Xi Jinping wants to woo Kim Jong Un again

South Korean media recently reported that Chinese security and protocol personnel have already arrived in Pyongyang to make preparations and that Chinese President Xi Jinping may visit North Korea in late May or early June.

China has not yet confirmed the trip, but a visit is both expected and, in Xi’s view, necessary. As close as Beijing and Pyongyang are on paper, relations between the two behind the scenes are often strained; China has never really accepted North Korea’s status as a nuclear power and fears losing its influence in the country to Russia.

South Korean media recently reported that Chinese security and protocol personnel have already arrived in Pyongyang to make preparations and that Chinese President Xi Jinping may visit North Korea in late May or early June.

China has not yet confirmed the trip, but a visit is both expected and, in Xi’s view, necessary. As close as Beijing and Pyongyang are on paper, relations between the two behind the scenes are often strained; China has never really accepted North Korea’s status as a nuclear power and fears losing its influence in the country to Russia.

Xi made his last state visit to Pyongyang in June 2019, almost seven years ago. Even after deducting the three years of the pandemic, that’s a long time frame, and during that time, Xi visited many countries, including South Korea. More foreign leaders have come to China, from Cuban and Venezuelan leaders to U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks. Many visitors have also come to Pyongyang, from Putin to Vietnamese leaders. To Lam.

A gap in diplomatic protocol is in itself a political signal. And because North Korea is so closed to the rest of the world, Sino-Korean diplomacy is fundamentally out of the ordinary. Although the two countries are both communist states with a history of mutual support and North Korea is China’s only official treaty ally, the friendship “forged in blood» is more fragile than it seems.

Xi’s long delay in his visit shows that Beijing never fully digested the reality that North Korea is now a de facto nuclear-armed state, and this has become a major obstacle to developing deeper relations between the two countries.

North Korea already has nuclear weapons, while China’s foreign policy has long been the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. For North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantee of regime security and North Korea’s only bargaining chip to escape the fate of a small state and negotiate with the United States. Asking it to renounce nuclear weapons is tantamount to asking it to renounce the security of the regime. For Beijing, openly recognizing North Korea as a nuclear-armed state would undermine China’s long-standing nonproliferation stance and could potentially trigger a chain reaction from South Korea, Japan and other countries.

Beijing has previously cooperated with the United States to pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program, which has alienated both sides. As a result, relations between China and North Korea have been very poor for years. Ultimately, Beijing had no choice but to tacitly accept that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons – continuing in principle to emphasize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, while in reality accepting that North Korea is a nuclear state.

The “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” still appears in Chinese diplomatic language, but it is no longer the central term in China-North Korea relations. Beijing more often emphasizes peace and stability on the peninsula, political settlement, opposition to U.S. military deterrence, and respect for North Korea’s legitimate security concerns. This change is significant. This shows that Beijing values ​​its relations with Pyongyang and that the fight against security alliances between the United States, Japan and South Korea already takes precedence over the goal of denuclearization.

A visit from Xi provides an opportunity for new discussions. Beijing may have realized that it can no longer allow the North Korean nuclear issue to block high-level exchanges between China and North Korea. Relations between the two countries must be reorganized based on North Korea’s de facto nuclear status.

Xi’s trip would also mean China bringing North Korea back into its own strategic buffer system. Now that security cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea is deepening and relations between China and Japan are very poor, North Korea’s strategic value to China has increased. A nuclear-armed North Korea is of course also a potential threat to China, but a much more pressing threat to Japan and a useful card for Beijing.

Xi also thinks of Putin. Kim has moved closer to Moscow not because he actually wants to replace China with Russia, but because he needs a boss willing to guarantee North Korea’s security. Putin is ready to offer him this. But Russia can only provide North Korea with military and security support, not a comprehensive path to development of the type that China pursued in the 1980s and 1990s and that Chinese officials have long pressed the North Koreans to accept.

If China continues to keep its distance, it will push North Korea further and further toward Russia and could eventually lose its dominant position on the peninsula. Given this reality, China would use Xi’s visit to return North Korea to a path dominated by Beijing, offering it both economic and security incentives.

Besides, Xi’s visit would also aim to open access to the Tumen River mouth and the Rajin-Sonbong economic zone, thereby revitalizing northeast China’s economy. The revitalization of northeast China, once the country’s industrial heartland but long fallen into stagnation, has been discussed for many years but has never really taken off.

There are many reasons for this, from population decline to institutional stagnation, but the area’s neighbors also matter. Northeast China borders North Korea, and the long-term closure of North Korea has blocked any possibility of real cross-border trade and commerce. If relations between China and North Korea improve, if North Korea opens up in a limited way, if the mouth of the Tumen River is opened, and if the North Korean port of Rajin and the Rason special economic zone become active again, then northeast China could find a new future offering new connections between the Korean Peninsula, the Russian Far East, and the Sea of ​​Japan. During Putin’s recent visit to China, the joint statement with Xi was again mentioned the Tumen River and the need to consult North Korea, which shows that this issue is not yet fully resolved.

Kim has his own reasons for welcoming a visit from Xi. Although he has long consolidated his dynastic authority internally, he also needs external recognition. Putin’s visit to North Korea has already provided him with major security support. But the meaning of China is different. Russia today is a major power mired in war and sanctions, with national strength in decline. China, on the other hand, is the second largest power in the world.

If North Korea really wants to develop and if its regime wants to remain stable, it must still count on the help and assistance of its Chinese big brother. If Xi continues to delay his visit, it means that relations between China and North Korea are not so strong and Kim’s personal authority has not received Xi’s full support. He must therefore take advantage of a grandiose reception for Xi to add another layer of legitimacy to his own authority.

And if North Korea wants to open its doors and return to the international community in the future, it needs Beijing, not Moscow, which itself is on the verge of pariah. In particular, if Kim wants to open a channel to the United States, hold another Kim-Trump summit, and obtain partial relief from U.S. sanctions, he will need Beijing to mediate and provide a security guarantee.

Some argue that Xi’s visit to North Korea reflects Beijing’s fear that Kim will bypass China and establish direct contact with Trump, and that a future Kim-Trump summit will exclude China. If Xi goes to North Korea, it is indeed possible that he will carry a message for Trump. But to say that Beijing fears that future negotiations between the United States and North Korea will exclude China is an exaggeration; Pyongyang will not do this, nor can it. In the two previous meetings between Kim and Trump, China was not sidelined; rather, Kim first went to Beijing to meet Xi before traveling to Singapore to see Trump.

Today, it is even less possible for it to act alone by bypassing Beijing. North Korea does not trust the United States and Kim does not trust Trump. The failure of the Hanoi summit in 2019 was a wound and a lesson for Kim. He has already experienced Trump’s last-minute demands and sudden reversals. Now, with the experiences of Venezuela and Iran before him, and perhaps Cuba afterward, he will inevitably become even more convinced that small countries need the support of big powers, nuclear weapons, or both. How could he still trust the United States and Trump?

A visit by Xi will not mean that the contradictions between the two sides on the nuclear issue will completely disappear. But they will build a more pragmatic and reality-based bilateral relationship. Both sides will continue to emphasize traditional friendship. Pyongyang will continue to need China’s protection and assistance, while Beijing will continue to need North Korea as a bargaining chip. Everyone takes what they need – and a relationship of mutual pragmatism can last a long time.