ON RELATIONS BETWEEN DPRK AND PRC
This document was made possible with support from the ROK Ministry of Unification, Leon Levy FoundationCITATION SHARE DOWNLOAD
get citationA comprehensive assessment of Sino-North Korean relations written by
ON RELATIONS BETWEEN DPRK AND PRC
This document was made possible with support from the ROK Ministry of Unification, Leon Levy FoundationCITATION SHARE DOWNLOAD
get citationA comprehensive assessment of Sino-North Korean relations written by the Embassy of the German Democratic Republic in North Korea."On Relations between DPRK and PRC" November 17, 1977, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office, Berlin (PolA AA), MfAA C 6857. Translated by Bernd Schaefer. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114128
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GDR Embassy to the DPRK
Pyongyang, 17 November 1977
On Relations between DPRK and PRC
1.0 General Assessment and Interests
1.1 Since their foundation, both states, the DPRK and PRC, have developed friendly relations and close cooperation in various areas. Of major importance was the participation of Chinese volunteers to push back the imperialist aggression against the DPRK between 1950 and 1953 and their sacrifices committed during this undertaking.
The development of relations, however, was not continuous. With the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in the PRC during the mid-Sixties relations drastically worsened at times. Reasons for this were attempts by the Chinese leaders to interfere into internal matters of the DPRK and apply pressure in order to move the DPRK towards a broad acceptance of Maoist positions and principles. Only with [PRC Premier] Zhou Enlai’s visit to the DPRK in 1970 relations returned to normal, and they gradually improved until the current situation.
The most important event for building up relations in recent years was Kim Il Sung’s visit to the PRC in 1975. It was the first official foreign trip of Kim Il Sung for many years and opened a series of visits to other countries. In 1976 relations stagnated due to the volatile domestic situation in China and the resulting uncertainties of the DPRK. In addition, during the Kim Il Sung  visit China had denied his request for supporting a military solution to the problem of Korean unification. Then promised economic aid turned out to fall well below DPRK expectations.
1.2 The DPRK interest in close and friendly relations with the PRC represents a long-term strategy. In its pursuit of such the DPRK is guided by the following factors and goals:
- Geographical proximity and a long common border (DPRK – PRC: 1,336 kilometers; DPRK – Soviet Union: 16 kilometers), as well as the political, economic and military potential of the PRC;
- Aspirations to secure the maximum political and, if necessary, military support of the PRC in the DPRK’s conflict with the U.S. and South Korea;
- Maintaining the strong DPRK economic ties to the PRC, in particular the major dependency of the DPRK on vital supplies (coke coal, coke, oil); as well as continuing DPRK efforts to receive economic, financial, and scientific-technological aid.
In addition, there are factors at work like the traditional ties between both Chinese and Korean peoples, the multi-year struggle by Korean partisans against the Japanese in Northeastern China, the important political-ideological influence by the CCP on the careers of leading Korean comrades in the 1930s, and the support of the DPRK for a united front of the “revolutionary peoples in Asia.”
1.3 The PRC also has a major interest in close relations with the DPRK. The latter belongs to the small number of states China can count to a certain extent as an ally. This carries some weight for China after the distancing by the Socialist People’s Republic of Albania, and in consideration of the development of Chinese-Vietnamese relations. Also the Chinese leadership is concerned about an improvement of relations between the DPRK on one hand and the Soviet Union and other socialist states on the other hand. For that reason the PRC currently undertakes major efforts to move the DPRK further away from the socialist fraternal states, or at least keep it in a “neutral” position in this regard. In the long run, the PRC has not changed its goal to include the DPRK in its big power chauvinist, anti-Soviet policy. Based on respective DPRK interests, the Chinese leadership uses the DPRK as its ally in the Non-Aligned Movement and towards developing countries, and it supports the DPRK in a focused way in its policy towards those states. Learning from the experiences during the “Cultural Revolution,” the PRC is acting in a sensitive manner to give the DPRK the feeling it is treated by China as an equal partner.
2.0. On Concurring Opinions and Positions
2.1 The basis for close relations between DPRK and PRC is the consent in, or closeness of, opinions of both parties on some basic ideological concepts, on methods of socialist construction, and on international politics. With some gradual differences only, this applies in particular to the following questions (though it is noteworthy that motives vary for certain positions of different kind):
- Definition of the character of the epoch, the main contradiction and the main forces in the course of the global revolutionary process;
- Overexposure of national specifics in the construction of socialism and actual negation of experiences made by the other socialist countries;
- Far-reaching turn away from the 