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Backgrounder: China's Relationship with a Nuclear North Korea

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Carin Zissis, Staff Writer
October 24, 2006

Introduction

China is North Korea’s most important ally, biggest trading partner, and main source of food, arms, and fuel. In the hope of avoiding regime collapse and the associated influx of refugees across its 800-mile border with North Korea, China has propped up Kim Jong-Il and opposed harsh international economic sanctions against Pyongyang. Reports suggest that when the Kim regime conducted a nuclear test on October 9, it provided a warning to Beijing shortly before the test. But China registered its anger with Kim by agreeing to UN sanctions against North Korea, and experts believe it may be reconsidering the nature of the alliance.

How has Pyongyang’s nuclear test affected Sino-North Korean relations?

After the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) tested a nuclear weapon, China agreed to UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which imposed sanctions on Pyongyang. By signing off on this resolution—as well as earlier UN sanctions that followed the DPRK’s July missile tests—Beijing departed from its traditional relationship with North Korea, changing from a tone of diplomacy to one of punishment. Jonathan D. Pollack, an East Asia expert at the Naval War College, describes the DPRK’s tests as “jarring” to China’s “major diplomatic initiative” of bringing North Korea to the Six-Party Talks. He says Kim Jong-Il was effectively telling Beijing, “’You can not tell us what to do and we can not be taken for granted.’” The tests have “severely strained relations,” says Jing-dong Yuan of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. He describes the tests as “a slap in the face of China.”

Will China severely punish North Korea for the October test?

How far the Chinese go in punishing North Korea remains to be seen. They have conducted some truck inspections along the border and Chinese banks have stopped money transfers to North Korea.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.