can china help the us deal with north korea ?
a review of official military and government websites and interviews with experts who have studied the preparations show that beijing has implemented many of the changes in recent months after initiating them last year .
but recent reports published on chinese military and government websites , first highlighted by the wall street journal , show beijing is moving to reinforce the border as tensions on the korean peninsula rise and some in the us call for regime change in pyongyang .
the north korean - chinese border stretches 880 miles ( 1,415 kilometers ) across china 's liaoning province , an industrial and mining heartland prone to heavy smog and painfully cold winters .
 
 
can china help the us deal with north korea -- from boats on the yalu river which separates the two countries , or through binoculars on a section of the great wall overlooking the international boundary .
high security according to a report published last month on the official website of the people 's liberation army ( pla ) , a " newly formed border defense brigade " is conducting patrols to gather intelligence , assess the situation and more accurately map out the border region -- which includes north korea , russia and mongolia .
while north korea has proved remarkably capable of shrugging off economic sanctions , the country has suffered major famines and widespread food insecurity in the past , analysts say a conflict on the peninsula would likely result in hundreds of thousands , if not millions , of civilians heading north into china , the specter of