Without allies China has limited options.

"The more power China has accumulated, the greater has been its difficulty in gaining allies, underscoring that leadership demands more than brute might," wrote Brahma Chellaney. "Contrast this with the strong network of allies and partners that the US maintains in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere." China used to have a strong influence on Myanmar, but it cannot take the Burmese for granted any longer. China is building an economic corridor through Pakistan, and is also going to station over 100,000 soldiers in Pakistan, making it a vassal state. The other friend is North Korea, but here relations have become prickly of late, with North Korea accusing China of "mean behavior" and "dancing to America's tune", presumably in anger at China's suspension of coal imports from North Korea. There is bad blood between North Korean President Kim Jong Un and China's President Xi Jinping. It was customary for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay respect to Beijing but Kim Jong Un has refused to do so, just as Xi Jinping visited South Korea in 2014 but not the North. North Korea is developing new missile technology capable of reaching the US. New US Secretary of State threatened pre-emptive strikes against North Korea to prevent the development of missiles capable of reaching the US but the risks of retaliation with nuclear or chemical weapons is very high. Kim Jong Un executed his uncle and China's friend General Jang Song Thaek in 2013 and on 13 February he got his brother, Kim Jong Nam, killed with a nerve agent, VX, which has been banned as a weapon of mass destruction. This removed any chance of Beijing trying to replace him with his brother and gave warning of the consequences of attacking North Korea. "Despite its exasperation, China's options against the Kim Jong Un regime are limited, given that it does not want the North Korean state to unravel -- a scenario that will result in a reunified and resurgent Korea allied with a US." US troops right on its borders is a nightmare for China. When a tribunal ruled that artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea are illegal, Chinese state media responded by labeling the US and Japan "worrying eunuchs". The Chinese behaved with extreme discourtesy before Xi Jinping's visit to Britain in 2015. When British media reported these incidents the state controlled Global Times described the British media as "reckless gossip fiends and barbarians". Chellaney described how Chinese aid for infrastructure projects turn into debt traps for China to blackmail the receiving nations. The biggest headache for China will be if Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un come to an agreement allowing the US to invest in North Korea in return for a halt to its nuclear and weapons programs. That will bring Americans right up to its border. What will it do then? Attack North Korea?