Ever since the end of the Cold War the Sino-DPRK relationship has been the main external buttress helping to prop up the North Korean regime. Beijing has long provided its treaty allies in Pyongyang with economic sustenance and international support in exchange for border stability (and possibly other benefits as well). It is therefore striking that Pyongyang has recently taken to disparaging its partner in this vital relationship.

Amidst the pageantry surrounding the December 2013 purge and execution of Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, North Korean officialdom accused Jang of “treachery” for “selling off precious resources of the country at cheap prices” -- a thinly veiled reference to his role in North Korea’s commerce with China. In March of this year, the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that a top North Korean military academy – purportedly Kang Kon Military Academy near Pyongyang -- was displaying placards calling China a “turncoat and our enemy.”

In early June, New Focus International, a defector news service that relies upon unnamed sources within the North, claimed that in April the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party, formally North Korea’s highest leadership body, had issued an internal decree: “Abandon the Chinese Dream!” The alleged document condemns China as a corrupt economy and a “bad neighbor,” and calls for “amplify[ing] the foundations of an independent economy” in North Korea.