“When China and North Korea formed their alliance, the countries were both poor, weak, resentful, isolated, and the target of cold-war containment by the United States and its allies,” writes Lind. “While North Korea is still that country, China is emphatically not.
Lind continues, “China is a great power that is increasingly concerned with its standing in the world, and with cultivating ‘soft power.’ Beijing’s support for North Korea’s ruthless, bloody regime—that attacks its neighbors, and brutalizes its people at home—only draws attention to China’s own human rights failings, and undermines China’s soft power.”
Read the full opinion piece, published 3/12/13 by CNN.
