According to this article in the Australian, the Chinese may be ready to wash their hands of the Dear Leader:
The Chinese are openly debating “regime change” in Pyongyang after last week’s nuclear test by their confrontational neighbour….
More than one Chinese academic agreed that China yearned for an uprising similar to the one that swept away the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 and replaced him with communist reformers and generals….
The Chinese have also permitted an astonishing range of vituperative internet comment about an ally with which Beijing maintains a treaty of friendship and co-operation. Academic Wu Jianguo published an article in a Singapore newspaper – available online in China – bluntly saying: “I suggest China should make an end of Kim’s Government.”
“The Chinese have given up on Kim Jong-il,” commented one diplomat. “The question is, what are they going to do about it?”
Hinting at the options, Chinese online military commentators have exposed plots and purges inside North Korea that were previously unknown or unconfirmed. They have described three attempted coups that ended in bloodshed. In 1996, the Sixth Field Army was planning to revolt but the scheme was betrayed by a new commander. One or two plotters got away but Kim Jong-il’s personal guards arrested senior officers and the Sixth Field Army’s political commissars.
On March 12, 1998, Kim suddenly announced a martial law “exercise” in Pyongyang and there was gunfire in the streets of the city. The Chinese later learned that two ministries were involved in a coup attempt, and that more than 20 ministerial-level officials were killed after it was crushed.
In October 1999, a company of the Third Field Army rebelled in dissatisfaction over grain distribution during the nation’s prolonged famine, which may have killed a million people….
Meanwhile, some of the North Korean elite are seeking their boltholes in China.
Xin Cheng, an estate agent in the high-rise district of Wang Jing, which is popular with resident South Korean businessmen, said many high-ranking North Koreans were buying property there.
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