Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a rare concert by a North Korean state art troupe
and met with the delegation’s chief, Ri Su-yong, vice chairman of the North Korean
ruling party’s Central Committee. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, met with Ri last Sunday
and watched the performance by the Pyongyang’s artists, which was the first stage in the
neighboring country in more than three years since the North’s Moranbong Band had called
off a planned performance in Beijing at the last minute in 2015. This shows the ties between
the two countries has hit its strongest, together with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un’s
fourth visit to China in less than a year. This week Korea Now looks into the ups and
downs of bilateral relations between China and North Korea.
When Kim Jong-un inherited power 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. However, relations between the North and China had
frayed in the early years of Kim's rule as North Korea forged ahead with a string of
nuclear and missile tests in disregard of Chinese warnings. Moreover, in 2013 Kim ordered
the execution of his uncle Jang Song-thaek, the country’s chief interlocutor with China
and a relative reformist in the hermetic state. Since then, ties between the allies deteriorated
so sharply that Xi, in an apparent snub of Kim, visited the South first without visiting
the North. The acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities coincided
with a near-total breakdown of high-level diplomacy between the two. Things seemed to
be getting worse marked by the mysterious assassination of Kim’s long-estranged half
brother, Jong-nam in Malaysia February 2017, who had been seen as a potential rival for
power in Pyonyang having lived for years in Beijing, then Macau. Furthermore, after the
North’s 6th nuclear test in September that year, China supported the UN sanctions to
curb oil supply to North Korea. However, tensions subsided from early last
year amid a détente South Korean president fostered in time for the Winter Olympic Games.
Relations between Pyongyang and Beijing have also warmed significantly as Kim launched
a peace offensive and sought to improve relations with the United States. Kim visited China
three times last year alone before and after he held his first-ever summit with U.S. President
Donald Trump. Watchers say Kim’s trips to China might be intended to demonstrate to
the world that their relations remain strong and also reflect the North’s push to project
its image as a normal state and his latest trip to Beijing this year was apparently aimed
at coordinating strategy with China ahead of the second U.S.-North Korea summit, which
could take place at the end of February. If so, what would be China’s intention?
China fought alongside North Korea during the Korean War, in which Chinese leader Mao
Zedong lost his eldest son, and Bejing has long been Pyongyang’s chief ally and primary
trade partner. North Korea is reportedly the only country with which China concluded its
Mutual Defense Treaty so far. 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 across their border and the Korean Peninsula under the
domain of a U.S. backed Seoul government. Mao described this relationship between North
Korea and China as “lips and teeth,” better translated as: “If the lips are gone, the
teeth will be cold,” a reference to the strategic importance of the North as a geopolitical
security. President Xi also mentioned the bilateral ties as "lips and teeth," at the
reception dinner with Kim on January 8, following his remarks at Dairen last May. The ties between
the two can get stronger when Xi visits North Korea later this year, which marks the two
countries’ 70th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations. In this context, some
critics say China does want a stable North Korea and divided Korean Peninsula rather
than unification of the North and South. What are your thoughts on this? Thank you for watching
Korea Now and please don’t forget to like and subscribe.