North Korea, PRC partnership built on shaky ground

FORUM Staff

Regardless of the North Korea-People’s Republic of China (PRC) declaration that 2024 will be a year of friendship between the nations, Pyongyang’s erratic behavior, banned nuclear and missile programs, and growing ties with Russia cast a shadow over North Korea’s relationship with Beijing.

Analysts say Moscow and Pyongyang likely acted without the PRC’s input in trading North Korean arms for Russian military technology — a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions that Russia and the PRC voted to implement.

“Now that Russia is willing to provide benefits that China will not, Pyongyang is turning closer to Moscow, and Beijing has lost significant leverage,” Oriana Skylar Mastro, author of the forthcoming book “Upstart: How China Became a Great Power,” wrote for Foreign Affairs magazine.

While North Korea’s Kim Jong Un regime relies on the PRC for more than 90% of its imports and exports, Kim has a history of disregarding his benefactor’s preferences, Mastro argued. The most obvious examples include ignoring the PRC’s demands that he cease weapons tests that increase tensions across the Korean Peninsula.

“Russian support gives Pyongyang a stronger hand to take action that could impede Beijing’s regional and global ambitions,” Mastro wrote in February 2024.

The PRC bills itself as a force for stability. Foreign minister Wang Yi claimed at the February 2024 Munich Security Conference that Beijing is a “responsible major nation” that plays a constructive role in a turbulent world.

A North Korea-Russia partnership emboldens Kim, however, leaving the PRC unable to persuade a belligerent Pyongyang to resume denuclearization talks or back away from provocative weapons testing.

North Korea also presents a security dilemma for Beijing. As recently as 2017, the PRC responded to a North Korean missile launch and threats of intercontinental ballistic weapons development by cutting off coal exports in line with a then-recent U.N. sanction. Pyongyang responded with rare public criticism of the PRC.

In a military exercise, North Korea also fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan during China’s National People’s Congress, timing that was likely to have angered Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders. Dr. Bruce Bennett, a Rand Corp. defense researcher, has argued that the launches were veiled demonstrations of North Korea’s ability to threaten the PRC.

The PRC had already deployed missile defenses and radars to counter potential threats from the Korean Peninsula, Bennett said. “At the time, what country other than North Korea could have fired ballistic missiles for which such a … defense was required in northeastern China?” he asked.

The same year, the Global Times newspaper, a CCP propaganda outlet, warned that, despite a mutual defense treaty signed in 1961, the PRC would not come to North Korea’s aid if its missile launches prompted U.S. retaliation.

The North Korea-PRC relationship is also plagued by territorial disputes, which Beijing has with nearly every neighbor. Their 1962 border agreement failed to clearly demarcate boundary lines, international affairs expert J. Berkshire Miller wrote for The Diplomat magazine. PRC development on Baekdu Mountain — which straddles border territory considered sacred across the Korean Peninsula as well as among Chinese populations — has prompted complaints that Beijing intends to extend claims in the region, Miller said.

Tensions also exist over North Korea’s far northern border, which cuts off the PRC from the Sea of Japan — and North Korea has forbidden Chinese warships from docking along its strategically important eastern seaboard, the Nikkei Asia news magazine reported.

For Beijing and Pyongyang, the odds are waning that a year of friendship will follow decades of distrust.