Sino File | Despite the pomp, China and North Korea are now more business partners than brothers in arms

The show of friendship when Kim Jong-un hosted Xi Jinping last month in a Chinese leader’s first-ever state visit cannot cover up the cracks in the traditionally ‘teeth and lips’ relationship between the two communist allies

Reading Time:3 minutes

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un walks with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping in the grounds of the Kumsusan State Guest House in Pyongyang on June 21. The visit came ahead of Xi’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the G20 summit, and also Kim’s surprise meeting with Trump at the demilitarised zone last weekend. Photo: Korean Central News Agency via KNS / AFP

Published: 2:00pm, 2 Jul 2019Updated: 7:09pm, 2 Jul 2019

The scenes of cheering crowds and the red-carpet treatment to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to North Korea may evoke memories of the good old days of close relations between the communist allies, when their founding fathers described the relationship as one of “teeth and lips”.

Xi’s June 20-21 visit was the first by a sitting Chinese president in 14 years and also the first to be officially designated a state visit since Beijing and Pyongyang established diplomatic relations in 1949. It was also Xi’s fifth meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the past 15 months.

Xi’s trip came just a week before his meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, and before Trump and Kim shook hands over the weekend in a surprise meeting at the demilitarised zone that divides the two Koreas.

Both communist allies are locked in a stalemate with the US administration on separate issues. Washington and Beijing are engaged in a protracted trade war while the US-North Korea nuclear negotiations have been languishing, following the collapse of the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi in February. And both are eager to reach a deal with Washington.

Against that backdrop, the spate of Xi-Kim summitry suggests that the allies see value in cementing – and to be seen cementing – their relationship.

Nevertheless, the pomp and ceremony of Xi’s Pyongyang trip does not mean the rebooting of the two countries’ cold war-era alliance, of the kind seen during the Korean war in 1950-53. The deep suspicion and distrust that have accumulated over the long years of Chinese-Korean relations, mixed with feelings of gratitude and misgivings, favour and resentment, cannot be so easily unravelled.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x