Why North Korea Does Not Trust China

Chinese President Xi and Norht Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. YouTube

Franz-Stefan Gady, The Diplomat: War of the Dragons: Why North Korea Does Not Trust China

The legacy of the Sino-Vietnamese War continues to cast a shadow on China-North Korea relations.

The idea that China holds the key to solving the ongoing political and military crisis on the Korean Peninsula has been the standard jack-in-the-box of U.S. North Korea policy for the past seven decades, set to pop up whenever U.S.-North Korea tensions escalated and the threat of war thought imminent.

U.S. President Donald Trump and former Chief White House Strategist Stephen Bannon are only the latest to espouse the view that China has the power and influence to induce its “client state” to stop its saber-rattling and nuclear provocations. (This view is not just confined to U.S. policymakers, either.) In fact, ever since Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River on October 1, 1950 and attacked U.S. and UN forces on North Korean soil, numerous U.S. policymakers have been looking to Beijing as the éminence grise of the Kim dynasty that can sway the latter’s behavior.

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WNU Editor: A different take on the Chinese - North Korean relationship.