There are clear indications that wars had been the primary reason China and North Korea had stayed together for centuries. In the beginning, the Manchuria battle China and North Korea fought against the Japanese Forces became the initial foundation for military and economic alliance between the two countries, as North Korean Army fought fervently alongside Chinese soldiers to drive back the Japanese they both perceived as their common enemy. China North Korea xi jinping kim jong un This collaboration had possibly led to the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty signed in 1961, which mandated that in case either of the two countries was attacked by an enemy, the other will mobilize its troops and come to the attacked country’s assistance. China has always shown its resolve to protect North Korea right from the time the latter provoked a war with its southern neighbor, South Korea in 1950, which is popularly referred to as “the Korean War”. But new revelations confirm that many Chinese leaders have stopped seeing that war as an external aggression from outsiders (South Korea, United Nations’ Forces and the US inclusive), but that it was an errant act of offensive primarily perpetrated by North Korea’s yearning for military warfare then. China's shifting policies Over the decades, China has long shifted its policies from fighting enemies to building mutually benefitting diplomatic relationships with many countries around the world. President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 opened the doors to a flurry of trade agreements that brought the two countries closer than ever before. China also went ahead to rack up trade agreements with Japan, its erstwhile aggressor. Today, there are thousands of Japanese businesses operating in China. On the other hand, North Korean leaders, beginning from Kim ll-Sung to Kim Jong-il to its current leader, Kim Jong-un, have technically isolated themselves and their people from the rest of the world. Juche, the Korean word for the philosophy of engaging in voluntary isolation, has been widely embraced by the North Korean leaders and their followers: A misleading ideology that had shut the nation away from receiving economic and humanitarian aids from international donors when it badly needed them. Take for example, the deadly famine of the 1990s that killed millions... More