China is likely planning to give the United States a “bloody nose” in Asia — economically and militarily.

This would be a turnabout of the tactic Washington openly considered in late 2017: launching a limited military strike to give the Kim Jong Un regime a taste of the consequences it would suffer if it persisted in its nuclear and missile testing and threats.

Aside from the kinetic component of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign, the other two elements were economic sanctions and moral and political delegitimization of Pyongyang’s rule over the North Korean people.

The combination worked to get Kim’s attention and initially put him on the theoretical path to denuclearization — until China’s Xi Jinping intervened before the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore to remind his junior anti-American partner of who is calling the geostrategic shots in East Asia.

Now Beijing seems to have decided that President Trump and his national security team also need a more tangible warning of where their confrontational approach to China is leading America, and potentially the world. It is signaling dire outcomes on trade, the South China Sea, Taiwan and the old standby threat, North Korea…..more here