War of words between NK, China reveals frayed ties

By Choi Sung-jin

State propaganda machines of North Korea and China have recently vented their discontent about each other in harsh words, demonstrating an aggravated relationship between the two allies since the North’s nuclear and missile provocations.

The People’s Daily, the Chinese communist party’s organ, said Thursday that should instability occur on the Korean Peninsula caused by nuclear problems, it would pose a bigger threat to China’s national security than what’s happening in Syria. The newspaper, while noting that the North’s nuclear strategy can throw the regime into danger, called for Pyongyang to rethink the strategy, the South China Morning Post reported.

It was North Korea that made the first strike. On April 1, the (North) Korean Central News Agency, carried a thorny article targeting China, although it did not mention Beijing explicitly.

“Even some large countries, which allege they take honor and cause very seriously, have bowed to the mean pressures and demands of the United States, and are committing unthinkably cheap acts of dancing to the tune of others (President Park Geun-hye’s demands for sanctions),” the news agency stated.

The KCNA article, written by a researcher at a state think tank, expressed the North’s complaint about China more directly, by saying, “Some countries are throwing away longstanding friendship won jointly by blood allies, and never mind about it.”

Both the People’s Daily and KCNA engaged in verbal battles indirectly through commentaries but hardly minced their words to express long-oppressed complaint about each other.

The Global Times, the international edition of the party organ, said in an editorial, “Promoting China-North Korea friendship and implementing sanctions on North Korea strictly are not contradictory to each other, and it is an exaggeration to say China’s stance toward the North has drastically changed.”

Lamenting that North Korea is seeking to develop its own nuclear programs while not trusting security guarantees provided by China and Russia, the commentary said, “If the North violates international norms and isolates itself from the international community, China will find it very difficult to maintain stability in Northeast Asia.”

The People’s Daily said in another article that North Korea’s military threats against South Korea are “all rhetoric aimed at strengthening their bargaining leverage.”

“North Korea has neither the ability nor the will to carry out war but is only making the most of anti-U.S. sentiments to unify its people,” it said. “The moments when danger seems most real and crisis appears at hand are actually the moments when the possibility of war is smallest.”