The bilateral relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) (simplified Chinese: 中朝关系; traditional Chinese: 中朝關係; pinyin: Zhōngcháo Guānxì, Korean: 조중 관계, romanized: Chojoong Kwangye) have been generally friendly, although they have been somewhat strained in recent years because of North Korea's nuclear program.

Both countries established diplomatic relations on 6 October 1949, 5 days after the declaration of the PRC, and China sent troops to aid North Korea during the Korean War.

Relations have again been increasingly close since 2018, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un making multiple trips to Beijing to meet Chinese Communist Party general secretary and president Xi Jinping,[4] who himself visited Pyongyang in June 2019.

[10] In April 1950, Stalin put pressure on Kim Il-Sung to gain Chinese approval for an invasion of South Korea, stating: “If you should get kicked in the teeth, I shall not lift a finger.

[14] Shortly after, the Soviet Ambassador to China reported in a telegram to Stalin that the Chinese felt frustrated that the "Korean comrades [had] underestimated the possibility of American armed intervention".

[19] On 1 October, Kim Il-Sung held an emergency meeting with the Chinese ambassador to the North, Ni Zhiliang, petitioning for their urgent entry into the conflict.

National Defense Minister and commander of the Chinese forces in Korea Peng Dehuai urged Mao to remove Kim from power, but he was sidelined after he criticized the Great Leap Forward.

[24] In 1956, at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 3rd Central Committee, leading pro-China Korean figures known as the Yan'an faction attempted to remove Kim Il Sung from power with the support of China and the Soviet Union, but failed.

As Sino-Soviet relations turned sour, the DPRK & the PRC gradually warmed to each other, as they were closer ideologically than their eastern European counterparts, and shared a common enemy: the United States.

[24] In 1961, the two countries signed the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, whereby China pledged to immediately render military and other assistance by all means to its ally against any outside attack.

[37] Shortly after, in June 1970, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty was extended, allowing American military bases to continue operation in Japan, and ensuring that they would both act to defend each other in the event of a war.

[6] China subsequently stopped selling goods to North Korea at discounted "friendship prices" and providing interest-free loans, leading to the decline of DPRK-PRC trade in the 1990s.

[6] In August 2012, Jang Song-thaek, uncle of Kim Jong Un, met Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

The meeting was allegedly taped by Zhou Yongkang, then secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, who informed Kim Jong Un of the plot.

[citation needed] The involvement of the United States in the peninsula's affairs in April–May 2017 presented a major issue for China-American relations in organiser Li Xiaolin's preparations for Xi's visit to the US.

[43] President Hu Jintao sent Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing to Pyongyang to negotiate with Kim Jong Il to halt the nuclear program.

According to U.S. National Security Council Director for Asian Affairs Victor Cha, Hu Jintao and the Chinese government were genuinely outraged by the test because North Korea had led it to believe that it did not have nuclear weapons and ignored its advice against building them.

According to KCNA, China Central Television "seriously spoiled the atmosphere of the feast by publishing presumptuous comments of individual experts" and the Global Times was condemned for "the behavior of scattering ashes on other's happy day as they bring the denuclearization issue".

[68] In October 2019, the two countries celebrated the 70th anniversary of the establishment of relations, with KCNA saying that their "invincible friendship will be immortal on the road of accomplishing the cause of socialism".

[71] In July 2023, CCP Politburo member and first vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Li Hongzhong visited North Korea to attend the 70th Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War, the first trip by a high-ranking Chinese official since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[80] Many North Korean defectors travel through their 1,416-km-long border with China rather than through the de facto Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to reach South Korea.

[81] However, China does not recognize North Korean defectors as refugees but rather classifies them as ‘economic migrants’ referring to their immigration due to food and financial struggles.

[81] The Chinese government most commonly forces defectors to return to North Korea if they are caught[81] but in some instances has allowed them to pass through China into a third country.

[87] Incidents in which Chinese state forces physically dragged defectors who were seeking asylum from the front steps of Japanese and South Korean consulates received international media attention and caused diplomatic rifts between involved countries.

[93] China is a major investor in North Korea's mining and metallurgical industries including steel and iron, copper, coal, and rare-earth minerals.

North Korea, due to their Enterprise Law in 2013 and 2015 allowed companies more freedom to control their own production, leading to an influx in Chinese raw materials and boosting bilateral trade.

In September 2021, reports indicated that the Chinese government continued to smuggle imports of North Korean coal due to energy shortage issues throughout China.

China has attempted to decrease the severity of sanctions against North Korean goods to address trade issues by appealing to the United Nations Security Council in November of the same year.

According to Chinese historian Shen Zhihua, Kim was interested in another war to conquer South Korea after the Communist victory in Vietnam, but Mao refused to discuss the matter.

According to Japanese historian Masao Okonogi, the lack of Chinese support caused North Korea to adopt an independent approach to national defence and develop nuclear weapons.