The US and China are preparing for all hell to break loose in North Korea
- Both the US and China have been taking unprecedented steps as tensions ramp up along the Korean Peninsula.
- China has prepared refugee camps and information for citizens to help them survive nuclear attacks, as well as building offensive capabilities with its air force.
- The US has stepped up military drills, practice air raids, and reportedly started preparing to seize North Korea's nuclear weapons by force.
As tensions rise to historic heights on the Korean Peninsula, both the US and China have begun taking unprecedented steps to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
Across North Korea's border in China's Jilin province, state-run media ran a full-page instructional package on how to survive a nuclear blast. The page doesn't mention North Korea, but it doesn't need to.
Also new in Jilin, are five new refugee camps built "because the situation on the China-North Korea border has intensified lately," a leaked document seen by the New York Times read. The camps can potentially accommodate thousands of North Koreans pouring over the border, as they might in a time of war.
China not just worried about refugees
But China's preparations doesn't just indicate a defensive, wait-and-see approach. China's air force engaged in exercises along "routes and areas it has never flown before" earlier this month, with surveillance aircraft over the Yellow and East seas near the Korean Peninsula, according to the South China Morning Post.
"The timing of this high-profile announcement by the PLA is also a warning to Washington and Seoul not to provoke Pyongyang any further," Li Jie, a military expert based in Beijing, told the Post, using the abbreviation for the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
And not only has China flexed its military muscle against the US, it has been increasingly assertive in the South China Sea. China has also dispatched military spy planes to encircle Taiwan and provide up to date info, which Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong told the Post was "very unusual."
US preparing to denuclearize North Korea, possibly by force
Meanwhile, the US appears resolutely determined to put the pressure on North Korea.
South Korean officials have been talking up a pause in military drills in hopes that it will lead to a peaceful Winter Olympics in February, but the US has yet to agree to that pause.
Additionally, during December, a month normally rather quiet for military drills, the US brought in a record number of stealth aircraft to train up on an air war against North Korea.
Immediately after the drill, which featured a marked increase in simulated bomb runs on North Korean targets, the US and South Korea reportedly engaged in drills to infiltrate North Korea and neutralize its weapons of mass destruction.
At a speech at the Atlantic Council last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the US is preparing plans to seize loose nuclear weapons, should North Korea somehow collapse or become unstable.
President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, also flatly rejected the clearest path to peace by saying the US would never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea. He recommitted the US to using force if necessary.
"We're not committed to a peaceful resolution - we're committed to a resolution," McMaster told the BBC. "We have to be prepared, if necessary, to compel the denuclearization of North Korea without the cooperation of that regime."
Maximum pressure
The Trump administration's approach to North Korea explicitly calls for every means of pressure to bear down on North Korea. Threats of war, military deployments, increased drills, more stealthy and lethal weapons systems, sanctions, and even a possible shipping blockade could become a daily fact of life for Pyongyang under Trump.
But not only North Korea has noticed the US's new approach. China has closely watched the US ratchet up tensions along its border, and its recent military movements reflect a country that's considering all-out war a possibility.