This idea makes perfect sense to me, although my knowledge of the situation is superficial.
Pros:
- Anything's better than the North Korean current gov't.
- Maybe freed from the harsh controls, in a few years North Koreans would feel more kinship with South Korea and demand their same level of freedoms.
- It breaks the perceived benefit of having nuclear weapons that no one dare invade a nuclear-armed country.
Cons:
- Might China see it as a test run for Taiwan? They think they have a stronger case to invade Taiwan. OTOH, China' probably values stable foreign trade over Taiwan.
- Might it be hard to plan the attack without North Korean leadership getting wind of it, through spies or someone in the Chinese gov't who thinks the plan is too risky or thinks the result would not be favorable to China?
- Might expanding China's sphere of influence strengthen China's repressive gov't system?
- If North Korea succeed in detonating even one low-yield nuclear weapon anywhere (South Korea, China, against invading Chinese troops in North Korea, it would break the 70 year taboo against nuclear weapons. OTOH, that might happen anyway and not at a time of China's, South Korea's, or US's choosing.

So I think it make a lot of sense.

everything nk does with their weapons is for the sake of the middle east customers.
attack the usa is not going to happen. china shutting them down is not going to happen.
our government needs to have a problem to keep us citizens jacked up like they did for us after ww2 and the red menace. Russia as rand pointed out was and still is a paper tiger so is nk. so all we really have to be concerned with is when middle east looneys walk into us based shopping malls. then we will see how long if ever our government takes to do what has to be don to the middles east looneys.

It seems to me that the Trump administration is trying to pursue this approach. The trick is to get China to do it for reasonable accommodations. There is a negotiation going on and power, territory, prestige and economic considerations are involved. China doesn't want a big mess in their backyard but if they can get more out of the deal they will accept reasonable risk.
There are only three countries that matter in the world, China, Russia and the United States. All the rest are allied with one of these or struggling to be noticed. Behind the scenes the big three need to determine who goes with who and accept responsibility for maintain order in their area of responsibility. It needs to be understood that if they threaten each other it is just words to scare the bit players. War is just a habit left over from Kings distracting the peasants from realizing that they were not rulers but big leaches and unnecessary. It was easier to have our potential revolutionaries knock off our cousins problem children than to create other means to controlling them when the deals they made with the clerics weren't totally effective.

All this assumes China doesn't like North Korea just like it is - a huge irritant and potential nuclear foe to the United States. I don't see China being terribly upset if North Korea nuked the US. What would be our response, that is if we could mount one? Nuke China? Don't think so. Nuke North Korea? Do we really have the stomach for killing off millions of North Koreans, most of whom have relatives in South Korea? Do we really think we could nuke North Korea without the fallout also killing thousands of South Koreans? The damage to the South would be far worse in a nuclear retaliation than it would be if we attacked North Korea with conventional weapons now before they figure how to put a fission warhead on an ICBM and detonate it high in the atmosphere between New York and Chicago, shutting down with an EMP the electrical grid on the eastern seaboard for weeks or months or maybe even years. You'd see people drinking water out of lakes and rivers and cannibalizing each other before they could get electricity restored. Millions would die of starvation, and if attacked in the middle of winter millions more would freeze to death. The solution is to do something now with or without China, most likely without. Or do as Trump has suggested, shut down trade with China until they come around. That could be done incrementally. All Trump has to do is announce a 5% import tariff on all China goods to start in 2 weeks, and tell them it's going up an additional 5% for each week that passes after that until they solve the problem. Remember, China is as, or more, dependent on us for their economy as we are of them. We can do without their products, especially in the short run. You lay off millions of Chinese and they have an explosive problem of their own and much worse than a few million North Koreans fleeing their country into China.

I have been thinking for a while now that it would be a good thing and might encourage China to take a more active role if a NK missile accidentally landed in China...then you'd see some action.

I think your on the money here...pass it on to Tillerson.

Excellent thought. Reality is, the fat kid has to go. China must see that they are the answer to the problem and they will benefit greatly.

I applaud the inventive nature of this solution.

Reasons it could work:
1. China has been tethered to North Korea since the end of WW II and the Communist takeover. They were the backing of North Korea in the Korean War. Without their assistance in military hardware and ammunition, North Korea would never have attacked. They have continued to supply military assistance for 60+ years since, but that was under Kim Jong Un's grandfather and father, who were still tyrants but less spoiled. China is no doubt aware of Kim Jong Un's petulance and childishness as they have issued an incredibly rare rebuke to him. They may see this as a way to distance themselves from his reign.
2. By intervening to rein in North Korea, China actually garners good will with other nations.

Reasons it also may fail:
1. North Korea is a useful lapdog. People are less apt to think China a danger with rabid North Korea shooting missiles into the sea of Japan, even though militarily, economically, and territorially China is by far the bigger threat.
2. China actually gains from having someone to threaten the United States' superiority where they have some control but don't have to suffer much of the fallout if an actual war breaks out. The US controls the air and the sea, so the fighting would be restricted mainly to the Korean peninsula. Many critical parts to both North Korean and US weapons are manufactured in China - they can sell to both sides.

Fat boy would never go for that. They would have to kill him. He is a dictator and wants HIS power over anything else, including the nutrition of his "people".

If China withdrew its financial support from fat boy, his military would probably go after China or do something rash to the USA or South Korea.

I have an alternative idea. Let fat boy have his nuclear weapons that both he and China seem to want. But we arm south Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons, in "mutually assured destruction" form. It worked with Russia and the US- neither pushed the button for fear the retaliation would be unthinkable.

Then the USA stops whiining about N Korea having to give up its nuclear weapons (which its NEVER going to do). We issue one more statement and then pretty much ignore fat boy in the future. We tell him "If you rain nuclear weapons on the USA or one of our allies, we will obliterate your country and make it radioactive for the next 100 years and make sure that YOU are dead. So long as you dont fire at us, we wont fire at you and you can maintain your control over your people".

And that would be the end of fat boy controlling the media and getting attention.

Red China lacks coherent leadership. It consists of factions, the most important of which is the Red Army. They've been assisting the Norks with their nuclear ambitions. Premier Xi makes the pretense of discouraging Nork nukes, but he knows he would be imprisoned if he seriously interfered.

Great idea. We may need the proviso that if the Chinese do not decapitate the (so-called) government we will BUT we will not invade or "clean up the mess" we will leave that to China -- and make it clear that is our plan for the git-go.

how to motivate china to do as you want????...announce the immediate embargo of anything made in china until china removes the regime in north korea....watch how quickly you get what you want...

This is what I think. Trump warned them , they will be annihilated if they attack us..SK or Japan,...period. Tell China that if we have to destroy NK after being attacked that the peninsula will be one nation. KOREA governed by the South Korean govt. China can rein him in if that result is unacceptable.
Kim fat boy is a tumor of cancer , soon his host body (NK) Will die from his govt (cancer). Watch out for his connections with the Mid East types.

It's an interesting idea seeing that China has a million man standing army, They could sweep in and sweep away Kimmie boy than seeing the US take military action against No. Korea. It would be most expedient for us to destroy the next missile launched with our anti-missile system. To bad the military doesn't have laser system to destroy the next missile launch. The laser beam itself is practically invisible, No. Korea and the China would assume the missile exploded by itself.

Honestly, I think this is terrible. I think ALL Overthrows are essentially terrible.
Whenever I see something in the media that makes people think anything "Obvious", I start thinking it is a Psychological Operation.
Remember WMDs? We gotta go get them?
Remember we can fight them there or fight them here? More wars? things only get worse.

And in the end, it always seems to benefit the Military Industrial Complex. Strange...

Lets see how the NK "threat" is working:
South Korea and Japan just made MAJOR Purchases of our military equipment to help defend themselves.

cui bono? (Who Benefits) I guess someone got some HUGE orders...

Even the Sequestration that hit the US Military. What's the answer? Buy more equipment? cui bono?

Fear (Terrorism) and the Threat of war, are great motivators to get people to spend money, or suffer harshness they normally would never accept.

Also, NK is a Chinese puppet already. they want to be able to sell their technology (like we do) all around the world and get paid. And they have REAL demonstrations of it working.
China is probably selling more now as well...

this feels staged in order to get public opinion moving. As most things do.
they are a sovereign nation. They can develop whatever they want. Who are we to stop them?
Just let them know: Welcome the Atomic Era. Please understand that ANY aggressive move will be treated as an all out Nuclear attack, and we will remove you from the face of the earth, using nukes.
MAD workse

South Korea will see it as an opportunity to make it a uniting of north and south. That might turn them toward having it happen under China's aegis. If the south wants it united under the USA's auspices, China definitely won't go for that, and back to the drawing board we go.
Ah, politics! Don'tcha love it?

Why help or endorse the expansion of a Commun-
ist state? Probably we're better off if they quarrel
with each other.
I understand that the North Koreans are probab-
ly worse off than the Chinese, but maybe if
they get fed up enough, they will rebel.

I might be a good bargaining threat. I worry about that NK bunch attacking SK out of spite if an attack came from China or anyone.

Very interesting...

You are right. There's an elephant in the living room that no one is talking about; that is, the Chinese government reportedly has amassed 100,000 troops along their border with North Korea, ostensibly to interrupt the flow of refugees if and when North Korea collapses. Yeah, right. Meanwhile Kim Sung Un kills his brother, a citizen of China, who could have been his Chinese replacement.

The North Korean people are not a factor in anything, they have absolutely no say. I also doubt that no more than the top 5 of Un's followers are even allowed to give him any advice, and none of them can ever question any of his decisions. At least in China today, the people have some freedoms including that most of them are free to leave, if they can afford it.

Your idea should be forwarded to Trump, Congress, the Pentagon, and China. The only ones that might/would strongly object are Kim Jong Un and a few of his top people. The only danger might/would be if Un might/would go berserk and initiate a full blown attack on South Korea and launch everything else at his disposal wherever it goes. I think the man's completely suicidal to maintain his total power. He'd rather blow Korea completely off the face of the earth rather than give up his power. It's interesting how little we hear about the UN's position on anything except when Nikki Haley says something, maybe that's a good thing.

Certainly a better idea than anything else I have heard proposed.

Why should anyone 'sweeten the pot' to encourage behavior that benefits another? The offer implies that someone on the other end will not have free choice in deciding if they want to deal with the rogue state. Bribes usually cost the smallest individual (citizen taxpayer) and benefits those with enough political clout to benefit themselves at this expense. This also encourages another criminal state (China) to benefit from a supposedly free country (USA) and encourages the use of more bribes to keep them in line. This kind of procedure always supports bad behavior in hopes that it won't become worse behavior and hoping that someone who is insane will respond to begging, bribing to keep them subdued. Sometimes the only way to proceed is if one person does something really bad stop them by whatever means is required to stop them. North Korea is badgering the international community because when his daddy did it the Clintons rewarded him. Don't appease them or try to control them through another coward or bully.