Opinion | Regional distrust hampering response to cope with a breakdown in North Korea
Pyongyang's neighbours are aware of the various dire scenarios for the country, but mistrustis hampering attempts at a co-ordinated response
If the tension between China and Japan over the disputed Diaoyu Islands highlights a lack of communication in Northeast Asia, then last week's third nuclear test by North Korea showed just how dangerous the stakes are.
The underground explosion at the Punggye-ri test site - 100 kilometres from the Chinese border - was North Korea's largest yet. With Pyongyang reportedly threatening more tests soon, uncertainty is once again mounting over the direction and stability of the young regime of Kim Jong-un as he leads communism's only dynasty.
Yet, as the questions mount, any meaningful dialogue over the various dire scenarios that could unfold is conspicuous by its absence, according to officials and scholars.
Whatever contingencies exist to handle some sort of serious breakdown in a nuclear-armed North Korea are not shared by China, the United States or Washington's treaty allies Japan and South Korea.
The more alarming scenarios for the collapse of the world's last Stalinist state - and one of its poorest - are not difficult to imagine.
One of the worst discussed by diplomats in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul has Chinese and US-backed South Korean troops squaring off inside a crumbling North, both attempting to find and secure nuclear facilities. Another has Chinese troops sealing China's border not only against a tide of refugees heading for its still-poor northeast but in order to seize and hold territory as a potential buffer zone against the prospect of a unified Korea led by South Korea.