China, as long as the Communist Party in power (and doesn't get through any political reform), will have a very strong interest in keeping the current NK regime

China, as long as the Communist Party in power (and doesn't get through any political reform), will have a very strong interest in keeping the current NK regime. Sure, sometimes NK is annoying, but most of the time, NK is a tremendous leverage for the current China regime to negotiate with the U.S. and SK. However, things do get more dynamic once the succession of Kim Jong Un comes into play. If China were 10 years ago (Jiang in power), I would expect that some China supported military leader in NK will topple off the kid and start some kind of economic reform. But as for now, the China regime becomes more conservative and IMHO, even itself isn't holding much belief in economic reform, I doubt that would be a likely scenario.