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The rescaling of the Chinese state and Sino-North Korean relations: beyond state-centrism

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 07:21 authored by Kevin GrayKevin Gray, Jong-Woon Lee
While Beijing has repeatedly signed up to multilateral sanctions against North Korea, it is widely regarded as having failed to strictly enforce those sanctions. Indeed, China's deepening economic engagement with the country has led observers to debate the causes of this seemingly duplicitous approach. Constructivist and realist approaches have relied on state-centric frameworks that serve to reduce Sino-North Korean relations to the high politics of Beijing-Pyongyang diplomacy in the context of broader geopolitical dynamics. We argue that such approaches pay insufficient attention to the profound rescaling of the Chinese state in recent years and the implications this process has for bilateral relations. We shed light on how Sino-North Korean relations are being driven by actors at multiple scales and by a multitude of objectives as a result of decentralisation and marketisation alongside increasing geographical unevenness within China and new challenges to continued capital accumulation. North Korea has come to play an increasingly important role in efforts to facilitate economic recovery in the northeastern border regions through serving as spatial fix for Chinese manufacturing capital. These new cross-border flows of capital and labour suggest an emerging pattern of Sino-North Korean relations that is by no means static but in considerable flux.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Journal of Contemporary Asia

ISSN

0047-2336

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

1

Volume

48

Page range

113-132

Department affiliated with

  • International Relations Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-07-24

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2019-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-07-24

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