From blood allies to racial resentment: North Korea’s changing ties with China 

The North’s envoy asked his counterpart in detail about the culture and lives of those in South Korea. The two ambassadors also exchanged frank views on the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
The now-retired former South Korean ambassador vividly recalls one detail his opposite number divulged: “We’ve never really trusted China.”
North Korea and China fought the 1950-’53 Korean War as allies against South Korea and the United States, and later cemented that alliance by signing the Sino-North Korea Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. Under this treaty, the two countries are deemed to be “blood allies”, whereby if one is attacked the other will automatically come to their aid. But this relationship is now said to have been reduced to a shell.
China currently has overwhelming economic power over North Korea. But the North Korean capital of Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s enjoyed economic development far in advance of that seen in Chinese provincial cities at the time, before economic development gained traction under the “reform and open-up” policy. This can be attributed to the support that Pyongyang enjoyed from the then Soviet Union and other countries as a member of the socialist economic bloc, which encouraged North Korean heavy industry to develop.
Back then, North Korea accepted many foreign students at universities in Pyongyang. Many veteran Chinese diplomats currently assigned to South Korea studied in North Korea, including at the prestigious Kim Il Sung University. Chinese students who attended Pyongyang universities at that time have said they were overwhelmed by a “huge metropolis”. Poorly nourished Chinese students even had to be instructed by the Chinese Embassy on how to avoid the embarrassment of stuffing themselves at Pyongyang’s well-stocked university cafeterias.
In the three decades that have passed since then, China has achieved high economic growth and become the world’s second-largest economy. China-North Korea relations have changed too.
North Korea is now almost entirely dependent on crude oil imports from China, a lifeline in Pyongyang’s ongoing push for nuclear and missile development intended to maintain its dictatorship.
Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean deputy ambassador to Britain who defected to South Korea last summer, said in March that if China intended to bring about the collapse of North Korea, it would take no more than two or three years.
Thae said that North Korea would not be able to survive beyond that point if China closed its borders and halted all trade with the country.
The US administration of President Donald Trump is now applying growing pressure on China to exert its influence over North Korea.
However, Thae also noted that China views North Korea as a buffer zone against US influence encroaching on its borders. China’s priority is thus to maintain political stability under Kim Jong-un, not to take away North Korea’s nuclear weapons, he added.
Kim Jong-un’s regime is resisting Chinese pressure since it realises that Beijing’s main concern is avoiding collapse of the North Korean government that would destroy the power balance in Northeast Asia.
Underlying this calculation is the distorted racial pride of North Korea, which cherishes memories of past glories and its higher position over China. This causes it to overstate its actual hand.
Relations between China and North Korea are considerably more complicated than the term “blood allies” would suggest.