Although North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests have rocked the relationship with China, both sides seem intent on keeping calm.cathcart_newsbrief_sept_vol.36_no.5.pdfApplying metaphors to Beijing’s relationship with North Korea is a difficult business. In recent years, China’s old bonds of brotherhood with North Korea have given way to a wary and often openly sceptical mutual outlook. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) preferred metaphors for the relationship now rest on ‘shared mountains and rivers’, an ideologically neutral reference to the shared 1,400-km riverine boundary, but just as often, Chinese editorials note that the relationship is ‘in the ditch’ or that ‘North Korea is …read more
Beijing’s North Korea Policy in 2016: Keep Calm and Carry On
