Given China’s past support for North Korea’s sanctions-violating actions, the rapprochement between North Korea and Russia has raised questions as to China’s response, since China ultimately remains North Korea’s principal economic benefactor and largest trading partner. At the end of 2023, trade with China amounted to more than 98 per cent of North Korea’s annual foreign trade. Despite its pivot to Russia, North Korea’s economic dependence on China has not meaningfully reduced. Russia–China trade, particularly in dual-use technologies, has also continued, even in light of the renewed partnership between North Korea and Russia. As several interviewees for this paper suggested, however, although the three countries may share a common adversary in the US and US-led international order, relations between them are more accurately conceptualized as three separate sets of bilateral relations rather than any unified ‘strategic triangle’. This configuration, however, may – and will likely – change in the future.
North Korea’s diversification in military and economic cooperation, away from China, would certainly have not gone unnoticed in Beijing, not least considering Kim Jong Un’s repeated claims that Russia is now North Korea’s ‘number one’ foreign policy priority. In public, however, the Chinese Communist Party has been reluctant to articulate its position on the issue. Even in the aftermath of the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, the Chinese foreign ministry deemed North Korea–Russia military cooperation to be ‘a matter between two sovereign states’, while continuing to highlight its opposition to enforcing ‘sanctions and pressure’ on North Korea. More recently, the Chinese foreign ministry has also denied any knowledge of the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia.
The fact that China continues to assist North Korea in evading multilateral sanctions emphasizes how China is ultimately seeking to keep North Korea ‘at bay’ without abandoning it completely.
China’s hesitation over taking a public stance on North Korea–Russia cooperation emphasizes its predicament. On the one hand, it does not want North Korea to become too close to Russia. China does not wish to lose influence over its smaller neighbour for fear of instability on the Korean peninsula – particularly owing to North Korea’s increasing nuclearization. On the other hand, Beijing’s hesitation over criticizing both Pyongyang and Moscow indicates China’s wish to maintain its ‘strong glue’ with the other two states in combating their ‘common enemy’ of the US and its allies of Japan and South Korea. The fact that China continues to assist North Korea in evading multilateral sanctions, whether through facilitating illicit ship-to-ship imports of North Korean coal and port-to-port smuggling of oil, or by employing North Korean labourers and computer hackers, emphasizes how China is ultimately seeking to keep North Korea ‘at bay’ without abandoning it completely.
In this vein, one South Korean official raised the possibility that China might not be as dissatisfied with the North Korea–Russia partnership as many analysts have claimed. According to this perspective, the partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang could, in fact, strengthen Beijing’s own position in northeast Asia. Given China’s concern with its international reputation – a claim that can hardly be said of Russia or North Korea – Russia’s newfound role as the region’s ‘bad cop’ thereby frees China from engaging in any direct action against the US and its allies. Furthermore, reunification with Taiwan remains a far higher foreign policy priority for China under Xi Jinping than providing active support for North Korea.
