By Kim Young-jin

Chinese diplomats said modern-day North Korea resembles China some three decades ago due to a fear of change that is deeply embedded in its history, a U.S. diplomatic cable revealed.

According to a cable spread on WikiLeaks, Cheng Yonghua, former Chinese ambassador to Seoul, said today’s North Korea was similar to China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s and dealing with officials there required that he “mentally reset his personal clock by thirty years.”

The remarks were made during a dinner in December 2009 between Cheng and U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Kathleen Stephens.
Cheng regretted that Pyongyang had not yet followed China’s model of reform led by the late Deng Xiaoping, noting that before the reform the North had largely followed Beijing’s lead.

Another Chinese diplomat attending the dinner, political counselor Chen Hai, said the North’s failure to keep up with the times reflected Korea’s history of being a small country surrounded by greater powers. For that reason, a sustained message from the U.S. that a better future was possible could have a positive effect on the regime, he said.

Ambassador Cheng, now the top Chinese envoy in Japan, urged Washington not to wait too long in contemplating its next steps and to resume dialogues with the North, adding that Pyongyang could not be patient enough to get back to negotiations “because of Kim Jong-il’s health conditions and its implications for regime succession.”

The North walked away from the six-party talks on its denuclearization earlier that year in response to sanctions imposed for its provocative nuclear and missile tests.

Recent images of the North Korean leader have shown him to be frail but some analysts say he has shown some signs of recovery since reportedly suffering a stroke in 2008.

Experts say the North will attempt to resume the multilateral denuclearization talks this year in a bid to secure aid to bolster the succession process of Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un.