The fraying ties of China and N. Korea

Relations between the two nations began to slide after execution of key interlocutor in 2013.

WHEN Kim Jong-un inherited power in North Korea in late 2011, then-Chinese president Hu Jintao was outwardly supportive of the untested young leader, predicting that “traditional friendly cooperation” between the countries would strengthen.

Two years later, Jong-un ordered the execution of his uncle Jang Song-thaek, the country’s chief interlocutor with China and a relatively reform-minded official in the hermetic state.

Since then, ties between the allies have deteriorated so sharply that some diplomats and experts fear Beijing may become a target of its neighbour’s ire.

While the United States and its allies – and many people in China – believe Beijing should do more to rein in Pyongyang, the acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities has coincided with a near-total breakdown of high-lev- el diplomacy between the two.

The notion that mighty China wields diplomatic control over impoverished North Korea is mistaken, said Jin Canrong, an international relations professor at Beijing’s Renmin University.

“There has never existed a subordinate relationship between the two sides. Never. Especially after the end of the Cold War, the North Koreans fell into a difficult situation and could not get enough help from China, so they determined to help themselves.”

China fought alongside North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War and Beijing has long been Pyongyang’s ally and primary trade partner.

While their relationship has always been clouded by suspicion and mistrust, China grudgingly tolerated North Korea’s provocations as preferable to the alternatives: chaotic collapse that spills across their border, and a Korean peninsula under the domain of a US-backed Seoul government.

That is also the reason China is reluctant to exert its considerable economic clout, worried that measures as drastic as the energy embargo proposed by Washington could lead to the North’s collapse.

Instead, China repeatedly calls for calm, restraint and a negotiated solution. China’s foreign ministry has repeatedly spoken out against what it calls the “China responsibility theory” and insists the direct parties – North Korea, South Korea and the United States – hold the key to resolving tensions.

Until his death in 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made numerous entreaties to ensure China would back his preferred son as successor.

While Hu reciprocated, Jong-un began to distance himself from his country’s most powerful ally.

Within months of coming to power, Jong-un telegraphed North Korea’s intentions by amending its constitution to proclaim itself a nuclear state. The execution of Jang sealed Beijing’s distrust of the young leader.

“Of course the Chinese were not happy,” said a foreign diplomat in Beijing focused on North Korea.

“Executing your uncle – that’s from the feudal ages.”

In an attempt to warm ties, Xi sent high-ranking Communist Party official Liu Yunshan to attend the North’s October 2015 military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Liu hand-delivered a letter from Xi praising Kim’s leadership and including congratulations not just from the Chinese Communist Party but Xi’s personal “cordial wishes” in a powerful show of respect.

Xi’s overture has been repaid with increasingly brazen actions by Pyongyang, which many observers believe are timed for maximum embarrassment to Beijing.

Last week’s nuclear test, for example, took place as China hosted a BRICS summit, while in May, the North launched a long-range missile just hours before the Belt and Road Forum, dedicated to Xi’s signature foreign policy initiative.

Despite its resentment at the pressure North Korea’s actions have put it under, Beijing refrains from taking too hard a line.

Zhao Tong, a North Korea expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre in Beijing, said North Korea was deeply unhappy with China’s backing of earlier UN sanctions.

“If China supports more radical economic sanctions that directly threaten the stability of the regime, then it is possible that North Korea becomes as hostile to China as to the United States.” — Reuters