With North Korea and China strengthening bilateral cooperation following North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s trip to China in May, the two communist countries celebrated the 50th anniversary of a bilateral treaty on promoting friendship and cooperation, a symbol of their deep blood ties, on July 11. The treaty was signed in Beijing on July 11, 1961, by then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and former Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. Article Two of the accord stipulates automatic military intervention, stating that in the event of one facing a military attack and thus being pulled into a state of war, the other shall provide military support immediately. Professor Jeon Ga-rim at Hoseo University explains the implications of the five-decade-old Sino-North Korean Treaty.

The official title of the accord is the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea-China Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.” North Korea has not signed a friendship treaty with any other country besides China. That is why we’re interested in the treaty of friendship between the two allies. Beijing and Pyongyang have maintained very special relations, under which the two countries have engaged in exchanges and cooperation at such a significant level, which is considered higher than that of relations generally formed between other countries.

In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the treaty, North Korea and China showed off their solid alliance through the exchange of letters between their leaders and the exchange visits of high-ranking officials from the two sides. Yang Hyung-sop, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly, led a delegation to Beijing on July 9. The following day, a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang also visited Pyongyang to attend various commemorative events. Apart from the official rituals, however, some point out that the treaty has lost its significance over the last 50 years.

Some suspect that relations between North Korea and China are not exactly the same as they were in the past and have even faded over the past half a century. In 2003, major newspapers in Hong Kong carried articles questioning the usefulness of the alliance between North Korea and China from the viewpoint of Beijing. In the same year, China built a wall along some parts of the Sino-North Korean border. In 2005, Beijing sought a military contact with the U.S., putting pressure on Pyongyang. But China began to shift its North Korea policy from pressure to assistance in the wake of North Korea’s second nuclear test in May 2009. In this respect, the current North Korea-China relations focus more on promoting friendship and cooperation than on simply adhering to blood ties.

In other words, the two countries are more interested in practical cooperation in line with their own strategic interests than in their traditional blood relations. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visited China twice last year and, more recently, in May this year, in an effort to cement friendly ties with Beijing. But it doesn’t seem the two sides are moving in sync with one another.

In regards to North Korea’s denuclearization, China urges Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear programs in order to create a stable diplomatic environment in the region. North Korea, on the other hand, stresses the need for maintaining its nuclear program for its own survival. So, there is discord between the two countries. As for North Korea’s leadership transition, Pyongyang wants China to acknowledge the legitimacy of its third-generation hereditary power transfer, while China doesn’t think it is appropriate to make such a guarantee at this time. When it comes to economic cooperation, China followed the principle of providing grant aid to the North in the past. Recently, however, China seeks to provide aid for profit generation from an economic point of view. The two sides have slightly differing views on this issue.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government announced on July 11 through the state-run CCTV that the friendship treaty with North Korea was automatically extended in 1981 and in 2001 and that it will remain effective over the next ten years. This is the first time that Beijing expressed its official position about the validity of the treaty. Some interpret this as China’s indirect refutation to speculation inside and outside the nation that the North Korea-China friendship treaty is dismissed as nothing more than a dead letter. Professor Jeon predicts how the cooperative relations between the two countries may evolve.

Politically, China and North Korea are expected to maintain their current relations due to complicated bilateral interests. On the economic front, however, the situation may develop differently from the past. For China, regional diplomacy should be stabilized for the sake of its own economic development. China will seek cooperation with North Korea based on reciprocity, taking benefits and losses into consideration. But North Korea will likely demand that China continue to provide aid equivalent to what Beijing had sent before under the traditional alliance, forged in blood. It will be hard for the two sides to find common ground on economic issues.

Yet, many experts predict that China and North Korea will strengthen their friendly ties even further since the basic premise of their bilateral friendship remains almost unchanged. Some voice concerns that stronger North Korea-China cooperation could weaken South Korea’s leadership when addressing the nuclear crisis and other regional issues.

As far as Korean Peninsula issues are concerned, South and North Korea—the directly involved parties—should resolve them. If North Korea continues to depend on an outside power for maintaining its regime and if unexpected incidents keep occurring in that process, it will pose a significant burden on South Korea, which pursues the peaceful unification of Korea or regional stability at least as its national policy. When dealing with Korean affairs, Seoul needs to keep in close contact both with China and the U.S. and arrange a cooperative framework with these powers. Otherwise, North Korea-related issues could be controlled solely by China, resulting in the diminished role of South Korea.

The half-century-long partnership marks a new turning point for North Korea and China. For the sake of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, the South Korean government, too, should approach inter-Korean ties at a new level to respond to the deepening relations between Beijing and Pyongyang.


[Interview] Event for Experiencing Lives, Culture of N. Koreans
During lunch time on a weekday, people began to gather in small groups at a church in Saha District, Busan City, to attend the opening ceremony of a festival dedicated to helping citizens experience the lives and culture of the North Korean people. Now in its second year, the festival was held for three days starting July 5 to provide participants with a rare chance to engage in the same experience as North Koreans suffering from severe food shortages. Rev. Lim Chang-ho, head of the Korea Federation of Churches for North Korean Defectors, talks about the purpose of this event.

Here, the lives of North Korean people are illustrated just the way they are. This event has no ideological elements whatsoever. After unification, people in South and North Korea will live together. If we, South Koreans, know more about how people across the border have lived and how they are living now, we can contribute to building a unified Korea properly. By experiencing the real lives of North Korean people, we can better understand them. It would be best to experience it with our own eyes.

The festival featured a variety of programs that vividly portray the lives and culture of North Korean citizens, which South Koreans are unfamiliar with. Former North Korean defector Kim Young-soon, who was the student of legendary North Korean dancer Choi Seung-hee, presented a North Korean dance performance, while a sitcom depicting various episodes of North Korean newcomers in South Korea and a video documentary about the daily lives of people in North Korea were also shown. Most attention-grabbing was the sample stand for ‘the worst North Korean food’ on one side of the event hall.

The current food situation in North Korea is pretty bad. It is said that 3.5 million North Korean people starved to death 15 to 16 years ago. But the present situation seems even worse. We picked out the food North Koreans used to eat during the hard times and wrote recipes. Actually, many died of hunger due to a dearth of the awful food. There were a total of 12 kinds of such food, which are displayed here for sampling. That is why we named this program as the tasting event for the worst North Korean food.

The “worst” North Korean food include a thick cereal gruel made of horse food and wild greens like dandelions and lettuces, boiled acorns mixed with mashed saccharine and rice cake made of liquor lees and corn powder. The 12 kinds of food exhibited in the event were among the dishes North Korean people made themselves and ate in order to survive after the food rationing system was abolished in 2002. South Korean visitors were able to experience the harsh reality of North Korea, while eating the coarse food they had never seen before.

Here, I ate the bean-curd dreg cake and boiled acorns. I just had a small taste of them, but children in North Korea had to eat the unappetizing food in order to survive, didn’t they? For their parents, how frustrating it was! Now I understand why they risked their lives to escape the hunger-stricken country. It’s a sad reality, indeed. I hope unification will come about soon.

During the event, South Korean visitors and North Korean defectors alike often got emotional. Some North Koreans, who made the dishes themselves, said they wanted to let the South Korean public learn the painful reality North Koreans face, wiping their tears at the thought of the families they had left behind in the North.

In a desperate attempt to fill my stomach, though only for a while, I used to pick acacia flowers on the hills and pounded them in a mortar. Then I mixed them with corn powder or tofu residue. Even pigs in South Korea wouldn’t eat food like that. I miss my child in North Korea so much. South and North Korea should be unified quickly so the entire Korean Peninsula will thrive.

South Korean visitors and newcomers from the North had the rare experience of sharing the pain of the North Korean people during the event. The two Koreas have been estranged from one another for the past 60 years. Learning and understanding each other’s lives and culture could be a shortcut to achieving the unification of Korea.