We were in France in mid-February, without e-mail and with poor radio reception, so we did not even know there had been a North Korean nuclear test until I got a call from a TV news producer. 

Whatever the outraged reactions in the rest of the world, our local newspaper in the north of France had four full pages on the pope's resignation and four lines on the test. It was, after all, not an unexpected development.

As I predicted in an article published in the Global Times in December, "North Korea hopes for pride, deterrent with new launch," the unimaginative approach has been to call for more sanctions.

Yet North Korea has been under sanctions of one kind and another since July 1950, which seems at no point to have made much difference to its behavior or changed its attitude. To my mind, the use of sanctions has hardly been a successful policy.  

We have seen luxuries targeted in a touching belief that what keeps the North Korean ruling elite in line is the occasional bottle of brandy or a new car, rather than the fear of what happens if they relax their vigilance.

Perhaps if the whole world could be persuaded to implement sanctions, they might work, though I suspect that there are plenty of people who would be happy to devise means of evading any tougher regime.

As usual, there are calls for China to take action to help the "international community" over North Korea. The "international community," if it means anything, seems to mean "those who agree with us," with "us" being like-minded Western or Westernized countries. When and how it comes to its conclusions is a mystery.

That said there is clearly some debate within China about North Korea, as might be expected. Think tanks, now a feature of China in a way that was barely conceivable when I lived there 20 years ago, put forward views on this as they do on other international issues.

Clearly some Chinese academics think that since North Korea does not listen to China, then perhaps it is time to stop supporting it.

Others are concerned about the possible consequences of such an action. Pushing North Korea into a situation where it is isolated and feels even more threatened than it does at the moment is not a recipe for peace and security.

And, for all the calls from others for China to act in such a way, they see that it would be China picking up most of the pieces.

There are still those who believe that the links with North Korea, despite all the difficulties, remain useful for China.

The economic importance of China-North Korea ties has grown in recent years. In terms of China's total economic activity, it may be small, but in terms of Northeast China, it has steadily developed.

Of course there are problems from time to time, and these are picked up in the Western media, but Chinese businesses would not be in North Korea if they were not making money.

The strategic considerations that have kept China involved in the Korean Peninsula for hundreds of years have not suddenly disappeared.

But in the end, these debates, even among the most well-informed think tanks, are not where decisions are made.

It is the government that makes decisions on North Korea, and it seems unlikely that they will jump to meet the wishes of those calling for strong action against North Korea.

The Chinese have always indicated that the problem is not caused by one side alone. China has been consistent in calling for engagement not confrontation with North Korea.

To the Chinese, the present problems need not have arisen if the US, Japan and South Korea had not, for different reasons, decided to pursue a hard-line policy toward North Korea.

 It would be better if the North Korean nuclear program had remained capped and subject to some control. Now, several years down the track, and with the examples such as Libya to hand, the North is not going to abandon its program easily.

After all, at the Nuclear Industry Summit in Seoul in March 2012, US President Barack Obama may have said that the US had no hostile intent toward North Korea, but he also said that the US had more than 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons and some 5,000 warheads.

Perhaps for China, the real worry is not the embryonic North Korean program, but the very real existing nuclear arsenals. If so, then expect China to be cross with North Korea but not to abandon it.

The author is a research associate at the Centre of Korean Studies, University of London, and formerly a British diplomat in North Korea. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn