In Global Times, Ren Weidong, researcher at the Centre for Strategic Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, warns that if China falls out with Pyongyang, the US will help South Korea annex the North.
It also, according to Ralph Cossa, head of the Pacific Forum of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, sends a message to South Korea and China, alarmed by the Bush administration's taste for talking tough, and to hardliners in Mr Bush's own government, who are loth to grease the axis of evil in any way.