Page 31 - Trilateral Korea Japan U.S. Cooperation

Because of this, comprehending the relationship between
North Korea and China requires a different perspective
from Western theories of asymmetric alliances alone.
While security-autonomy trade-offs, abandonment and
entanglement dilemmas, and chain ganging and buck-
passing are useful in explaining U.S.-South Korea and
U.S.-Japan alliances, they are not entirely applicable when
5
analyzing North Korea-China relations. The asymmetry
of power inevitably leads to systemic misperceptions, with
China’s underattention to North Korea and North Korea’s
overattention to China during crises. China’s policy shifts
slowly, attempting only to keep North Korea under its
influence, while North Korea, like an allergic paranoid patient,
6
vehemently opposes any Chinese attempt to do so.

Nonetheless, China continues to be very important to North
Korea, and a hierarchical relationship is unavoidable. China
is the country that opens up North Korea’s external relations,
the only nation that has friendly relations with both Koreas,
the only country that is obligated to North Korea under the
North Korea-China Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship
Treaty, and the only nation that can save North Korea from

5 Yongjae Lee, “Why China Has Supported North Korea: An Asymmetrical Dependent Relationship between
China and North Korea from 1995 to 2016.” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol.33, No.4 (2021); Song
Wenzhi and Son Daekwon, “Who Restrains Who?: Sino–DPRK Strategic Interaction during the Second
Nuclear Crisis,” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol.30, No.2 (June 2018).
6 Michael Chambers, “Dealing by a Truculent Ally: A Comparative Perspective on China’s Handling of North
Korea.” Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol.5, No.1 (2005).

30 Section I : North Korea-China Relations: How and Why Does Beijing Protect and Empower Pyongyang?