For most of my life as a North Korea watcher, I assumed that at some point in the foreseeable future the country would either disappear (through absorption into the successful South) or change dramatically (through transformation into a China-style “developmental dictatorship”). 

This was more or less a majority view until the late 2010s or so, with countless publications discussing the coming end of North Korea.

However, recent trends have forced me to reconsider these long-held views.

As great power competition ramps up, the DPRK has become more strategically important than ever to China in its confrontation with the U.S. The