It is no secret why the North Koreans need China. Chinese cash—in the form of outright grants as well as the proceeds of trade and investment—keep the regime afloat. Yet Kim Jong-un’s actions hardly reflect the growing dependency. The young dictator, after all, felt confident enough to eliminate most of his officials dealing with China and he undertook actions—long-range missile tests, a third nuclear detonation, an abrogation of the Korean War armistice, to name just a few of them—that appeared to have genuinely upset Beijing.
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