Chinese power over North Korea? It’s more myth than reality

[DemolitionMan]

By Foster Klug

At first glance, it seems the perfect solution to the world’s most dangerous standoff: Find a way to get China to use its enormous influence to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear bombs.

The countries, after all, share a long, porous border, several millennia of history and deep ideological roots. Tens, and possibly hundreds, of thousands of Chinese soldiers, including Mao Zedong’s son, died to save North Korea from obliteration during the Korean War, and China is essentially Pyongyang’s economic lifeline, responsible for most of its trade and oil.

The notion of Chinese power over the North — that the countries are as “close as lips and teeth,” according to a cliche recorded in the 3rd century — is so tantalizing that Donald Trump has spent a good part of his young presidency playing it up.

The reality, however, is that the complicated, often exasperating, relationship is less about friendship or political bonds than a deep and mutually uneasy dependency. Nominally allies, the neighbors operate in a near constant state of tension, a mix of ancient distrust and dislike and the grating knowledge that they are inextricably tangled up with each other, however much they might chafe against it.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-power-over-north-korea-its-more-myth-than-reality/2017/10/20/c9c20f46-b601-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.a5e7e8c6ff4f

[Fishrrman]

From the article:
"The reality, however, is that the complicated, often exasperating, relationship is less about friendship or political bonds than a deep and mutually uneasy dependency. Nominally allies, the neighbors operate in a near constant state of tension, a mix of ancient distrust and dislike and the grating knowledge that they are inextricably tangled up with each other, however much they might chafe against it."

Well if that's the case, and the Chinese don't care much for the current NORK regime, they should be relieved once we go in and neutralize it.

And they should welcome the trading prospects of a unified Korea afterwards with the United States withdrawing most of its troops from the country...