Is NK back in China's orbit? Are China and NK like lips and teeth? Not really. NK will always be conflicted in its relationship with China: NK can never trust China per Thae Yong-ho, as anti-Chinese animus defines KWP's conflict w/Chinese Communist Party
news.joins.com/article/228405…
news.joins.com/article/228405…
Don't have to read this interview to know this. It's Geopolitics 101. Any neighboring country of a non-democratic Great Power will feel threatened, esp if occupying buffer regions. NK will always be on guard against China and will use US-SK to check China
Thae grew up in border town of Hyesan and recalls CCP cutting off NK aid for not joining China in Sino-Soviet split. China also installed propaganda speakers in border towns which are bigger and louder than SK's propaganda speakers that play K-pop
newscj.com/news/articleVi…
newscj.com/news/articleVi…
China refused to help during NK's Arduous March when it had surplus corn crop rotting away in storage. Instead it ordered NK to (1) stop making nukes & (2) stop deifying leaders (known as Great Leader Absolutism). China wouldn't budge even when bodies floated down Yalu River
#(2) is important as most don't know about this. Why would Chinese CP tell WKP to stop cult worship and idolatry? Because it's unstable and can implode at any given time, while resisting market reform. This should be intuitive to anyone who has observed NK for any length of time
But no, it's not intuitive even when hit by a 2 by 4. Why do you think NK is a basket case and hasn't been able to reform? Do you think it likes being impoverished. We occasionally drag this pic out now and then to show the idiocy that is NK, how it went off the rails 
Thae: NK can't reform like China or Vietnam because it needs 3 things to survive: isolation because you can't let outside information to enter and corrupt Great Leader worship. Restriction on movement of its citizens. Surveillance tools for enforcement.
news.hankyung.com/article/201807…
news.hankyung.com/article/201807…
Can't pursue full-fledged reform in that milieu. What's possible though is the Kaesong-like separation model for treating citizens as zoo animals. That's why it's pursuing more Kaesong-like economic zones and tourist resorts that are self-contained
Both realize you can repress political freedom but can't stifle economic freedom by banning information exchange. To reform you need a regime that can sustain itself while exposed to information. Ask yourself if NK's cult worship can survive in that milieu
