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| Image: Wiki Commons |
By James Person
U.S. attempts to outsource its North Korea policy to China will fail. History shows us why.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, faced with North Korea’s claim to have tested a hydrogen bomb, complained to his Chinese counterpart that China’s strategy toward North Korea “has not worked, and we cannot continue business as usual.” In the wake of last week’s missile launch, presidential candidates from both parties called on China to do more. But American observers may have exaggerated the docility of North Korea toward China from the beginning, according to the diplomatic record of Sino-North Korean relations during the Cold War.
Declassified Cold War-era records from the archives of the former Soviet Union, East Germany, Mongolia, Romania, and others—all former allies of North Korea—reveal that North Korea’s relationship with China has been fraught with tension and mistrust. As early as the Korean War, Pyongyang viewed Beijing’s interference as heavy-handed.
In the late fall of 1950 the so-called Chinese People’s Volunteers, who had taken command of field operations in Korea, vetoed North Korean proposals to continue offensive operations against U.S. and South Korean troops in 1951. Consequently North Korean leaders blamed Chinese military officials for failing to reunify the Korean peninsula, even though Chinese forces had in fact rescued the DPRK from certain annihilation.
Read the full story at The Diplomat