Would it be difficult for China to invade and occupy NK?

Never mind the political difficulties.
Mainly the military issues, like terrain, weather, logistics, that sort of thing.
What would it take for China to take NK? How much planning, what staging areas, how many troops and planes?
I would think that China would have to coordinate with the US and SK. Perhaps China can take out the NK military and political leaders?

This report states PLA is conducting ant-chemical drills on the border. They do this often?

If China does invade the DPRK, I don't think it would be hard for them to get out. It would probably be a similar scenario to the Soviet military interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Chinese forces enter, sweep aside resistance, remove the leader they are unhappy with and replace him with one who will obey China. If the PLA were to invade, overcoming resistance would be an easy job. As mentioned earlier, North Korean troops are more concentrated on the DMZ, not the Yalu river. And since the KPA is inferior to the PLA in terms of equipment, fuel and training (NK soldiers can't be that well trained, most of them are conscripts), they would be no match. The PLAAF could simply crush the North Koreans with heavy air strikes and bombing. Its unknown just how dedicated North korean soldiers and civillians are (note that there have been major defections from the North Korean armed forces) so its hard to say whether China would face a guerilla war or not. But it seems unlikely, given the famine striken conditions in North Korea due to misnagement. Then the PLA (possibly SOF) enter Pyongyang and remove Kin Jong Il (shoot him, exile him or whatever) and replace him with someone who will be loyal to China and will thereby be prepared to intiate Chinese-style reform, and if China wishes, dismantle the nuclear programme. After that, China can withdraw, unless the locals rise up and wage a guerilla war on the PLA and new KPA forces. That would mean a much longer stay for Chinese troops.
Of course, there is the possibilty that Kim Jing Il could use what WMD he has on his former ally. He has plenty of missiles that can reach China. The best way for China to overcome this would be to either launch a systematic bombing campaign to destroy North Korean missile stocks, or to advance rapidly in Blitzkreig fashion to capture the weapons facilties and other key targets, and overcome the enemy before he can use his weapons. The latter would be the best option, since it would take North Korea by surprise, and capture Kim Jong Il before he can do any damage (They could force him to make a broadcast announcing his resignation, as well as a call to surrendur all WMD). That would require skillful and pre-meditated planning, and would possibly involve special forces destroying the North Korean command structure and weapons sites during the advance. The fact that not many NK troops are stationed on the Chinese border would make a Chinese blitzkreig possible (perhaps the PLA is already planning a possible offensive). Such an offensive would also require large number of tanks, as well as heavy artillery or close air suppourt to suppourt the advance. China pretty much has this, although it would probably be quite weak in close air suppourt, since they don't have reliable helicpoter gunships or armoured strike planes yet. But I think they are capable of doing it, since they've probably learned lessons from the 1979 Sino-Vietnam war. It would give the modernised PLA a chance to prove itself, so it would be good for the military.

The above article was in last weekend's Sunday Times. On page 2 there's a section about how there have been recent incidents where rogue/deserting NK soldiers have crossed into China and have robbed banks and hotels and killed Chinese soldiers, something which I'm sure the PLA must be mad as hell about!

If these reports are true, then doesn't that suggest that discipline in the NK army is poor and that many soldiers would desert when faced with a superior enemy, just like the Iraqi army did?

It would also suggest that their would be plenty of upper echelon commanders who would be willing to be Roger 604's "friendly strongman" for the right "incentives." Even if no such character emerged, I'm sure that the PLA could over run NK very quickly. Reading the above posts it seems that NK's strategy thinking is straight out of the Maginot Line school, the back door is wide open. Yes the terrain of NK is difficult but that works both ways, NK forces trying to get north from the DMZ to engage the PLA would also have to funnel through mountain passes and cross bridges, where they would be vulnerable to interdiction by PLAAF.

I too doubt that such a war would ever happen unless there was some extreme provocation by NK, I think Kim Jong-Il is smarter than he is given credit for. Now that he seems to have nuclear weapons a US attack is too dangerous and as long as he doesn't threaten to start a war with SK or Japan then his regime will survive.

China will only intervene in NK on the condition that Kim Jong Il is removed by a coup d´etat of his own generals and the guys are in need of a ´helping hand´for mopping up some Kim loyalists. After all China has to be aware of being perceived by developing countries around the world as a treacherous aggressor against a former ally or even a brutal stooge doing the ´dirty work´ for the US.

China´s ties with states like Venezuela, Iran, Sudan, Myanmar, Cuba, Zimbabwe and also with Pakistan will be severely strained since these countries and other neighbors like Viet Nam must assume that China forgets about fifty years of ´mutual non intervention´ talk if a certain opportunity for a successful military action arises.

Although the situation is already quite tense China has to remain calm and must make it clear to the United States that China will not tolerate military aggression from both parties of conflict.

I would imagine it would be extremely difficult for any country to fight and conquer NK. For one thing, its army has over one million men, and the whole society is pretty spartan, the whole population grew up and educated endless preparation for war. The terrain consists mostly of hills and mountains separated by deep, narrow valleys. The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east (wikipedia). And like i said, the whole nation is built around fighting a war with America, they probably have already fortified everything that can fortified. And while the military arent very advanced in terms of technology, they definitely have enough stock of small arms and artellery and tank that can give any invading army a hard time. Just think back to this summer when Israel took on Hezbollah with a embarassing result: china does not have the advance surgical strike capability of Israel, and you can bet NK soldier are more professional and capable than the Hezbollah militias.

But there are still a lot of unknowns, things like are North Koreans all brainwashed to believe in Kim Jong il or are they just going along out of fear, and whether the army is entire loyal to Kim. Its not inconcivible to think that Beijing has its own people some where up in the leadership echelon who might stage a coup of some type and oust kim. That will be a lot less messier than Korean War II.

But if Beijing did go for a full blown war, i would imagine that it will talke no less than 300000 to half million personel, almost all of china's advance airasset (su-27, j10), at least half of the PLAN fleet (north korean has some numbers of submarines). If America, Japan and SK joins in, China will still have to provide most of the men power since it will be the only country invading from north, but the other 3 nations will take a lot of pressure off in terms of air and naval support, and they will tied down North Korean troops in the south, giving chinese army a easier time marching to pyongyang.

kunmingren said:

I would imagine it would be extremely difficult for any country to fight and conquer NK.

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Well, we know it can be done. The US and her allies at the time did it in the Korean War, defeating the North Koreans and pretty much defeating and occupying the whole of it...and then the Chinese themselves pushed the Americans out of N. Korea...a task I would think was more difficult than pushing the North Korean Army out.

Folks may say that it was a long time ago and that the technology and force structure has changed...but at the time, by those day's standards (1950s), the relative position/strength/etc. could be considered on par and comparable to today.

It would be relatively easy for the PLA to conquer NK than SK and US. For one thing, 70 percent of the NK army is within 20 miles of the DMZ. That leaves the Yalu river border relatively unguarded and the few border outpost would be easily overrun. This attack coupled with extensive bombing on railroad junctions, bridges, etc, will paralyzed the NK army and prevent it from moving its troops in significant numbers to successfully defeat an attack. That leaves the bulk of the NK army trap in the DMZ until the government surrenders.

I agree with IDonT. The majority of NK's assets are deployed toward SK and not to the PRC. If the PLA wanted to invade NK, they can prolly push right through the border and squeeze NK military units up against SK border.

A PLA invasion of NK is not impossible, given the present situation. Traditionally Korea has served as a buffer state against Japan, where Japan must conquer Korea before it can enter Manchuria. The old way of thinking is that if NK falls, an unified Korea would be hostile to the PRC as a client state of the US-Japan alliance.

However today the situation is a bit different. If the US and SK forces conquer NK, it's possible that the US would maintain a small occupation force in NK, which wouldn't serve the PRC's strategtic interest. But if the PRC opt to take out NK, then negotiate with SK for a gradual PLA pullout (replaced by SK forces) toward assisting in "Korea Unification", that may be a better option.

If the PLA conquers NK, then returns NK territory to SK government, it'd show that the PRC has no territorial ambitions toward Korea (we don't want your land). The newly unified Korean government would find itself without an enemy, and will sooner or later ask the US forces stationed in Korea to leave. The PRC doesn't necessarily need the unified Korean government to be friendly, only neutral.

It has gotten to be the point where a neutral unified Korea is better than a so called "friendly" NK regime that insists on playing with nukes. The downside to this is that, without NK as a threat, the USN pacific fleet and Japanese military would target the PLA as the "sole remaining strategtic competitor" in East Asia.

I still mantain that even tho China could eventually overrun NK, it will be extremely difficult to do so. yes, most of NK army is near the DMZ, that still means that up to 300000 soldiers are not near the DMZ. And i will again point to the example of Israel and Hezbollah. the militia group was able to withstand the Israelis for weeks and forced a ceased fire. Hezbollah is about several thousands men strong, compare the the several hundreds of thousands of professional NK troop. Plus the terrain is similar if not more rugged than southern lebanon, Chinese armor forces can only operate with limited effectiveness and the NK can use caves to protect against chinese airforce (which doesnt even have the same ground attacking capcity as the Israelis). If the NK can manage to bring troop from the South to fight, the war would be even harder. NK is definitely not Iraq, and China is not America.

The One major weakness of NK is that it has shortage for just about everything, China would be wise to make this a protracted war, and let the NK run out of food and fuel before launching major offensive.

kunmingren said:

. And i will again point to the example of Israel and Hezbollah. the militia group was able to withstand the Israelis for weeks and forced a ceased fire. Hezbollah is about several thousands men strong, compare the the several hundreds of thousands of professional NK troop.

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The problem with your argument are:

1.) Hezbollah's aim was to survive not defend territory. In that regards, they succeeded. However, at no point were they successful of defending or recapturing land that the Israeli's wanted to occupy.

2.) The troops in the interior of NK are not its best troops. They are guarding the DMZ. These are second line "garrison/policing forces" meant to keep the NK population in line.

3.) Guerilla warfare only works if you have the support of the people. The starving NK peasants have nothing to support a guerilla force with.

4.) Guerilla warfare makes the enemy retreat because it can no longer afford the losses that has been inflicted on it. Guerilla warfare has not and never will be able to physically eject an occupying power by pure military force nor will it be able to physically stop an invading military formation.

5.) All of NK fuel comes from China. In a few weeks, there will be no gas to run NK airforce and armor.