‘As close as lips and teeth’: The highs and lows of China-North Korea ties
Xi Jinping's visit to Pyongyang highlights a relationship that has swung between solidarity, strain and dependence since the 1950s.
Intelligence analysis by GPT-5.4 Mini
The article traces how China and North Korea moved from wartime alliance to uneasy interdependence, then back to renewed warmth as Xi visits Pyongyang and trade rebounds. It frames the trip as a reminder that Beijing still has major leverage over North Korea.
China and North Korea are like two old neighbors who fought together long ago but often disagree now. They still trade a lot and need each other, even while one keeps building stronger weapons and the other worries about losing control.
Analysis
A relationship built on war and caution
The article says Xi Jinping's trip to Pyongyang is his first since 2019 and comes with the usual North Korean display of ceremony and alliance politics. It places that visit in a much longer story: the two countries' ties began before both modern states were fully formed, became official in 1949, and were then forged in the Korean War when China intervened to keep North Korea from collapsing.
That wartime experience remains central to how both governments describe the relationship. The piece notes the 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, which still matters because it is China's only formal defence pact with another country. But the article also stresses that the pact has never meant unconditional support. Beijing and Pyongyang have repeatedly diverged on strategy, including during the Sino-Soviet split, the Cultural Revolution, and later periods when China refused to back North Korean hopes of renewed war with South Korea.
Strain, sanctions and dependence
The biggest rifts came after China opened its economy and normalised relations with South Korea in 1992. North Korea saw that as unsettling, especially as the collapse of the Soviet Union left Pyongyang more isolated and more dependent on China. Nuclear tests added another layer of friction: China condemned North Korea's nuclear programme, and the article says it did not block several rounds of UN sanctions, even while remaining North Korea's key economic lifeline.
The current phase is one of renewed warmth. Kim Jong Un has visited China several times since 2018, Xi went to Pyongyang in June 2019, and bilateral trade rose 22 percent in the first two months of 2026 compared with a year earlier. China supplies much of North Korea's fuel, food, machinery and consumer goods, and Chinese ports remain important for North Korean exports.
The article suggests Xi may also be responding to North Korea's closer ties with Russia. Beijing wants to keep influence on the peninsula, avoid conflict on its border and stop Pyongyang drifting too far from China's orbit. At the same time, Kim continues to push ahead with nuclear development, which the article says leaves denuclearisation as distant as ever.
Key points
- Xi Jinping's visit to Pyongyang is his first since 2019 and comes amid renewed official warmth.
- China and North Korea's alliance was forged in the Korean War and formalised in a 1961 defence treaty.
- The relationship has repeatedly been strained by ideology, China's opening to South Korea, and North Korea's nuclear tests.
- Trade between the two countries rose 22 percent in the first two months of 2026 versus a year earlier.
- China remains North Korea's main economic lifeline and wants to keep Pyongyang from drifting too far toward Russia.
If the warmer ties hold, China may have more leverage to discourage conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Continued contact could also keep trade flowing and reduce the chance of sudden miscalculation between the two neighbors.
The relationship could also deepen North Korea's dependence on China without changing its nuclear path. The article says denuclearisation remains far off, and closer North Korea-Russia ties may limit how much influence Beijing can actually wield.
