China debates its bond with North Korea

BEIJING — When is it time to dump an old friend who insists on behaving badly? The debate is raging in China.

North Korea's latest nuclear test raises the question of just how long the bonds forged between old communist allies will endure.

The test was conducted barely 50 miles from the Chinese border. The ground rumbled in northeast China, and some schools were evacuated because of fears of an earthquake.

"It was quite shocking. The location where they did this test was a lot closer to China than to where [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il is living in Pyongyang," said Zhang Liangui, a Korea expert with Beijing's Central Party School, where Communist Party officials are trained.

Mao Tse-tung once famously said that the relationship between China and North Korea was as close as "lips and teeth." Throughout the decades, China has remained the truest friend of its isolated neighbor -- at times the only friend.

Successive U.S. presidents have tried to take advantage of that relationship, turning to Beijing in the hope that it can pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program. Increasingly, China itself is questioning whether the relationship is worth the effort.

Within the Chinese intelligentsia there is a deep divide over how to handle North Korea. The Global Times, a newspaper with close party ties, Tuesday published a survey of 20 of the country's top foreign policy experts. It found them split down the middle -- 10 arguing for tough sanctions against North Korea, 10 opposed.

"Traditionally, China has been very friendly to North Korea, but now there is a feeling that the North Koreans are causing us too much trouble," Zhang said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who is leading a U.S. congressional delegation in China this week, is expected to press President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao at a meeting today to bring North Korea back into six-party talks about nuclear dismantlement.

The relationship between North Korea and China is a product of history and geography. The 850-mile border with China is North Korea's main connection to the outside world -- given that the DMZ bordering South Korea is as fortified as ever. Virtually all flights in and out of North Korea pass through China.

Even as North Korea has tested nuclear weapons, test-fired missiles and generally made a nuisance of itself in the neighborhood, Beijing has supplied its old ally with goods varying from fuel to fertilizer, corn to cosmetics, shoes, clothing and electronics. Chinese exports to North Korea last year amounted to $2 billion.