Gregg A. Brazinsky, "Cold War Comrades: An Emotional History of the Sino-North Korean Alliance" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

About this episode

Dr. Gregg A. Brazinsky discusses the emotional history of the Sino-North Korean alliance and its impact on socialist state building.

In this major new interpretation of Sino-North Korean relations, Dr. Gregg A. Brazinsky argues that neither the PRC nor the DPRK would have survived as socialist states without the ideal of Sino-North Korean friendship. Chinese and North Korean leaders encouraged mutual empathy and sentimental attachments between their citizens and then used these emotions to strengthen popular commitment to socialist state building. Drawing on an array of previously unexamined Chinese and North Korean sources, in Cold War Comrades: An Emotional History of the Sino-North Korean Alliance (Cambridge UP, 2026), Dr. Brazinsky shows how mutual empathy helped to shape political, military, and cultural interactions between the two socialist allies. He explains why the unique relationship that Beijing and Pyongyang forged during the Korean War remained important throughout the Cold War and how it continues to influence the international relations of East Asia today. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican…

People in this episode

Host: Miranda Melcher

Guest: Gregg A. Brazinsky

Topics covered

• Sino-North Korean relations
• Cold War history
• socialist states
• empathy in politics
• international relations

Keywords

• Sino-North Korean alliance
• Cold War
• socialism
• mutual empathy
• political interactions

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cambridge UP

Places: PRC, DPRK, East Asia

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