Japan, the USA, and others. China must pay a price for allowing North Korea to become a nuclear power, just as the USA would have paid a price if it had allowed Taiwan to become a nuclear power in the 1960s.
To begin with, the USA and Japan should highlight the parallels between North Korea and Taiwan. Both are the smaller parts of divided countries that feel threatened by their larger neighbors. Let Taiwan become a nuclear power. Do you think that China will call for patience and calm diplomacy over many years! Hah!
Secondly, the USA and Japan should pressure China through non-military means. They can threaten to boycott China's 2008 Olympic Games.

Mr. Boman's comment is far closer to the truth than the experts - and certainly than the naive public pronouncements of the Bush administration. China's traditional interest in Korea is as a buffer against Japan. The current sitution, where the ROK is increasingly committed to engagement with the North and increasingly linked by trade with China, suits the PRC to a t. China won't let the DPRK collapse, and it will continue to tease the ROK by paying lip service to unification. The Chinese are gambling that the DPRK nuclear threat won't push Japan to rearmament, or that when it does, the PRC will be too far ahead for it too matter. So far they have been right.

China sees North Korea as a buffer to America (American as manifested in the strong allies of Japan and South Korea). This is all they see, not a dangerous rogue state.

China does not want North Korea to fall - as they fear it will re-unite with South Korea and the whole country will be free, democratic, a strong ally of USA, and on the Chinese border.

Also, China does not want to give North Korea what it wants - which is talks with the US - for approximately the same reason.