← New Books Network
New Books Network
Gregg A. Brazinsky, "Cold War Comrades: An Emotional History of the Sino-North Korean Alliance" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
00:46:10
Loading summary
Transcript42 lines
- [00:00]
Quince Brand Representative
I love wearing clothing that's both comfortable and elevated. Outfits I can wear on a walk through the park or in a meeting with a client. Quince has become my go to with fabrics that are incredibly soft, clean and versatile. This spring I refresh my wardrobe with quints. I especially love their Pima cotton tees and bamboo jersey lounge shorts. Surprisingly soft and breathable with a quality level you'd expect to pay a lot more for. If you're looking for new clothes this spring, I highly recommend checking out their Italian swim trunks. I love swimming but can never find swimwear that feels comfortable and looks good. Quince's swimwear is the best I've ever owned. I can't emphasize enough how affordable Quince is for the quality you get. Check out their incredible deals and offerings, especially if you're looking for clothes that feel good and look great. Whether you're at the office or the beach. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com NewBooks for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com NewBooks for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com NewBooks all new drinks are now
- [01:09]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry
- [01:12]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher
- [01:16]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all now at McDonald's.
- [01:31]
Quince Brand Representative
Refreshers contain caffeine. Copyright 2026 the Coca Cola Company Sprite is a registered trademark of the Coca
- [01:35]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Cola Company Expedia and visit Scotland. Invite you to come Step into centuries of history that await in Scotland. Castles steeped in legend. Walk along cobblestone streets. Come share the warmth of stories passed down through generations. This is a place with a past that is fully present today and all yours to explore. Plan your Scottish escape today@expedia.com VisitScotland welcome
- [02:07]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
to the New Books Network
- [02:11]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Greg Brzezinski about his book titled Cold War Comrades An Emotional History of the Sino North Korean alliance, published by Cambridge University Press in 2026. Now, obviously, China and North Korea have had an alliance in many ways, many different kinds of alliance for some decades now, and it's pretty important to both Countries, especially to North Korea. And this book really takes that alliance as its subject, examining quite what makes it so strong. And of course, as the subtitle of the book suggests, we're going to be focusing on emotions to. To make sense of this. So we have a whole bunch of things to discuss. Greg, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [03:02]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Thank you, Miranda. It's a pleasure to be here speaking with you.
- [03:05]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, I'm very pleased to have you. Could you start us off, please, by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book? I mean, what kinds of questions did you want to answer as you developed this project?
- [03:17]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Sure. So, as you know, my name is Greg Brzezinski and I'm a professor of history and International affairs at the Elliott School, where I'm also the director of the Asian Studies MA program. And I came to this book a little bit by accident. I think I had written previous books. I wrote two previous books about Korea and China. The first of the first book is called Nation Building in South Korea, and it looks at US Relations with South Korea. I learned Korean when I was in graduate school to write that book. And then a second book that I wrote about nine years ago is called Winning the Third World that deals with Sino American rivalry in Asia and Africa during the Cold War. And I'd learned Mandarin to work on that book. And I think what sort of happened with this book is I finished this, you know, the book about China and China America rivalry in, in Asia and Africa. And I was sort of thinking about where to go next. And I happened to run into a very well known scholar, Francis Degli Ola, when I was in the National Archives. He's an expert on emotions and the role of emotions in diplomatic history. And he's done some very interesting work on that. And he said, you know, I'm compiling this edited volume and we could really use a chapter about East Asia. And so I said, okay, no promises, but I'll think about it. And then over the weekend, this idea came to me that I had a lot of Chinese materials about North Korea that I'd collected from Chinese archives over the years, partially because when I was researching my previous work that the book was not focused on Korea, but because I'd been interested in Korea as well. I just couldn't not copy those materials out of the archive. They were just too interesting. And I sort of remembered that a lot of them used this very emotional language in describing North Korea. And I also was aware of North Korean sources that used similar kinds of rhetoric about China. And so I went back to Professor Castigliola and I said, okay, I have a topic. So I did write the chapter for his edited volume, but the edited volume sort of didn't quite come together. But then I sort of thought about this and said, well, I can just publish this as an article in a journal, but I think there's more to say. And I did additional research in Chinese archives and, and North Korean materials and eventually it grew into a short book. And so that's what eventually led to the, you know, led to me writing and publishing Cold War Comrades.
- [06:24]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Thank you for telling us that sort of history of the project. I think so often things sort of start from, oh, that could be interesting. Maybe that's a few paragraphs. Oh, maybe that's a chapter. Oh, wait, hang on, it's actually a book. So thank you for giving us that kind of behind the scenes insight. And I think it now lets us go into the content of what you were putting together. So thinking about emotions, when it comes to China and North Korea, as well as their relationship, I think I'm not the only one where kind of as soon as you put those words out in the air, the thing that immediately comes to mind is kind of these cults of personality right around for example, Mao Zedong or Kim Il Sung. Like that's a really iconographic in many ways aspect of this. So can you talk to us about those cults of personality, the sort of top down emotional norm of it? How does that work to create these strong emotional ties?
- [07:18]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Yes, I think that's a very important question. First of all, when you create a regime, especially an authoritarian regime of the kind that existed in Cold War era China and North Korea, how do you get people to believe in it? How do you get people to acquiesce in it? And one of the key things that I think these kinds of states need to do is to appeal to the emotions of their subjects, influence the emotions of their citizens. And this was a very important component, I believe, in the cults of personality of both Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung. Both of them, for different reasons, really tried to appeal not only to the political instincts of the people that they would govern, but also to, to, to really build a kind of emotional connection with, with their subjects. And if you look at, I think in North Korea today, it's still very much apparent because you're, you have the grandson of Kim Il Sung in charge of North Korea now. And some of this still exists and persists in the way North Koreans are encouraged to write about their leaders in the way the leaders themselves sometimes try to express themselves to the population as a whole. So I think, you know, I think the, the idea of an emotional regime which I develop and why I actually don't develop it myself, it comes from some previous scholarship on the history of emotions. But I use the idea of emotional regime that William Reddy actually pioneered and look at its applicability to North Korea and China. And you know, one of the obvious, you know, I think it just becomes obvious that this is what cults of personality try to do. They try to create a set of emotional norms. Subjects who conform to these emotional norms are rewarded. Those who don't conform are punished or at a disadvantage in politics and society. And this would ultimately become a very important part of how both Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung gained power and how the CCP and KWP were able to retain power during the early years
- [10:05]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
of the Cold War and how they were able to talk about how they work together. Right. There was kind of like a cross country awareness of each other's cult of personality, and that was kind of part of how it was sold to the people within each country. Is that right?
- [10:19]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Yes. I mean, I think that's also a major part of the argument that this, the idea of mutual empathy as a critical part of this so called emotional regime, or as a critical part of the emotional norms that Chinese and North Koreans were expected to believe in and to express and to, to manifest. And I think, I think there was a variety of reasons that this emotional norm became important in particular. First of all, of course, you have China's intervention in the Korean War and so on the Chinese side, you needed some way to make Chinese people who were sacrificing for and fighting in the war feel a determination to support this cause. A real, you know, a real zeal for, for, for defeating the United States and China's purported enemies and defending North Korea. And of course, part of those emotions were negative hatred of the United States, hatred of imperialism. But there also needed to be some kind of positive element there. What were they fighting for? And this is where making, representing North Koreans as virtuous people who had been subject first to Japanese colonialism and now American imperialism, and getting Chinese people to empathize with their suffering was very, very critical to the PRC in selling the Korean War and justifying why China was intervening in the Korean War to its people. And again, you have to remember, the People's Republic of China itself had only been established, inaugurated in 1949. So in 1950, nobody knows that it's still going to exist 50 and 60 years later. Right. So that was one dimension of it. And then also from the North Korean side, all of the sudden they found themselves in this wartime alliance with China. And you know, there were, there were reasons in North Korea to admire China, but there were also reasons for North Koreans to mistrust China at the time. And so what was the new relationship going to be like? And also how do North Koreans respond to the fact that there are so many Chinese volunteers who have crossed the Yalu and are serving in the Korean War and they're now living day to day alongside North Korean people? How do you get North Koreans to accept this and be supportive? And once again, a lot of it has to do with appealing to emotions.
- [13:29]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
I mean, especially in that context of war. And as you said, the timing of the kind of precarity of the CCP really makes sense that that would be such an emphasis from both sides governments. It's interesting though, of course, that these emotional ties and the kind of call to people's emotions continue even after the war is over. Which is particularly interesting when one thinks about kind of maybe you're not as united against an enemy in such a clear cut way at that point. So you've still got this very like, let's be empathetic, let's understand each other, this is so important. But they don't. It's not like North Korea and China completely agree about everything for decades. So like, how does that work to have sort of the leaders going, oh, they're our brothers, we love them so much, but also we need them to do this and they don't want to. Like, how are those sorts of tensions navigated?
- [14:21]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Right. So there's a couple of points there. First, in terms of why this idea of Sino North Korean friendship persists after the Korean War. I think part of the reason that that happens is the Korean War itself is such a critical part of the legitimacy narratives of both China and North Korea. North Korea, from their perspective, they'd helped to repel an invasion, an effort to destroy their state by the United States and imperialism. And it was Kim Il Sung's government who had played the, played an important role in this. Right. And from the Chinese perspective as well, they, they'd lost millions of troops during the Korean War. So you can't, you know, you can't just turn around and say, well, that was all worthless or that was all for nothing. You needed to maintain ideological consistency and try to keep Chinese people You know, try to, try to, try to make sure that. Try to make sure that Chinese in general continue to harbor these positive feelings about the war and about North Korea. And that takes me to sort of the second part of your question, which is that there were political differences between the Chinese leadership and the North Korean leadership. And I would say a few things on that. There is one school of literature on China, North Korean relations, that really, really emphasizes the conflict between the conflicts between Chinese leadership and North Korean, North Korea's leadership. And I agree with them in many ways. I think undoubtedly there were points in the relationship, especially 1956, but there were also disagreements between Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung during the Korean War that got pretty intense and pretty heated and were in some ways difficult. But I think, you know, first of all, that that kind of, these kinds of conflicts were never made known to the public. So there, you usually wouldn't see an article about, you know, an article in a major Chinese newspaper or major North Korean newspaper that would say, you know, the meeting between Mao and Kim was filled with friction and tension. So most of it was kept hidden, though, you know, there are certainly some points where praise for China gets a little less emphasis in North Korea's propaganda and praise for North Korea gets a little less emphasis in Chinese propaganda. But the general idea is that even if there are conflicts between the leaders, you still need to, you still need to maintain belief and credibility among the population. And if you, if you say, well, this Kim Il Sung is a terrible guy, why did we fight a war to defend him and his regime? It's something that could have seriously undermined China's legitimacy narrative or the legitimacy narrative of the Chinese Communist Party. And so that's, that's one of the, you know, that, that, that's one of the dynamics behind it. But I would also say that because they have, both the Chinese and North Korean leadership have such a persistent interest in maintaining this idea of Sino North Korean friendship, they also have an interest in limiting their disputes. And so I agree with people who've emphasized that there were disagreements between Kim and Mao, that those disagreements existed, but they never, they almost never, in fact, never let these disagreements completely destroy the relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang. And if you look at the world today, you could say that that's still very much the case where, you know, North Korea and Beijing are probably still closer to each other than they are to most other countries. And, you know, I think that's, that's really been a characteristic of how things have developed in Their relationship since the Cold War.
- [19:06]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's definitely interesting to be able to trace over such a long period of time. Now, obviously we've talked about the leaders and that being a really key aspect of it. We've talked about the military volunteers, as you mentioned, that went to North Korea and fought and died in many cases as well. Beyond those two sort of groups of people though, what were some other kind of groups that the governments worked on to create mutual empathy?
- [19:32]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Right, thank you. So one of the groups that I mention, of course in the book are what I call cadres. And the term cadre can mean, can be pretty broad. It can refer from everything to sort of a low ranking official or even mid level ranking, mid ranking official in a ministry. It sometimes applied to factory managers, people who worked on state run official newspapers. So all of these were sort of, you know, considered cadres and members of the party, whether it's the Chinese Communist Party or the Korean Workers Party. And so you, you can't have mutual empathy and sentimental attachments only exist between the high ranking elites and the party. You also needed to encourage them among the rest of the party membership. And of course, you know, in both the CCP and the kwp, their, their membership is pretty vast. And I, in the book, I talk about some of the mechanisms for that. One of the, and I found it was pretty broad and it did encompass pretty much everything from economic delegations made up of people who managed factories and who had positions in, you know, finance or economic ministries. And then it also included everything down to, you know, for instance, it included everything down to, from universities and even things like zoos. So one of the more interesting things that I found when I was researching the book is that Beijing and Pyongyang actually had a zoological exchange program. And China would send some of its zoology experts to North Korea and Pyongyang and help it develop a zoo there. And they would also gift animals. So North Korea is actually one of the few countries that is gifted a panda bear during the Cold War. And similarly, North Korea would send its zoologists to China. And of course, part of the purpose of these exchanges is to improve the technical knowledge on both sides. But another purpose of it was also to try to make sure that these party cadres continued to demonstrate the state sanctioned emotional norms. And they were supposed to express empathy for each other and sympathy for each other during these meetings. They were exp. They were supposed to express admiration for each other's successes in socialist development during these meetings. And so the states made sure to try made sure that a particular kind of atmosphere and set of norms prevailed in these kinds of lower level meetings between party cadres
- [22:50]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Ready to soundtrack your summer with Red Bull Summer All Day Play? You choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end dj, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play Red Bull gives you wings. Visit RedBull.com BrightSummerAhead to learn more. See you this summer.
- [23:17]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Pool days call for cookouts and lots
- [23:20]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
of laundry this Memorial Day at Lowe's. Save $80 on a Char Broil Performance
- [23:25]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Series 4 burner gas grill now just
- [23:27]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
$199 plus get up to 45% off.
- [23:30]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Select major appliances to keep dishes, clothes and food fresh.
- [23:34]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Having fun in the sun is easy with us in your corner. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's Validu 527 while supplies last selection varies by location.
- [23:43]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
See associate@lowes.com for details.
- [23:47]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You know those friends who support your preference for podcasts over music on road trips. That's the energy State Farm brings to insurance. With over 19,000 local agents, they help you find the coverage that fits your needs so you can spend less time worrying about insurance and more time enjoying the ride. Download the State Farm app or go online@statefarm.com like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This summer. Serve up the Cookout Classics Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Heinz Mustard. Grill up a dog, add classic yellow mustard or Loaded Chicago style. We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Mayer and Heinz. Okay, that's very interesting to hear about, especially as you said, because the memberships in both parties are pretty big, but not everyone. So if you weren't one of these military volunteers who had gone over to fight, or you weren't a cadre, what sort of opportunities might you have had, if any, to form emotional bonds with the other countries?
- [24:52]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Right, And I try to talk about that in the book as well, though in some ways it's the hardest thing to get at. One of the things that I do look at is cultural spectacle and cultural performances, and this is something that was actually pretty important to both the CCP and the KWP during the Cold War. They were both trying to develop their culture industries and and there was a lot of exchange and some of the exchanges occurred in in areas that were designed very specifically to appeal to the emotions of people that were sort of outside the typical party cadres and elites. One of them was theater. I spend a good amount of time in the book talking about theatrical exchanges which also actually have their root in the Korean War. But one of the more interesting examples that I had was that during the Korean War, some well known Chinese opera performers, and in particular performers of what's known as the Yue Opera, which is sort of different from Beijing opera. And you know, they were dispatched to North Korea and they learned about this famous North Korean story known as Chunhyang, which is, you know, I'm not going to go into too much detail about, about sort of the, the basic elements of the story, but it focuses on sort of a suffering North Korean young woman who falls in love with a more elite scholar and sort of the trials and tribulations of their relationship. But this, this, this play or theatrical, it actually originally was a North Korean Pansori, but by the 1950s they were actually also performing it as a play and, and then an opera. But it had tremendous capacity to appeal to Chinese audiences in exactly the way that, that the CCP wanted to appeal to Chinese audiences because the North Korean interpretation of it put a sort of heavy emphasis on class and class oppression. And so the, the Yue opera performers learned this and they eventually the, the opera performers learned this and they eventually, you know, performed it in it, performed it in China. And that was something that was extremely popular at the time. China's leadership was very happy about it. And you know, that was the kind of thing that you could do to influence the sentiments of people who were sort of outside of the elite. And you know, I try to cover those in the book.
- [28:00]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I can imagine why that's the hardest part to get at, but of course, very interesting. So thank you for giving us a sense of what you cover in the book. Book. Now we've been discussing this obviously with a focus on the Korean War and kind of mentioning the Cold War. And that's obviously in the title of the book, Cold War Comrades as well. And yet there are aspects of what we've been discussing so far that we've both kind of mentioned are still around or still recognisable today, but not quite the same as this sort of peak level activity that you're discussing. And in the book you discuss the ways in which the Sino Korean friendship might be considered something of a casualty of the Cultural Revolution. So what was going on there?
- [28:40]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Right. And I don't quite say it's a casualty of the Cultural Revolution, but I do say that the Cultural Revolution is a low point in the relationship between China and North Korea. And I think it happens for a variety of reasons. First, within China, the Cultural Revolution is madness. And they basically start calling everybody revisionists. And so even within China, some people who had been loyal to the party for a long time were expected to go, go through self criticism. Some of them were disciplined, most famously Deng Xiaoping. So no matter how close you were to the Chinese leadership or the, or the party during the Cultural Revolution, things became so radical and so fanatical that a lot of the times they were facing criticism all of a sudden. And so that was very much what happened with North Korea, where all of a sudden Chinese, you know, radicals started saying, well, Kim Il Sung is also a revisionist, and the North Koreans didn't like that very much. And you could see and what we know of North Korea's conversations, conversations between North Korea's leaders and other foreign leaders during this period, that they were very alarmed and threatened by the direction China was going during the Cultural Revolution. But I would say that the Cultural Revolution does not destroy the relationship between China and North Korea by 1970, that China is working very actively to repair it. And in particular, you know, Joe Enlai is sent to North Korea. And you know, Joe Enlai was someone who is deeply respected in North Korea from everything that we, we can discern. And they sort of repaired the relationship to a degree in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. So I would certainly say it was a low point, but I don't think it completely destroys the relationship. I think there's still. Yeah, I think that the two would, would be pretty close in a lot of ways during the 1970s, even though things were changing a lot in both countries.
- [31:14]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I want to talk about that change because as you mentioned, a lot is changing in the 70s, but of course, even more so as we go into the 80s and the 90s. So, like, why bother repairing the relationship? Why is this rhetoric of friendship still useful to both countries even as they seem to be going in quite different directions?
- [31:33]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Yes, I think it becomes useful because they, they need to legitimize the new directions that they're going in. And they realize that it's easier to justify these new directions if they could demonstrate that it was supported by their close ally in, in the communist world. So especially with, with North Korea, where they suddenly, they. I, I wouldn't say suddenly, but they gradually shift from sort of what seemed to be socialism to a system that would continue the cult of personality and veneration for not only Kim Il Sung, but for his heirs. And so they go from, they basically become a hereditary authoritarian government. But how do you, how do you justify this? And one of the things that they did was they, they got, they, they got China's approval of it. And so by having Kim Jong Il go to China and meet with the Chinese leaders, they were able to give it a sort of sense of legitimacy. Similarly, when, when China starts to transition towards market reforms during the late 1970s and early 1980s, this is a pretty turbulent time in Chinese history. And so you, you, you want to have, you want to have some way of assuring people that you weren't just throwing out the traditional moorings of Chinese communism. And so one of the ways to do that was to continue to have these public displays of affection between Chinese leaders and North Korean leaders. And so this, this was also, you know, pretty, this, this was also part of the international politics of the 1970s, where the relationship between Deng Xiaoping and North Korean leaders during this period, it, it wasn't quite what it was during the heyday of the Cold War, where both of them were trying to consolidate new regimes, and they were going in very different directions in some ways, but they, they, they still wanted people. I think you still need to maintain people's acquiescence for the direction that you're going in. And Sino, North Korean friendship remained part of that. And, and so, and so that's really how the relationship evolved. And I think why, if you look at the relations between Beijing and Pyongyang during the 1970s and into the 1980s, they actually remain pretty close. And I would say North Korea was certainly closer to China than it was to any other country for most of the 70s and 80s.
- [34:49]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
And what does that then mean for the countries now? How does this history help us understand their relationship today?
- [34:55]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
I think for a long time in Washington, D.C. where I am, there was always this sort of naive hope that China would abandon North Korea and that this would somehow make it easier for the United States to force North Korea to denuclearize or to sort of solve the North Korea problem once and for all. And this kind of rhetoric was very prominent about, I would say, about 15, 16 years ago. And it sort of persisted into maybe the early years of the first Trump administration, the idea that China was somehow going to help us on North Korea, and that never happened. It's true that China did pressure North Korea to participate in talks from time to time, but they never cut off the relationship. They never abandoned the relationship. North Korea tested nuclear weapons, which China had cautioned it against doing it, did it anyway. But did they completely sever ties? No. And so, and I think if you look at the relationship now, they've actually moved closer together again, which has also been tendency over the years. They may have their quarrels from time to time, but they, they tend to eventually move closer together. And so back when I was hearing this rhetoric or this, this, these arguments that China could, you know, would, would somehow abandon North Korea, I was just sort of sitting back and saying, you know, no, they're not. That's not going to happen. And, you know, people thought it would. I think Chinese policymakers and scholars who were critical of North Korea and who suggested this or, or suggested that China could or should abandon North Korea, they were given a lot of emphasis in the US Media and you know, just as a, as sort of a way to show, look, the Chinese are becoming responsible stakeholders now, they're moving in this direction that's going to benefit the United States and help us solve the North Korea problem. But that's actually not what happened in the end. And so I think to understand, though, why this shift didn't happen, you have to look at the history of both countries. You have to understand the emotional norms that have undergirded the relationship between China and North Korea, and you have to understand the significance of both the Korean War and the sort of tradition of Sino North Korean friendship to the legitimacy of both the CCP leadership and the North Korean leadership. And I would make one more point about the present day. If you look at the way China's leadership has sort of changed a bit during the Xi Jinping era. And Xi Jinping has in some ways been trying to go back to some of the traditional moorings of communism and emulating Mao Zedong in a variety of ways and the cult of personality that surrounded Mao and in a lot of ways. So, you know, during the Mao Zedong era, you had Mao Zedong thought and Xi Jinping has put this emphasis on Xi Jinping thought, right? So I think that this, that, that these efforts to sort of embrace Maoism and emulate Maoism, they are also to some degree behind the, behind the fact that China and North Korea have moved closer together again and that, you know, China has most recently been mostly ignoring sanctions and working around them and helping North Korea to work around them. And you know, I think in this context, the idea that someday the bond will break, maybe, you know, maybe, you know, if you keep saying something will happen, maybe it will happen in a hundred years or something, but for the foreseeable future, I don't think China is going to be abandoning North Korea.
- [39:40]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, we shall certainly have to see and you've given us helpful insight into the past to understand the present and who knows about the future. So is there anything else we want to discuss about this book? Anything that surprised you in the research process?
- [39:53]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Well, you know, I guess what the things that were most surprising tended to come from tended to come from what's called provincial archives, or actually in my case, municipal archives in China. They're actually very interesting places to work. It used to be that you could have access to the Foreign Ministry archive in China, but that's much, much less accessible than it was when I was writing my book, though the municipal and provincial archives were still quite open. And that's where you could really see things as they were unfolding at a more local level. And I think this, these materials do give you just some snapshots of life at very local level in, in the prc. And, and some of this stuff, you know, that I've read, on the one hand, you see how powerful the emotional norms were and the state ideology was, but you could also see sort of how people were, were trying to, you know, negotiate it. And so that's one thing that surprised me. The other thing that, you know, people would be interested in is how rich North Korea's print culture was during the 1950s. This is very surprising. If you look at North Korea in 1953, it's completely war torn and devastated. Yet by 1956, 1957, North Korea and South Korea for that matter, both of them have dozens, if not hundreds of new publications that cover many different aspects. And these sources were also important to me in writing the book. The Library of Congress has an extensive collection of these North Korean periodicals. Some of them go back to the Korean War period, some of them go to the, the 1950s through the 1950s, 60s, 70s. But I was, I was surprised initially at how rich they were. And also people tend to portray things as the state said this and people wrote it. But you can also see, I think if you read the, the, these North Korean magazines that some of the feeling for China is really genuine. And you know, there's parts where people may have had what they were writing dictated to them by the party or the state, but, but there's some places where there is a sort of spontaneity to it. And I do think that the Korean War, it does create some real lasting bonds between Chinese and North Koreans, that it's, you know, state propaganda and emotional norms play a role, but experiences on the ground can also reinforce those emotional norms. And I think a lot of Chinese volunteers had had, you know, very fond memories of North Korean families, who they interacted with or who hosted them. And some of the North Koreans also genuinely had some enthusiasm for China and the volunteers. And so this was, this was also something that was very interesting and fascinating both the, you know, both the, the speed with which North Korea was able to, was able to expand its print culture during the 1950s and sort of the, you know, the nature of some of the articles you can see in
- [44:08]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
there, definitely very interesting to be able to get a glimpse of all of those details. So thank you for sharing that with us. What, may I ask, are you working on now that the book is done? Anything related or not you want to give us a sneak preview of?
- [44:21]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Well, not quite related, but sort of related. I've written my last two books, you know, focusing heavily on communist Asia. And one of the reasons for that was because it used to be sort of, it used to be relatively easy to do research in mainland China. And if you look at how things were in 2009, 2010, new sources seem to be opening, new opportunities for academic exchange seem to be becoming more common. And so that was very exciting. But that has sort of closed up quite a bit under the current Chinese leadership. And, you know, prospects for doing research about mainland China aren't what they were. I also have a book that is long overdue for a grant that I received a while ago about nation building in Asia. And so, so, you know, what I've, what I've decided to focus on in my next book is really building off this theme. My first book was about nation building in South Korea. But, you know, I still speak Korean, I still speak Mandarin. I've actually been learning Japanese recently. And so what I want to do in, in my next book is look at why South Korea, Taiwan and Japan became prosperous democracies and south and soft culture powerhouses and what the role of the United States was in that process. And so I've been, you know, doing research in Taiwan, South Korea. I have plans to go to Japan. And I think right now some of the most interesting new archives that are opening in East Asia are in Taiwan where they've, they have, they actually have very rich documentation of their history during the, you know, 1960s, 70s, 80s, and they've been releasing more and more of it. You've also, I've also seen a growing number of archival materials from Japan, which took a while, but in recent years, their Cold War archives Cold War Era archives have become more available and so I'm sort of following the archives. But I've also been interested in this topic for a long time and I think it's sort of the main direction that I want to go at this point.
- [47:09]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, it certainly sounds interesting, so best of luck with those archives and the project while you are working and excavating your way through them. Of course listeners can read the book we've been discussing titled Cold War Comrades An Emotional History of the Sino North Korean alliance, published by Cambridge University Press in 2026. Greg, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [47:31]
Dr. Greg Brzezinski
Thank you once again for having me.
- [47:33]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Thank you for listening to this episode of the New Books Network. We are an academic podcast network with the mission of public education. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and rate us on your preferred podcast platform. You can browse all of our episodes on our website newbooksnetwork.com Connect with us on Instagram and BlueSky with the handle ew booksnetwork, and subscribe to our weekly Substack newsletter at newbooksnetwork.substack.com to get episode recommendations straight to your inbox. Foreign. Some Follow the noise. Bloomberg Follows the money Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@bloomberg.com.