View original postChina cannot afford to stand aside in any armed conflict between the US and any East Asian nation, especially in Korea. The geographic and historic context would send precisely the wrong message to the world, the US, the ASEAN and Chinas own people. I keep drawing the parallel between the Korean Conflict and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that really does not work, simply because the Soviet Union had not run roughshod over the US throughout the Americas for an entire century before that. Even if North Korea were not three minutes by missile from Beijing, letting the US dictate policy in Chinas backyard would almost automatically reinstate the Open Door Policy, which China cannot allow.