The New York Times: China and North Korea Reveal Sudden, and Deep, Cracks in Their Friendship

Earlier this month, the North issued a more indirect takedown of Beijing in its government newspaper Minju Joson, signaling a growing rift. Shortly afterward, China announced the suspension of coal imports.

The burst of criticisms from Pyongyang — coupled with Beijing’s coal ban — suggested boiling tensions between China’s president, Xi Jinping, 63, who sees himself as a global leader, and Mr. Kim, 33, an eccentric dictator.

Mr. Xi is said to have low regard for Mr. Kim, who has not visited China and is not known to have been invited.

Despite past periods of turbulence, including under Mao Zedong, both sides have more or less tried to preserve a polite public veneer of amity. But the friendship was a myth, said Shen Zhihua, a professor of history at East China Normal University. [...]

It was not immediately clear how much China’s ban on coal imports would affect North Korea’s ability to look after its population. And at least publicly, China said that it was imposing the ban only because it had already fulfilled its coal quota allowed under United Nations sanctions.

That seemed to suggest that Beijing may have already paid Pyongyang for the coal it imported in the first 50 days of this year, money that would go to the North’s cash-starved government, experts said.

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