A Fading Alliance Between China and North Korea

Once a Cold War buffer state, North Korea is now a strategic liability to China's Xi Jinping, who is trying to root out the influence of former leader Jiang Zemin

The test fire of a ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea in an undated photo released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on May 30, 2017. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Prospects for an amicable resolution to the North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile crisis faded on July 4, when Pyongyang launched its latest Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile. Dictator Kim Jong Un called it an Independence Day “gift.”

North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test last September, exploding a 20-to-30-kiloton bomb and sparking the saber-rattling that has characterized the last few months of Pyongyang’s interactions with the United States and countries throughout Northeast Asia.

Bridges connecting the Chinese city of Dandong and the North Korean city of Sinuiju on July 5, 2017.
NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images