Kim Jong-un's lifeline

China urged to play active role in new Cold War

By John Burton

Over the last few years, North Korea has truly lived up to its reputation as the "hermit country." It closed its borders and shut itself off from the rest of the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With imports of food and fuel curtailed, pundits predicted that the country might be entering a death spiral as its population starved and froze.

But now as North Korea reopens its borders after a hiatus of four years, it appears to be in a stronger position than it has been in some time.

That is largely due to the recent summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian Far East.

The summit produced several benefits for North Korea. One is that it made it clear that Moscow will block any future sanctions against Pyongyang in the U.N. Security Council. In addition, Russia hinted that it would be willing to break existing U.N. sanctions by importing banned North Korean products and supplying prohibited items, including weaponry, to Pyongyang.

At a minimum, North Korea can look forward to deliveries of Russian food and fuel to rescue the economy.

The revived alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang, with its promises of Russian military support in return for the supply of North Korean munitions to be used in fighting Ukraine, is likely to advance Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal and escalate tensions in Northeast Asia.

Kim’s meeting with Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome spaceport and his subsequent tour of a Russian fighter jet factory and naval base suggest things to come. North Korea is anxious to gain access to Russian missile, satellite and submarine technologies.

The summit also strengthens Kim Jong-un’s hand domestically. He can portray himself to his people as an effective global statesman, while pleasing his military with the promise of more advanced weapons.

The prospect of a North Korea equipped with a more sophisticated nuclear force is likely to set off a new arms race in the region by putting pressure on Seoul and Tokyo to respond in kind.

What can be done to prevent an already dangerous situation from becoming worse? One possible solution might lie with China, which has opposed nuclear proliferation and values stability in the region. It also wants to avoid a situation that would provoke an increased U.S. defense presence in Northeast Asia. Beijing is probably not too happy about Kim’s statement that he considers strengthening relations with Moscow his “top priority.” Although China may have a motivation to intervene, there are still doubts about whether it will have the means.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is threatening to take further action against North Korea if it conducts an arms deal with Russia, with U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan saying it will “pay a price for this.”

But earlier U.S. actions have failed to stop North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and any unilateral sanctions it imposes are likely to have a minimal impact.

The more serious problem for Washington is that it has probably lost any remaining diplomatic leverage with Pyongyang. It once offered the prospect of diplomatic normalization in return for denuclearization, but North Korea no longer seems interested in that bargain.

The last chance that the U.S. had to reach such a deal was in 2018 and 2019 with President Donald Trump’s meetings with Kim Jong-un. But any progress was torpedoed by hardliners in Wasington who warned that the U.S. couldn’t appear weak and make too many concessions. After that, Pyongyang lost patience with a negotiating process that had lasted for 30 years.

That diplomatic process, which involved the U.S., China, Russia and the two Koreas, was based on the premise that it would advance common and overlapping interests. Russia was happy to be included in regionally transformative arrangements. China could both protect its North Korean neighbor and prevent it from becoming a very problematic nuclear power. And the U.S. could cap the North’s nuclear ambitions while supporting its slow integration into a South Korean-led economic relationship. The dangers from a paranoid and starving North Korea would be drastically scaled back.

But the process slowly unraveled, beginning with the presidency of George W. Bush, who favored more sticks than carrots in dealing with North Korea. President Barack Obama oversaw a period of diplomatic drift on the issue. Then came the violent swings of President Donald Trump from “fire and fury” to “love letters” with Kim Jong-un.

Under the Biden administration, the region has settled into a period of Cold War-style confrontation with the trilateral alliance of the U.S., South Korea and Japan on one side and the Russia-North Korea alliance on the other.

The prospects for a diplomatic solution on North Korea appear dim.

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.