China’s Balancing Act: Examining China-DPRK Relations in an Era of Political Uncertainty

Abstract

The current geopolitical situation in East Asia has existed in a precarious stasis since the armistice that ended the bloodshed of the Korean War. For the past 60 years, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been the biggest challenge to peace and security in Asia. Despite immense economic and political progress throughout East Asia through much of the late 20th century, the DPRK has faced continued isolation and worsening economic fortunes. The regime in the DPRK has demonstrated that its primary goal is its own survival, and it is willing to pursue nuclear ambitions to serve this end. The question on the minds of many scholars and diplomats engaging with the question of East Asian security is whether or not the People’s Republic of China can be expected to join the rest of the world in preventing an increasingly belligerent DPRK from obtaining the ability to deliver a nuclear payload. China has a long and complicated history with the Korean Peninsula and the DPRK, a history that demonstrates a duplicitous and practical approach to issues of Korean geopolitics. This paper will demonstrate the complicated relationship between China and the DPRK and demonstrate the ways in which China’s complicated history with the peninsula has led to the current state of affairs. The paper will speculate as to the motivations of the Chinese government, and seek to understand China’s actions on the international stage to both protect and condemn the DPRK’s fragile political regime.