Alliance Treaty as Wedge Strategy: The Origin of the China-North Korea 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance

What explains China’s decision to sign an alliance treaty with North Korea in 1961? The treaty was redundant to deter the United States and South Korea because China had credibly established its resolve and capability to defend North Korea after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. The treaty even increased the risk of China’s entrapment in a Korean conflict. This article develops a triangular theory of alliance formation to show that China’s signing of the treaty was intended to drive a wedge between North Korea and the Soviet Union, not to deter South Korea and the United States. China was thus willing to incur more risk to neutralize North Korea from a pro-Soviet position. This article tests the theory by process tracing events in the China–North Korea–Soviet Union triangle from 1948 to 1961 with a plausibility probe of the China–North Vietnam–Soviet Union triangle from 1954 to 1965. The article concludes with implications for the contemporary China–North Korea–Russia bloc and the study of alliance politics in the Asian context.