China’s Long, Fruitless History of Irritation With North Korea

[Time]

Just how steadfast is China's support of North Korea? It is a question that has been asked by outsiders since the Korean Peninsula was divided after World War II. Given the secrecy of the two allies, concrete answers are hard to find. And wrong conclusions, as when General Douglas MacArthur and President Harry Truman underestimated China's support for its communist ally when U.S.-led U.N. forces stormed north in 1950, can have disastrous consequences. So it's worth paying attention when Chinese President Xi Jinping weighs in on the issue, or at least appeared to, at the Boao Forum on the Chinese island of Hainan. "No one should be allowed to throw the region or even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains," Xi said Sunday. The new Chinese leader didn't single out North Korea, but given the near daily threats and provocations emerging from Pyongyang in recent weeks, it was seen by many observers as a likely target of the criticism. (PHOTOS: North Korea Ratchets Up Tensions on the Peninsula) The White House also seems to detect a shift in China's support for North Korea, the New York Times has reported. But Gregory Kulacki, China project manager with the Union of Concerned Scientists argues that the U.S. media have exaggerated any movement in China's stance. "The idea that China would change its policy on North Korea because of security concerns is so well-entrenched in the minds of U.S. officials and reporters that this 'subtle change' in China's thinking about North Korea was taking place in a 2003 episode of The West Wing," he wrote in a post on the All Things Nuclear blog. The expectations go back even further than that. In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union and China's establishment of diplomatic ties with South Korea, discussions of Sino–North Korean ties frequently mentioned China's growing anger. "The self-styled North Korean Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, sometimes describes China as his country's 'large rear area,'" the Times' Nicholas Kristof wrote in a 1993 story headlined "China and North Korea: Not-So-Best of Friends." "Mr.

Via: TIME GlobalSpin