China's autocrats, by upending the status quo in the East and South China Seas and the Himalayas, are waging an undeclared war against multiple neighboring countries at once. Their next target is likely to be fellow communist state North Korea, now an estranged ally.
China's "blood relations" with North Korea — acclaimed in the past to be as close as "lips and teeth" — have soured badly. A widening schism between China's assertive, nationalistic president, Xi Jinping, and North Korea's defiant young dictator, Kim Jong Un, determined to chart an independent course, has thrown the bilateral relationship into a tailspin.
North Korea has become the target of a Chinese campaign of disinformation after it executed China's most-valued friend in its power hierarchy, Jang Song Thaek, a four-star general who was Kim's uncle by marriage. The Chinese campaign seeks to portray Kim as a wickedly eccentric and bloodthirsty megalomaniac.