My Take | ‘Heroic nation’: how North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia is changing attitudes in China
The Chinese public who once derided North Korea as a ‘neighbourhood hooligan’ is now hailing its decision to help Russia in the Ukraine war
Within a few short weeks, the image of North Korea among the Chinese public has turned from a source of derision into an object of admiration, mainly due to Pyongyang’s decision to send troops to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine.
During the 18 years I spent in mainland China, mostly as a Beijing-based correspondent, I had undertaken a number of work and tourist trips to North Korea.
When they learned about my trips, many Chinese would share with me their general impressions – mostly unflattering with some throwing in a few choice words – about their closest neighbour.
The first is the erratic nature of the regime, which is unabashed about taking large amounts of aid from Beijing but yet has no qualms about posing a threat to China and the region by undertaking nuclear proliferation and firing short-range and multiple missiles.
“What a shameless neighbourhood hooligan,” I remember a Chinese bureaucrat once telling me.
Another pervasive impression is the extreme poverty of the secretive country, where the regime is said to have reportedly starved its own people while enriching itself.
