After the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test earlier this month, China's Korean Peninsula policy has come in for some scathing criticism. Some argue the DPRK is out of control "under China's watch", with others even blaming Beijing for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests, and the deployment of the US' Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in the Republic of Korea.

It is true that the peninsula is on the verge of descending to a mess, but blaming China for it is baseless. The root cause of the simmering regional tension lies in the United States' ill-designed peninsula strategy and the DPRK's inexplicable security concerns.

The US is principally responsible for the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and wants it to remain in a "controllable mess". In other words, Washington has no intention of helping improve the situation, because it still wants to use Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions as a leverage to justify its presence in Northeast Asia. That explains why it has, from time to time, made light of the DPRK's nuclear threat issue, which in turn has prompted the latter to expedite its nuclear program.