James Clapper: “To the extent that anyone has leverage over North Korea it's China.”

I think right now, they're assessing the administration -- that's the National Security Council specifically, is assessing the impacts of this first round of strikes.

I think the reason they were taken off the list was to provide an inducement or motivation for them to agree to some sort of ceasefire.

Ties with Tehran offer some regional governments a means of staking an independent position on Iran, thereby mitigating its isolation while also attempting to extract Iranian financial aid and investment for economic and social projects.

No, I don't. The Chinese setup is that there is a Polit bureau member who is the overseer -- the senior overseer on behalf of the Polit bureau for the entirety of the Intelligence and Security apparatus of China.