How is it that Stalinist North Korea continues to survive into the 21st Century when its communist-sister nations evolved? North Korea, now under Supreme Leader number three, Kim Jong-un, is the dinosaur that won’t go extinct. The answer is that China nurtures and protects North Korea, preferring it the way it is; and until the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) becomes a greater liability to China than an asset, it will continue to exist as a throwback to another era. The goal of U.S. North Korea policy, therefore, should be to hasten that day.

In the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, conventional wisdom predicted it was only a matter of time until the DPRK followed suit. The North Korean economy was in shambles and its people were starving. How could it continue to exist under such circumstances when one mentor had disappeared, the other, China, was evolving so dramatically?

Two factors account for North Korea’s resilience to collapse. First, the DPRK, like its big sister China, retains the essential vestige of communism inherited from Joseph Stalin that ensures its immunity from internal overthrow—the perfected police state. As in China, internal security monitoring is pervasive down to the neighborhood level. North Korea also is the world's most militarized country with 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel (40 percent of its population).

Second, China’s evolution was selective. As its political, economic, and military clout give it the status of an emerging great world power, it continues to look at the DPRK much as it has since the Korean War. North Korea is both an essential buffer state and a useful threat to Japan, South Korea, and the United States. The last thing China wants to see on the Korean Peninsula is a unified, democratic, and prosperous Korea.

So China continues to prop up its nuclear-armed, state-sponsor-of-terrorism, and proliferator-of-nuclear-weapons-and-ballistic-missile-technology North Korean ally. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, China provides nearly 90 percent of its energy imports, 80 percent of its consumer goods, and 45 percent of its food. Without China, North Korea would collapse. Why then does Washington believe Beijing will help it solve the North Korean problem?

Experts tell us how big a problem North Korea has been for China because it could spark a war and drag China into it. They tell us how frustrated China was when North Korea sunk a South Korean naval vessel or when it tested a nuclear weapon. They explain how China fears the collapse of North Korea and the flood of refugees into China. And they tell us how important it is to use China to engage North Korea, multilaterally and bilaterally, so we can get Pyongyang to listen to reason.

Still, North Korea keeps goose-stepping along its destabilizing path, while the U.S. policy of “strategic patience” toward North Korea continues. From 2003 to 2009, when North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and detonated its first nuclear device, the Six Party Talks (U.S., China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and Russia) provided the venue and the rationale for U.S. engagement with North Korea. The DPRK, however, only used the talks to extort concessions from the U.S. in the form of fuel aid and bilateral talks, giving nothing in return.

Now, U.S. policy is “to develop a more integrated trilateral framework for cooperation and coordination between Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington” while “taking steps to enhance coordination with China and Russia . . . to create a more favorable context for denuclearization and peace and security.” The latter will only prolong the life of North Korea.

Perhaps, as some experts believe, the death of Kim Jong-il and the succession of his partially Swiss-educated son Kim Jong-un provide a new opportunity to reengage North Korea and “reset” U.S.-North Korea relations. If, however, Kim Jong-un, or whoever really pulls the strings in Pyongyang these days, proves no more cooperative than Kim Jong-il, North Korea will only acquire more nuclear weapons and proliferate more nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile technology, increasing threats to the United States and its allies.

The last thing the U.S. wants or needs is a military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula; and this is not the time to put Pyongyang’s back to the wall. North Korea likely is looking for an opportunity to establish Kim Jong-un’s image domestically and internationally by proving he can stand up to the U.S. North Korea is a tinderbox one should never expose a lighted match to.

Nevertheless, without a substantial concession on the part of North Korea, such as the verifiable shutdown of its nuclear weapons program, the U.S. should not allow itself to be drawn again in to negotiation and compromise with the DPRK, believing that China somehow is on our team. China and North Korea are on the same team. China is not a negotiating partner; it’s a negotiating adversary.

Recently I asked Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, what sticks along with carrots the U.S. used in its relationship with China. Secretary Campbell responded that “the U.S. relationship with China was too interdependent to be described in those terms.” This, in my view, is the wrong approach. It only gives China the upper hand in the U.S.-China relationship and makes it extremely difficult to deal with China on North Korea and other contentious issues.

Going forward, the principal focus of U.S. North Korea policy needs to be Beijing, not Pyongyang. The United States must make it clear to China that if it aspires to world-leader status, it must behave like one. And that means changing its outdated policy toward North Korea. Beijing may not be able to dictate policy to Pyongyang, but only China has the leverage with North Korea that can make a difference in its behavior.