| Relations between China and North Korea... well there are some key differences. There are several thousand (apparently some estimates go up to hundreds of thousands) of North Koreans living illegally in China. It seems China is reluctant to force them to go back... after all they know what will await a good deal of them.
I know that there was a unified Korea near China for a long time but times have changed. South Korea is an ally of the United States and is an (at least for all practical reasons) ally of Japan. China cannot afford to have a country like that border itself. The only way China will let a unified Korea to be on its border is if the South decides it wants to side with China.
That itself won't be an easy thing to do. |