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For Chinese neighbours, caution is the byword and trade the catchword - part two

By Tony Henderson - posted Monday, 27 June 2005


Reforms introduced by Japan overhauled Korea's social system and the Confucian education and bureaucratic systems ceased. Traditional class distinctions were abolished, as was slavery, and the economy and legal affairs became more in tune with the times.

Korea was made a Japanese protectorate in 1905 and turned into a full colony of the growing Japanese empire in 1910. By the 1940s there were about 700,000 Japanese in Korea, mostly working in government service. While the Japanese policies resulted in substantial economic growth, Koreans became second-class citizens in their own land. China was engrossed in its own domestic problems and no longer exerted influence of any import.

China’s support for North Korea in the Korean War (in 1950 war finally erupted when the armies of North Korea made the initial offensive and occupied Seoul, driving the US forces all the way to Pusan) was for its familiar ideology rather than as a real friend. Also, it needed that buffer zone, primarily against Japan.

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That Korean War involved Chinese forces supported by North Koreans with the latest Soviet equipment and supplies. Today, China and Russia no longer aid North Korea and trade openly with South Korea. Trade volume with China in 2004 reached a record US$1.4, up 35.4 per cent on 2003, according to the Korea International Trade Association. Thousands of Chinese soldiers guard the Yalu River to prevent crossings by starving North Koreans. North Korean soldiers no longer train for war. Their old aircraft and tanks sit idle from lack of fuel and spare parts.

Then there was the sentencing of Yang Bin, the “tulip tycoon” once thought to be the second-richest man in China. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Yang was Kim Jong Il's choice as overseer of a special economic zone to be set up on China's border. It is presumed China privately told Pyongyang not to employ Yang, but was ignored. The timing and publicising of his lengthy sentence could be interpreted as a meaningful signal to Pyongyang that it was not getting carte blanche affirmative nods from Beijing.

Korea has no natural resources which interest China, and Chinese military support for North Korea would cause a major war with powerful South Korea, the United States, and likely Japan.

Vietnam

The Sino-Vietnamese War, fought in 1979, was between the neighbouring countries of the People's Republic of China and Vietnam. After a brief incursion into northern Vietnam, Chinese troops withdrew, less than a month later, and both sides claimed victory.

The cause of that war was the Sino-Soviet split. Years previously, during the initial stages of the Vietnam War with France, Communist China and Vietnam had close ties because both distrusted the former French rulers of Vietnam.

With the death of Stalin, a change was provoked in the situation. Mao Zedong opposed Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's successor, and criticised the Soviet Union's interpretation of Communism. This led to hostile relations, and eventually the Sino-Soviet split. From this period on Vietnam aligned with the Soviet Union, which continued to supply what was then North Vietnam during the war against the South, and its US, French and Australian supporters.

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To China the Soviet-Vietnamese relationship was a negative development. China and Vietnam had a long history of conflict. This was particularly worrying given the possibility of a combined war with a powerful Vietnam in the south and the USSR in the north.

China's response was two-pronged: they started talks with the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s which contributed to a Chinese shift towards the US camp; also China set up a supported state in Cambodia under the control of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. China supported Cambodia partly for ideological reasons, as Khmer Rouge's philosophy was a variant of Maoism, and partly to keep Vietnam “boxed in” between China in the north and Cambodia in the west. Laos was already an ally of Vietnam. After the collapse of the Saigon government in 1975, Vietnam stabilised, and even prospered to some degree, while Cambodia descended into genocidal chaos.

In 1978 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and as expected, their experienced and well equipped troops had little difficulty overcoming the PRK forces. On January 7, 1979 Vietnamese-backed Cambodian forces seized Phnom Penh, ending the Khmer Rouge regime.

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Read part one here.



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About the Author

Tony Henderson is a freelance writer and chairman of the Humanist Association of Hong Kong.

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