Three Key Points
・Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea is not only a display of traditional China-North Korea friendship. It also reflects Beijing’s need to keep Pyongyang within its own sphere of influence as North Korea moves closer to Russia.
・North Korea is no longer merely an isolated state waiting for outside pressure to force change. It is increasingly using isolation itself as leverage through nuclear weapons, military cooperation with Russia, cyber activity, and sanctions-evading networks.
・North Korea’s expanding nuclear capability and possible battlefield experience from cooperation with Russia could force Japan and the United States to rethink their defense assumptions.
News
Xi Jinping Visits North Korea for the First Time in Seven Years
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Pyongyang on June 8 for a rare state visit to North Korea. It was Xi’s first visit to the country in about seven years. During the visit, Xi was expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and discuss China-North Korea relations, the Korean Peninsula, and broader regional security issues.
Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju welcomed Xi in Pyongyang. Chinese officials including Foreign Minister Wang Yi and senior party official Cai Qi accompanied Xi, underscoring the diplomatic weight of the visit.
Ahead of the visit, Xi described China-North Korea relations as being at a “new historical starting point.” He also signaled opposition to “hegemonism” and “militarism,” language widely understood as a message aimed at the US-led regional order and Japan’s growing defense role.
The visit came as North Korea has been deepening military cooperation with Russia. Pyongyang is believed to have supplied artillery shells, missiles, and troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. For China, this raises a strategic concern: North Korea may be moving too close to Moscow, reducing Beijing’s influence over its neighbor.
Just before Xi’s visit, Kim inspected a new nuclear material production facility and called for an “exponential” expansion of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. The timing highlighted a broader reality. China-North Korea relations are being reaffirmed at a moment when North Korea is expanding its nuclear power, strengthening ties with Russia, and becoming harder for any outside power to control.
Background
Why China Needs to Reaffirm Ties With North Korea
China and North Korea have long described their relationship as a traditional friendship forged during the Korean War. For Beijing, North Korea remains a crucial buffer. As long as North Korea exists, US and South Korean influence does not directly reach China’s northeastern border.
For Pyongyang, China has long been its most important economic and political backer. Chinese trade, fuel, food, and diplomatic protection have helped North Korea survive repeated crises and international sanctions.
Yet this relationship is no longer a simple hierarchy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea sealed its borders and cross-border exchanges with China slowed sharply. After that, North Korea began deepening military cooperation with Russia, giving Pyongyang another major partner besides Beijing.
China still needs North Korea. If North Korea were to destabilize, China could face refugee flows, sudden political turmoil on the Korean Peninsula, or even a US-aligned Korean order moving closer to its border.
At the same time, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs create problems for China. They strengthen US-Japan-South Korea defense cooperation, justify Japan’s military buildup, and make the regional security environment more difficult for Beijing.
China needs North Korea as a buffer. But it can no longer manage North Korea as easily as before. Xi’s visit should be understood in that context: an attempt to keep Pyongyang close before it leans too far toward Moscow.
North Korea’s Growing Leverage Through Russia
The war in Ukraine has changed North Korea’s geopolitical value.
Russia needs artillery shells, missiles, military supplies, and manpower for a long war. North Korea, with Soviet-compatible weapons systems and large stocks of conventional ammunition, has become a useful military partner for Moscow.
For North Korea, the relationship offers possible benefits on several fronts. Pyongyang may gain food, fuel, foreign currency, military technology, satellite-related assistance, missile expertise, and battlefield experience. If North Korean troops are involved in Russia’s war effort, that could also expose North Korea’s military to modern warfare in ways it would not otherwise experience.
This strengthens North Korea’s position toward China. If ties with China cool, Pyongyang can lean more toward Russia. If Russia needs weapons and military support, North Korea can raise the price of cooperation. If the United States shows interest in diplomacy, North Korea can approach talks from the position of a nuclear-armed state rather than a state seeking relief in exchange for denuclearization.
For Beijing, North Korea’s Russia ties are not just a matter of two neighboring states cooperating. They suggest that a country China has long considered part of its strategic sphere is gaining more independence by using Moscow as an alternative source of support.
From US-North Korea Summit Diplomacy to Nuclear Crisis Management
During Donald Trump’s first presidency, North Korea was at the center of high-profile summit diplomacy. The 2018 Singapore summit, the 2019 Hanoi summit, and the meeting at the inter-Korean border created the impression that Pyongyang might be drawn into denuclearization talks.
Today, the situation looks very different.
North Korea no longer treats its nuclear program as a temporary bargaining chip. Nuclear weapons have become central to regime survival. Pyongyang is not asking what it can receive in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. It is increasingly trying to be treated as a nuclear-armed state.
The United States also has many competing priorities: the Middle East, Iran, the war in Ukraine, China, and domestic political pressure. North Korea remains dangerous, but it is no longer the central diplomatic stage it was during the previous Trump-era summit diplomacy.
This means the North Korea issue has shifted. The question is no longer simply how to restart denuclearization talks. It is how to deter and manage a nuclear-armed North Korea that may continue expanding its capabilities.
That shift matters deeply for Japan. If North Korea expands its nuclear arsenal and gains military experience through Russia, Japan and the United States will have to rethink their defense scenarios.
North Korea’s Adaptation Under Sanctions
North Korea is often described as isolated. That is true, but incomplete.
Pyongyang has developed ways to survive under sanctions. Military cooperation with Russia, border trade with China, cyber operations, cryptocurrency theft, ship-to-ship transfers, and sanctions-evasion networks all help the regime secure money, goods, and strategic options.
This is not normal economic development. It is not liberalization in the way China or Vietnam pursued market reforms. It is a controlled form of adaptation designed to sustain the ruling party, the military, and loyal elites in Pyongyang.
Being outside the international order is a weakness. But for North Korea, it also creates a kind of freedom of action. Reputation costs matter less. Sanctions hurt, but they do not always deter. International rules constrain normal states more than they constrain a regime already operating outside many of those rules.
North Korea is not simply a state paralyzed by isolation. It is becoming a state that has learned how to use isolation.
Analysis
China Needs North Korea, But Cannot Fully Control It
China’s dilemma is clear.
North Korea remains useful as a buffer state. It prevents US and South Korean influence from directly reaching China’s border. It gives Beijing a role in Korean Peninsula diplomacy and helps China shape the security environment in Northeast Asia.
But the same North Korea also creates problems.
North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs push Japan, South Korea, and the United States closer together. They strengthen the case for missile defense, extended deterrence, joint exercises, and Japan’s defense buildup. These are not outcomes China wants.
North Korea’s tilt toward Russia adds another concern. If Pyongyang gains enough support from Moscow, Beijing’s leverage weakens. China cannot simply abandon North Korea, but it also cannot assume that North Korea will always follow China’s preferences.
Xi’s visit was therefore not only a friendly diplomatic ritual. It was a sign that China must actively maintain influence over a neighbor that has become more independent, more militarized, and more difficult to manage.
North Korea Is Balancing Between China and Russia
North Korea is not merely protected by China and Russia. It is increasingly using both powers to strengthen its own position.
To China, North Korea offers strategic buffer value.
To Russia, North Korea offers military supply value.
To the United States, North Korea presents nuclear risk.
To Japan and South Korea, North Korea creates long-term defense pressure.
Pyongyang understands this.
China wants stability. Russia wants military support. The United States wants to avoid another nuclear crisis while dealing with other global priorities. Japan and South Korea want deterrence and protection under the US alliance system.
North Korea is using the differences among these countries to increase its room for maneuver. It is no longer simply a weak state surviving under the protection of larger powers. It is becoming a dangerous player that can use great-power competition to raise its own value.
North Korea Is Turning Isolation Into Leverage
The most important change is how North Korea uses isolation.
In the past, isolation was often seen as a sign of weakness. Sanctions, poverty, and diplomatic exclusion were expected to gradually pressure North Korea toward compromise.
That expectation has not disappeared entirely, but it has weakened.
North Korea has adapted. It uses cyber operations, illicit finance, military exports, sanctions-evasion routes, and selective ties with China and Russia to keep the regime functioning. It does not need broad international legitimacy in the way normal states do. Its leadership can treat risk, confrontation, and danger as bargaining assets.
This makes North Korea hard to pressure.
If sanctions increase, Pyongyang searches for alternative routes.
If China applies pressure, Russia becomes more valuable.
If the United States is distracted, North Korea expands its arsenal.
If Japan and South Korea strengthen defense cooperation, North Korea uses that as justification for further militarization.
North Korea is not powerful in the traditional sense. Its economy remains limited, its people remain heavily controlled, and its system depends on coercion. But it has become difficult to ignore because it has combined nuclear weapons, military exports, cyber activity, and strategic unpredictability.
That is the core of the problem.
Japan and the United States Must Rethink Defense Assumptions
For Japan, North Korea is no longer only a missile-launch threat.
If North Korea expands its nuclear arsenal and gains battlefield experience through cooperation with Russia, the threat becomes broader. It may include missiles, drones, electronic warfare, cyberattacks, logistics lessons, artillery operations, and more sophisticated command-and-control practices.
Japan cannot rely only on intercepting missiles after launch. Missile defense remains important, but it is not enough.
Japan will need stronger base dispersal, fuel and ammunition stockpiles, runway and port recovery capacity, cyber defense, civilian evacuation planning, and infrastructure resilience. The key question is not only how to stop every attack. It is how to keep national and defense functions operating even after an attack.
For the United States, North Korea’s growing nuclear capability also complicates extended deterrence.
If North Korea can threaten the US mainland, Guam, Japan, South Korea, and US bases in the region at the same time, allied confidence becomes harder to sustain. Japan and South Korea may ask whether the United States would really risk American cities to defend Tokyo or Seoul.
That question is not new. But as North Korea’s nuclear capability grows, it becomes more difficult to avoid.
The North Korea issue is moving from a denuclearization problem to a long-term deterrence and crisis-management problem.
A Taiwan Contingency and a Korean Peninsula Crisis Could Interact
North Korea’s actions do not remain confined to the Korean Peninsula.
If China increases military pressure around Taiwan while North Korea creates a crisis on the Korean Peninsula, US and Japanese attention could be divided. If a crisis erupts on the Korean Peninsula while China moves in the East China Sea or around Taiwan, Japan and the United States could face a two-front security challenge.
This is why North Korea matters beyond missile warnings and nuclear headlines.
North Korea’s growing nuclear capability affects the US-Japan alliance, South Korea’s defense posture, Taiwan contingency planning, and broader East Asian deterrence. It can complicate US military decision-making at exactly the moment when Washington may already be stretched across multiple theaters.
For Japan, this means North Korea is not a separate issue from Taiwan, China, Russia, or the US alliance. It is part of a larger regional security structure.
Conclusion
Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea leaves the impression that North Korea’s position has changed more than many people realize.
North Korea used to be seen primarily as a weak, isolated dictatorship dependent on China and seeking concessions from the United States. That image is no longer enough.
Today, North Korea is expanding its nuclear arsenal, deepening military ties with Russia, adapting under sanctions, and using its danger as diplomatic currency. It is still isolated, but it is not simply trapped by that isolation. It is learning how to use it.
That is what makes the current situation so difficult.
China needs North Korea as a buffer, but cannot fully control it. Russia can use North Korea as a military partner, but may also strengthen a volatile actor. The United States must manage a nuclear-armed North Korea while facing other global crises. Japan must prepare for a security environment in which North Korea is no longer just an occasional missile threat, but a long-term military and nuclear player.
For Japan, the lesson is not to view North Korea as a state that will eventually collapse under pressure. The more important task is to recognize that North Korea is adapting, accumulating military value, and embedding itself within the wider confrontation between China, Russia, and the US-led alliance network.
What Xi’s visit revealed was not only China-North Korea friendship. It revealed a Northeast Asia in which North Korea has become more difficult for everyone to ignore.
The country once treated as an isolated problem is now part of a larger strategic equation linking the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Russia’s war, Japan’s defense, and the future of US deterrence in Asia.
See you again in the next article.
Reference Links
- China’s Xi says he will work with North Korea to fight hegemonism, North Korean media says（Reuters）
- Xi Jinping meets Kim Jong-un in first North Korea visit for seven years（The Guardian）
- North Korea’s Kim inspects new nuclear material plant, urges expansion of arsenal（Reuters）
- China’s Xi visit to North Korea as Beijing seeks closer ties with Pyongyang（Reuters）
- North Korea not keen to engage with US or South Korea, Singapore FM says（Reuters）
- North Korea sharply boosting nuclear weapons capacity, IAEA chief says（Reuters）
- From Digital Kleptocracy to Rogue Crypto Superpower（38 North）
