To North Koreans, their country’s relationship with China was “forged in blood in the victorious war to liberate the fatherland” — a conflict that most of the world calls the Korean war. In China, ties with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have traditionally been described as being “as close as lips and teeth”.
These days, however, teeth are bared and lips curled on both sides. The Financial Times visited North Korea last week. Most striking was the deep animosity that everyone, from government officials to ordinary citizens, seemed to feel towards their former comrades across the border.
All interviews were conducted in the presence of minders and no one was free to say what they really think. That only made the anger at China more striking, since it means such attitudes carry a certain amount of official approval. Although the ruling North Korean Workers’ Party held its first congress in 36 years last week and the country is China’s only official ally, no senior official from Beijing attended.
In official rhetoric, America is always “our sworn enemy”, Japan is the “thrice-cursed imperialist nation” that occupied the country for 50 years and South Korea is an evil puppet regime. But when people spit this vitriol they often seem to be going through the motions. With China, however, the insults were more spontaneous and the depth of feeling obvious.
In China itself, North Korea is seen as an embarrassing joke — a starving Stalinist anachronism that reminds many of life under the totalitarianism that China abandoned in the late 1970s.
There are several reasons why relations have deteriorated. China has become increasingly concerned over Pyongyang’s ambition to develop nuclear weapons capable of threatening the US and has even enforced some punitive sanctions on North Korea. Beijing has often talked up its influence over its recalcitrant neighbour in its discussions with Washington, but when Pyongyang claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb this year, Beijing had no idea it was coming, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.
Today, Pyongyang relies on China for the majority of its fuel and food, although most North Koreans are unaware of this. The regime knows its ally is unlikely to cut that supply because of fears of millions of starving refugees flooding across the long and lightly guarded border.
On the North Korean side, the 33-year-old supreme leader Kim Jong Un is increasingly concerned over China’s irredentist moves in the region, including in the South and East China Seas. North Korea has always seen itself as a “shrimp caught between whales” and Pyongyang is extremely wary of Beijing trading away its interests as part of a larger strategic bargain with the US.
However, in a country so dominated by the cult of personality, it is probably the personal that matters most. Mr Kim is popularly referred to in China as “little fatty Kim” and even seasoned Chinese diplomats cannot hide their disdain for a man that ordinary North Koreans are required to revere as a god.
President Xi Jinping of China is rumoured to loathe Mr Kim, while Mr Kim seems to be personally hostile towards a country that has invaded and ravaged Korea repeatedly since the fifth century and has forced it to pay tribute for most of its history.
A key reason Mr Kim executed his uncle Jang Song Thaek, in December 2013 was the intimate economic and political relationship that Mr Jang maintained with Chinese officials, according to several analysts.
Another point of deep discomfort for Mr Kim is the fact that his older half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, lives in exile in Beijing under the protection and close watch of the Chinese authorities, making occasional gambling trips to the Chinese territory of Macau. He apparently destroyed his chance of succeeding his father when Japanese authorities caught him trying to sneak into Tokyo on a fake passport so he could visit Disneyland.
It does not take much paranoia on Kim Jong Un’s part to assume that China is keeping his older brother safe in case they need to install a member of North Korea’s ruling dynasty as replacement for the incumbent.
In his latest attention-grabbing remarks, Donald Trump, the presumptive US Republican presidential candidate, said he would be willing to offend China and speak directly to Mr Kim, a move that would be a reversal of decades of US policy.
It may seem ludicrous to outsiders, but several close observers of North Korea told the FT that, given the choice, Mr Kim would prefer an alliance with America, the far-off superpower, than China, the ancient oppressor and emerging superpower.
jamil.anderlini@ft.com
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