Why China is keeping its distance as Russia and North Korea cosy up

South China Morning Post has published an article arguing that Beijing, a close partner of Moscow and Pyongyang, is staying quiet about the growing alignment between its two neighbours. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

At last month’s meeting between the foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea – their first in four years – Beijing pledged to be Northeast Asia’s “stabiliser” while opposing bloc-based cooperation, as the launch of North Korea’s spy satellite loomed.

The satellite, allegedly capable of spying on the White House and US naval bases, was the first to successfully enter orbit following previous failed attempts. This prompted South Korean intelligence to speculate that North Korea had received key technical support from Russia in return for delivery of weapons to support the war in Ukraine. Both Russia and North Korea have denied any arms deal.

The matter was widely speculated to have been discussed at a rare meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in September.

Engagement between the two nations has grown amid international isolation.

Beijing, a close partner of both Pyongyang and Moscow, has remained low key about the growing alignment between the two, repeatedly saying that their cooperation was a matter between the two sides and that China would not interfere.

It has also been muted in its reaction to reports that Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had proposed inviting North Korea to participate in three-way naval drills with China.

Observers said China was cautious about being drawn into a trilateral axis with Russia and North Korea, fearing it could trigger a “new cold war” that would advance US interests and escalate tensions in the region.

Bjorn Alexander Duben, a Northeast Asian studies specialist at Jilin University in northeastern China, said Beijing wanted to avoid appearing to be engaged in “bloc-building”, by strengthening a trilateral relationship with Pyongyang and Moscow while it had close bilateral ties with both.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and North Korean deputy foreign minister Pak Myong-ho visited Beijing last week for separate talks with top Chinese leaders, who vowed to strengthen strategic relationships with both neighbours.

“In principle, China could be content about [Russia and North Korea’s] deepening relationship. But in practice their interests also diverge,” Duben said.

“Russia and North Korea both have incentives to be disruptive in the international system. The difference is that China does not [currently] have an interest in this, it has a stake in international stability.”

“Beijing does not mind minor crises arising that keep the US occupied, but it does not want deeper global instability – especially in light of China’s unfavourable economic situation,” he said, adding that Beijing still had a stake in improving its relations with the West as well as South Korea and Japan.

At the closely watched summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden last month, the two leaders agreed to manage heightening tensions between the two superpowers. However, there were no breakthroughs on major points of contention such as the growing military competition in the Indo-Pacific.

The US and its treaty allies Japan and South Korea have increased military coordination to tackle what they call an “increasingly assertive” China in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing’s relations with its two East Asian neighbours have also been strained in recent years.

But the China-Japan-South Korea foreign ministers’ meeting last month offered a fresh opportunity to repair ties, with an aim to refocus on economic cooperation.

Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University, said that given the recent signs of improving ties with the US, Japan and South Korea, China was unlikely to engage in trilateral activities with Russia and North Korea that would escalate tensions again, such as a joint military drill.

“The situation on the [Korean] peninsula is still very dangerous,” Shi said. “China does not think it needs to get closer with a close-enough North Korea, which is one of the sources of high tension on the peninsula.”

Yongwook Ryu, a China and Korea affairs specialist at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said China was reluctant to participate in a three-way military drill because it was concerned that doing so would amount to a “new cold war” – something China has accused the United States of conducting.

Chinese and US envoys to the UN Security Council traded blame on Tuesday when they met to discuss North Korea’s recent military activities, including an intercontinental ballistic missile launch last week. North Korea’s fifth ICBM launch this year, the highest annual number ever, followed US plans to include nuclear operation exercises in joint military drills with South Korea, and the reported arrival of a US nuclear submarine at a South Korean port.

US representative Robert Wood demanded that China and Russia join the rest of the council to “act” on Pyongyang, while China’s Geng Shuang, in a veiled swipe at the US, blamed “a certain country” for escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula by offering “extended deterrents” and strengthening regional military alliances.

Beijing has been reluctant to condemn North Korea’s military developments and opposes new Security Council sanctions, saying it would not solve the problem. It has instead called for Pyongyang’s legitimate security concerns to be addressed and a “dual suspension” approach to achieve denuclearisation – requiring North Korea to freeze its missile and nuclear programme and the South Korea and the US to halt joint military exercises.

North Korea and the US held a few rounds of nuclear talks while former US president Donald Trump was in office, but those ended in stalemates after the two countries failed to agree on a common approach to denuclearisation. Pyongyang has since ramped up missile launches and threatened a seventh nuclear test, with the US and South Korea expanding their large-scale military drills in response.

Observers have said Beijing might prefer to maintain the status quo on the peninsula out of fears that pressuring North Korea too hard could make it an enemy.

Ryu noted that given the intensifying US-China rivalry, it was in Beijing’s interests for Washington to be tied up in North Korean military threats.

“While Beijing does not deliberately incite instability and conflict on the Korean peninsula, instability on the peninsula – falling short of actual military conflict – would serve Beijing’s interests by diverting the attention and resources of the US and its key allies such as Japan,” he said.

“How much Beijing prioritises the Korean peninsula over other issues such as its rivalry with the US and Taiwan is questionable. Hence it is doubtful if and to what extent Beijing will actually play a constructive role in constraining the North’s provocative behaviour,” Ryu said, adding there was also no guarantee Pyongyang would heed Beijing’s advice or suggestions.

The international community has repeatedly urged China to help to stop North Korea’s military aggression, but Beijing has often hinted that it does not have the required influence over Pyongyang.

“Good relations between China and North Korea and China’s influence on North Korea are two different concepts,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in September when asked about Seoul’s request for Beijing to do more to rein in Pyongyang.

In an interview with The Telegraph last month, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said China had an important role to play in regional stability, and he believed China’s alignment with North Korea and Russia would not serve its interests.

Daniel Russel, who served as US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs under former president Barack Obama, said Beijing’s “standoffishness” towards the closer alignment between Russia and North Korea was because it did not want to be held accountable for the “misbehaviour of a partner nation”.

“Beijing does not want to pay a price or be held responsible for provocative behaviour by North Korea that China has no control over,” said Russel, who is now vice-president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“Beijing offers rhetorical and other forms of support to Russia and North Korea where it essentially costs China nothing, but balks at overt support for their behaviour when it risks retaliation or international condemnation,” Russel said, citing as an example China’s denial of having provided arms for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Russel added that China might also be wary of Russia and North Korea’s growing alignment because it could weaken Beijing’s leverage over Pyongyang.

“North Korean leaders have long tried to play one major power off against another, and Kim’s opportunistic embrace of Vladimir Putin is the latest example. Kim is attempting to gain leverage over Beijing – or weaken Beijing’s leverage over him – by showing that he has options other than China,” he said.

Kim told Putin that relations with Russia were the “very first priority” for his country when the pair met in September, prompting speculation about whether Pyongyang had pivoted from Beijing to Moscow.

But he appeared to want to assure Xi that North Korea’s relations with China were “as close as usual”, as he wrote in a letter to the Chinese leader a week after his meeting with Putin.

Deputy foreign minister Pak, the first and most senior North Korean official to visit China after the Covid-19 pandemic, vowed during his trip last week to deepen ties to “safeguard common interests”. His visit prompted speculation of paving the way for in-person talks next year between Xi and Kim, who have not met since 2019.

Yun Sun, director of the China Programme at the Washington-based Stimson Centre think tank, doubted that there had been a priority shift in North Korea’s policy.

“China is the single largest supporter of the North Korean economy through aid and trade. It also carries much more influence than Russia does regionally and globally today,” she said.