The Devil You Know: The PRC's Strategic Calculus Regarding North Korea since the Korean War

“Close as lips and teeth,” “xuemeng”—meaning blood ties or shared blood—and “united in communist brotherhood,” are all phrases employed within Chinese rhetoric to describe the Sino-North Korean relationship. The relationship, as described through these phrases, is difficult for outsiders to comprehend. The policy-making processes of both of these governments are extraordinarily opaque, and as such, the relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea appears to exist within a black box, seemingly allowing foreign scholars to be able only to speculate about what shapes and drives the relationship.

This thesis presents analysis that challenges widely advanced explanations for China’s motivations behind its North Korea policy, which suggest that this policy has remained constant since the Korean War. This paper argues instead that China’s policies toward North Korea are based on an evolving strategic calculus, primarily influenced by what Beijing perceives to be the perils and possibilities offered by the international system and the constraints and requirements of China’s domestic politics. This paper employs international relations (IR) theory and foreign policy analysis (FPA) theory as analytical frameworks through which to review the sixty year-long relationship since the Korean War, in order to illuminate the “black box” of Sino-North Korean relations and provide some insight on the factors which have influenced and shaped China’s policy orientation toward North Korea.