The recent deterioration of North Korea-China relationships has been accompanied by an exchange of criticism which has surprised observers with its seemingly unprecedented hostility. 

Mutual diatribes by the decades-long political partners, who have accused each other of various transgressions, signify a radical turn in what for decades looked like an unbreakable alliance, glued together by shared economic interests and political sympathies.

Yet there are reasons to think that we are witnessing not a “sudden fissure in friendship”, but rather a process of venting long-suppressed negative feelings, at least from the North Korean side, and a closer investigation of DPRK official