The first firm evidence for Chinese Korean relationships dates from about the first century AD.from the Han Dynasty. under the emperor Wudi. Han relationships with North Korea brought adaptiation to Chinese ways, notably in paper-making and literacy and, probably most significantly, Confucianism. While there was clearly some military conquest by China, relationships were mostly peaceful, since in this era there was no threat to China from the south. The Hans appear to have been forced out of the Korean peninsula some time in the latter part of the first century or second century AD.
During the late sixth-early seventh century the Sui dynasty mounted several disastrous invasions of North Korea, the most significant being the three failed invasions under the emperor Yangdi in 614. For a whole host of reasons Yangdi was, to put it mildly, a most unpopular emperor. His defeats in North Korea ultimately resulted in his assassination in 618, the end of the Sui Dynasty and the rise of the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang emperor Taizong was, unfortunately, driven to emulate his Sui predecessor when it came to North Korea. His two attempts to impose Chinese suzerainty on North Korea failed, the first invasion barely getting into the peninsula before being driven back. The second in 647 suffered a similar fate. Not until 669 would Tang troops enter Pyongyang. Then, under Wu Zetian, protectorates were established over the northern part of the peninsula with only the southern Korean kingdom of Silla surviving. The Tangs remained in northern Korea until 672, and were completely expelled by the resurgent Silla kingdom in 672, according to Korean sources. Nevertheless, Silla would acknowledge Chinese suzerainty and pay tribute to all dynasties up to the Southern Song in 1259.
The Mongol invasion of China and the encirclement of the Southern Song by the Mongol hordes in the same year saw a bloody invasion of the Korean peninsula and forced Korean submission and a new acknowledgement of Mongol suzerainty. The Koreans appear to have been left in relative peace until 1274, when they were forced to be the reluctant staging point of Khubilai's disastrous attempt at invading Japan. The Japanese did not forget. In the 1590s they invaded Korea, forcing the Ming Dynasty into a long, unwanted war.
The next significant involvement of Korea with the Chinese came under the victorious Manchus in 1620 when the Manchu Hong Taiji transformed Chinese military strategy via artillery and siegecraft, and the formation of the famed Manchu Bannerman, who recruited many Koreans for their regiments.
In the sixteenth century Western observers at the Chinese court, like the Jesuit Matthew Ricci, were appalled by Sino-Japanese warfare on the Korean peninsula, but they were bystanders. By and in the nineteenth century, Korea had sent regular missions to the Manchu emperors, but essentially they maintained their independence. Japanese attempts to follow Western example and establish treaty ports on the Korean peninsula, as the West had done with China, led to the various Western powers, with Chinese encouragement, seek to open their own treaty ports on the peninsula. An internal Korean rebellion in 1894 resulted in the Korean king seeking Chinese troops. The Japanese responded by sending larger forces of their own. The result was war between the Quing court and the Japanese. For the Chinese the war was a complete disaster, leading to a Japanese invasion of China and a humiliating peace in 1895, which virtually made Korea a Japanese protectorate. Chinese influence in Korea was at an end, or so it seemed.
To understand what happened next we have to fast forward to the end of the Pacific War in 1945. As Japanese defeat seemed certain Soviet Russia and the United States rushed to occupy Japanese territory in Korea. At war's end the peninsula was partitioned along the line of occupation, the 38th parallel. In June 1950 North Korea, now Communist and sharing an ideological brotherhood with the victorious Chinese Communists who had established the People's Republic of China in 1949, invaded the American supported south in the name of Korean 'integration'. The subsequent Korean War was fought to a stalemate, with the Peoples' Republic backing Northern Korean Communists with the participation of up to a million soldiers from the People's Liberation Army. Korea, when the armistice finally came in 1954, was divided into communist and capitalist blocs. China maintains its support of its intransigent southern ally to this day.
But, looking back over the millennium of history what can we conclude about the Chinese-North Korean relationship? Clearly, it goes back much further than a sympathy between two Communist allies. China has shed much blood over and in support of Korea, including an invasion of their own soil by the Japanese, followed by a humiliating capitulation (1895). For centuries the Korean kingdoms were tributaries of Imperial China. To a limited extent, Korea was acculturated by its giant northern neighbour, in much the way, say ,that modern Australia was acculturated by Great Britain. It is not a bond that will be easily broken. North Korea in particular has always been viewed by the Chinese, Imperial, republican and Communist, as a legitimate Chinese sphere of influence. This brief essay is an attempt to explain why, regardless of the antics of the North Korean Communist dictatorship, such a strong bond exists between the two nations.
And as to their joint future? that is speculation, and speculation is not the business of history.
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