Sino-North Korean Research Articles

Dual identity and ambivalent sentiment of border residents: Predicting border community support for tourism development

Given the limited understanding of border communities in tourism literature, this research examines the sentiment of residents in Dandong, which demarcates the Sino-North Korean border, toward their neighboring country by employing a sequential mixed research design. In Study 1, in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 Dandong residents. Content analysis revealed that identification with the neighboring country, senses of relative gratification and relative deprivation were the three main components of border resident sentiment. Study 2 surveyed 600 Dandong residents using an online questionnaire, to test potential impacts of border resident sentiments proposed based on interview findings and existing literature. The structural equation modeling results demonstrated that sentiment had a stronger capability than attitude in predicting border community support for tourism development. This study contributes new knowledge to the field of border tourism and offers enlightening ideas for the advancement of social identity theory. Important policy and managerial implications are also discussed.

Transboundary Cooperation in the Tumen River Basin Is the Key to Amur Leopard (Panthera pardus) Population Recovery in the Korean Peninsula.

The interconnected forest regions along the lower Tumen River, at the Sino-North Korean border, provide critical habitats and corridors for the critically endangered Amur Leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis). In this region, there are two promising corridors for leopard movement between China and North Korea: the Jingxin-Dapanling (JD) and Mijiang (MJ) corridors. Past studies have confirmed the functionality of the JD corridor, but leopards' utilization of the MJ corridor has not yet been established or confirmed. In this study, we assessed the functionality of the MJ corridor. The study area was monitored using camera traps between May 2019 and July 2021. We also analyzed 33 environmental and vegetation factors affecting leopard survival and analyzed leopard movement. In the Mijiang area, the Amur leopard was mainly active in the region adjacent to the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park and did not venture into area near the North Korean border. The complex forest structure allowed leopards to move into the Mijiang area. However, the high intensity of human disturbance and manufactured physical barriers restricted further southward movement. Therefore, human-induced disturbances such as grazing, mining, farming, logging, and infrastructure development must be halted and reversed to make the Mijiang region a functional corridor for the Amur leopard to reach the North Korean forest. This necessitates inter-governmental and international cooperation and is essential for the long-term survival of the Amur leopard.

Lips and Teeth: China’s Buffer Thinking Toward North Korea

ABSTRACT Chinese officials characterize the bilateral relations between China and North Korea as ‘lips and teeth’ at times and most China scholars would also agree that North Korea is China’s buffer state. Despite the popularity of accepting this ‘buffering relationship’ between the two countries, few scholarly works explain this relationship in depth. What does ‘China regards North Korea as a buffer state’ mean? When and under what conditions did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders begin to view North Korea as a buffer state? Most importantly, how did such a buffer view shape China’s behavior when North Korea’s existence was endangered? The purpose of this article is to shed more lights on this unique geopolitical relationship forged in blood. It argues the CCP leaders’ first view on the Korean Peninsula was nationality minority. It was the Korean War that fundamentally changed the way the leaders perceived the value of the peninsula, from a non-geopolitical to a geopolitical one—North Korea is a buffer state keeping a hostile force away from the Sino-North Korean border. Evidently, China’s buffer thinking toward North Korea was one key factor contributing Chinese military and diplomatic protection over North Korea during the first North Korean nuclear crisis.

The Paektu Factor: How Pyongyang’s Economic Reforms Vanished at the Sino-North Korean Border

The Paektu Factor: How Pyongyang’s Economic Reforms Vanished at the Sino-North Korean Border

북중동맹 체결의 국제정치학적 논의

본 논문은 중국과 북한이 동맹을 체결한 1961년을 중심으로 관련 국가 간의 역학관계를 살펴보고, 국제정치 이론으로 재조명하고자 한다. 북한과 중국이 실질적 동맹관계를 유지하고 있었음에도 불구하고 이 시기에 공식적 동맹관계를 체결한 이유는 무엇인가? 본 논문에서는 동맹 이론에서 논의되고 있는 구속 정책을 소개하고, 이를 이용한 이론적 논리를 제시한다. 이러한 논리가 중국과 북한의 동맹에서 어떻게 나타났는지 설명하고, 결론에서는 현재 북중관계 및 동북아시아에 대한 시사점을 제시한다.

Decoding the Sino-North Korean Borderlands

Decoding the Sino-North Korean Borderlands

Inferring Land Conditions in the Tumen River Basin by Trend Analysis Based on Satellite Imagery and Geoinformation

The aim of this study was to map the land condition within the area of the Tumen River Basin (TRB), located on the Sino–North Korean border, using trend analysis of environmental factors. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST) trends over the past 30 years were analyzed to identify areas that have undergone degradation, restoration, and/or a transition. Landsat NDVI and LST were obtained using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Erosion was also gauged over the same period using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). Our results showed that only 0.3% of the land within the TRB underwent change that can be characterized as statistically significant within the study period. We therefore infer that land degradation may not be a major concern in the study area. Areas with a significant upward trend of soil loss accounted for 0.8% of the basin’s footprint and were mainly distributed upstream of North Korea. However, more than 80% of the area was found to be suffering from water stress, 10% of these areas were statistically significant and most were located downstream.

Decoding the Sino–North Korean Borderlands, edited by Adam Cathcart, Christopher Green, and Steven Denney. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. 440 pp. €129.00/£117.00/US$149.00 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsDecoding the Sino–North Korean Borderlands, edited by Adam Cathcart, Christopher Green, and Steven Denney. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. 440 pp. €129.00/£117.00/US$149.00 (cloth).Gilbert RozmanGilbert RozmanThe Asan Forum Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 87January 2022 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/716988 Views: 33Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Unravelling Local Dynamics in the Sino-North Korean Border Region

ABSTRACT Contrary to the conventional understanding of North Korean borders as classic barriers that block infiltration of outside influences, this paper argues that the Sino-North Korean border region has undergone considerable transformations, especially at the local level. By analysing local-level trans-border activities, it shows that North Korea seeks to develop the Sino-North Korean border region as a space of opportunity. Even the heightened political conflicts between China and North Korea and the tightened international sanctions against North Korea failed to dampen local actors’ economic imperatives, particularly after the 2012 and 2013 decentralisations in North Korea. Local actors were active in driving trans-border economic practices and, in turn, transformed the Sino-North Korean border region into potential cross-border cooperation zones. Although there has been conflict and competition in border region development between North Korea and China, we argue that local governments and entrepreneurs’ efforts to maximise economic independence in the border regions are persisting, and their geo-economic imperatives are important factors in reshaping the Sino-North Korean border region by initiating and advancing trans-border interactions.

RememberingŎmŏni: Using Chinese Memoirs to Understand Sino-North Korean Interactions during the Korean War

AbstractThis article assesses the memoirs of Chinese volunteers as a source for better understanding social interactions between the Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean War. The hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers serving in Korea were an almost ubiquitous presence in wartime North Korea. Yet the relationship between the volunteers and North Korean civilians has not been the subject of many studies. Memoirs written by the volunteers are one of the few sources that document these interactions. Among the subjects the volunteers wrote about, their encounters with older North Koreans whom they called “mothers” or ŏmŏni were among the most prominent. While acknowledging the propagandistic intent behind some of these memoirs, the article argues that they do shed light on some of the emotional norms that shaped relations between North Korean women and the volunteers even if they cannot always be treated as completely reliable descriptions of events.

Sino–North Korean Economic Cooperation during the Chinese Civil War and Its Background

Political and security considerations based on the identical ideology served as a starting point for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)–North Korean cooperation during the Chinese Civil War. The CCP used North Korea as a passage for goods and personnel between northern and southern areas liberated by the CCP in Northeast China. From an economic perspective, the cooperation between the CCP and North Korea was mutually beneficial. North Korea could secure much-needed food and bituminous coal through trade with CCP bases in Northeast China, while supplying industrial goods and daily essentials. North Korea supplied electricity to the CCP-liberated areas in Northeast China. However, the two parties conflicted over electricity apportionment and ownership of Supung Power Station on the Yalu River. In general, the economic cooperation between the CCP and North Korea was carried out according to international trading standards, sometimes prioritizing its own economic interests.

The Role of the Border Region in Sino-North Korean Trading Networks: A Focus on Dandong, China

ABSTRACT This research investigated the micro-level Sino-North Korean trading practices in Chinese border city Dandong with the help of a network approach. Dandong companies had long-term business relations with North Korea and took brokerage roles by channeling North Korean information, personnel, and products to the outside world. Dandong took an indispensible role in providing access to North Korean-related businesses with the advantage coming from historically-built personal relations, convenient logistics directly linking to Pyongyang, and easy access to North Korean economic agents. They leveraged brokerage roles in Sino-North Korean trading networks and contributed to give the networks a high-level of path-dependency. The strategies of Chinese border companies and less-institutionalized trading system of North Korea provided existing partners distinctive advantages in business relations. These practices that endowed border companies unique brokerage roles are likely to persist until a dramatic change in North Korea and its international environments.

Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia. A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung, and Sino-North Korean Relations, 1949–1976.

How do you write a review of a book rich in new information and interpretation that has also committed the offense of lifting passages from the work of another author, sometimes word for word? First the richness; then the lifting. Ever since the end of the Cold War, diplomatic historians of Northeast Asia have been expanding our knowledge of the region’s international relations in a type of competition to reveal the latest sources emerging from archives that are often difficult to access. Given the current security concerns with North Korea, special attention has focused on the northern half of the peninsula, as historians have sought to use the archives of its neighbors and allies to learn about a country that doesn’t allow researchers within its borders, let alone inside its archives. A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung, and Sino-North Korean Relations, 1949–1976 is the most detailed work taking up this challenge.

Reeds, river islands, and inter-imperial conflict on the early twentieth-century Sino-Korean border

This paper uses disputes over islands in the early twentieth-century Yalu River to examine how river environments critically shape border conflicts. Processes of riparian erosion and sedimentation along this historical border between China and Korea, accelerated by upstream deforestation, helped transform submerged sandbanks into islands known as Hwangch’op’yŏng. After Japan’s occupation of Korea in 1905, these islands in the lower Yalu delta—and the valuable reeds that grew on their marshy surface—became an unlikely battleground between Chinese and Korean reed harvesters, Japanese “continental adventurers,” and competing Japanese and Chinese empires. With the contemporary Sino-North Korean border still a geopolitical hotspot, it is imperative to understand the historical as well as ecological forces that shaped the contested geography of the Yalu River boundary. Such an understanding, this article argues, shows how both Japanese imperial violence and riparian sedimentation contributed to Hwangch’op’yŏng’s battleground status and its transformation, by the end of the twentieth century, into a Korean exclave on the Chinese bank of the Yalu River.

China's US-centric Mentality and the Evolution of Its North Korea Policy after the Cold War

North Korea's missile and nuclear tests conducted unilaterally have put China's North Korea policy under intense internal and external pressures. The dramatic developments since 2018 like the détente of the two Koreas and the unprecedented US–North Korea summits are not to be seen as signs that China has played an effective role through its North Korea policy. Why does North Korea always seem to have the upper hand in its relationship with China despite its obvious unilateral economic dependence on China? How did Sino–North Korean relations evolve into their current contradictory state? What is the nature of their relationship? This article considers these questions by analysing China's North Korea policy over the past three decades, since the end of the Cold War. Current research mainly focuses on analyses of specific periods and the interpretation of specific events. By systemically investigating the policy evolution in the past 30 years, this article argues that the US-centric mentality is the primary variable for informing China's perception and policy towards North Korea after the Cold War.

개혁개방 이전 냉전 시기(1949-1980), 중국의 한반도 정책 연구

China’s policy toward the Korean Peninsula can be largely characterized as being to maintain “stable status quo”, and this has been a constant feature since the founding of the PRC in 1949. Even when China turned to the “Far Left” and encouraged revolutions in the Third World in the early 1960s, it did not however encourage North Korea to attack the South. Nevertheless, the reasons and objectives behind China’s foreign policy towards the Korean Peninsula to keep the “status quo”differed at different times. These differences in the same policy have been overlooked. Therefore, this paper attempts to highlight the different reasons that led to the PRC to maintain the same policy. Through a scrutiny of the Sino-North Korean and Sino-South Korean relationships, juxtaposing side by side a from historical perspective, this article will provide useful clues in better understanding China’s policy towards the Korean Peninsula and elucidate the surrounding international political context.

A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and Sino–North Korean Relations, 1949–1976, by Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. vii+355 pp. US$65.00/£50.00 (cloth).

<i>A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and Sino–North Korean Relations, 1949–1976</i>, by Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. vii+355 pp. US$65.00/£50.00 (cloth).

Проблема формирования современной границы между КНДР и КНР

When the Communist Party came to power in China and the People's Republic of China was established, the new Chinese leadership began to take steps to improve relations with North Korea. Immediately after the end of the Korean War (1950-1953), China and the DPRK entered into a number of agreements and treaties designed to strengthen the ties between the two states that embarked on the path of socialist development. One of the key agreements between China and North Korea was the conclusion of the “Border Treaty” in 1962, which became the guarantor of stability and security on the shared border; it also resolved previous border disputes between the two states. Making certain territorial concessions in the demarcation of the border the Chinese leadership acquired a reliable ally in conditions when China found itself in international isolation. At the same time, some South Korean politicians and scientists taking an interest in the “Border Treaty” concluded between the China and the DPRK expressed mixed views regarding the Sino-North Korean borders. They believed that the national interests of the Korean people were infringed upon by the demarcation of the border between China and the DPRK.

Mobile North Korean Women and Long-Distance Motherhood: The (Re)Construction of Intimacy and the Ambivalence of Family

Over the past decade, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in the role of North Korean women, from traditional mother to breadwinner. Economic collapse, famine, and the so-called Arduous March have had unintended consequences for North Koreans, forcing them to become more active economic agents. Many North Korean women started working in the black market (jangmadang), and became extremely mobile, seeking economic opportunities in new cities, new regions, and even across national borders. As a result, the mobility of North Korean women and their economic activities in the market have had a significant influence in contemporary North Korean families. It can be argued that the traditional woman, or typical mother under patriarchy, is now considered to be less ideal, giving way to a new, economically dynamic model for women in North Korean society. North Korean women retain a strong commitment to motherhood when they cross into the Sino-North Korean borderland, and actively engage with the children they have left behind through remittances and regular phone calls. Geographical distance and their illegal status do hamper their mothering practices to an extent, causing intimacy and motherhood to undergo substantial changes in North Korean families. Nevertheless, North Korean migrant mothers still prioritize long-distance motherhood over their own personal well-being as well as that of any new families they make or join in the course of their migration trajectories.

North Korean “Independence” in Unification Policy and Sino-North Korean Relations, 1955–1966

North Korean “Independence” in Unification Policy and Sino-North Korean Relations, 1955–1966