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| China-North Korea Relations: 60 Years Between Friction and Cooperation |
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Though once described by Mao Zedong as being as close as "lips and teeth," the sixty-year history of the Sino-DPRK alliance has been littered with instances of tension and conflict. According to James Person, this history accounts for Pyongyang's deep mistrust of China and its interest in developing a relationship with the United States, despite appearances to the contrary. Newly obtained documents from the archives of North Korea's former communist allies shed light on past and present challenges to the Sino-DPRK alliance. Based on his research, Person believes new opportunities will emerge for the United States to engage with Pyongyang as 2012—the year by which the DPRK leadership has promised to deliver to its people a prosperous nation—approaches. Policy Forum James Person is coordinator of the North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In cooperation with the University of North Korean Studies (Seoul), NKIDP addresses the scholarly and policymaking communities' critical need for reliable information on the inner workings and foreign relations of North Korea by widely disseminating newly declassified documents on the DPRK from the previously inaccessible archives of Pyongyang's former communist allies. Person has been a professorial lecturer at Korea University’s Graduate School of International Studies and has researched Chinese and Russian government archives in his role as a diplomatic historian. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in Korean history at the George Washington University. His dissertation examines the DPRK's relations with the PRC and USSR and the evolution of North Korea's Juche ideology from 1953-1967.
A collection of archival documents on Sino-DPRK relations compiled by NKIDP from international sources is available at:
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