ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the changing priorities in Chinese foreign policy from the era of Mao Zedong to the era of Deng Xiaoping and the post-Deng era, in order to fully understand Beijing's considerations behind its Korea policy. An examination of China's foreign relations with the countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the two Koreas included, highlights three basic trends modernization, nationalism, and regionalism influencing China's foreign policy. The future of Korea specifically, the North-South conflict and the issue of Korean unification is closely connected to China. A major difficulty in establishing relations with South Korea was China's need for North Korea's support for survival of Beijing's communist regime after the Tiananmen incident in 1989. There are about two million Korean minorities in China, most of whom live in the bordering Jilin province. The most well-known Chinese-Korean community area is the Yanbian Korean Minority Autonomous Region. Historically, China and Korea shared complex and intimate relations, which were symbolized by a hierarchical tributary system.
