បញ្ហាកូរ៉េខាងជើង "SHUXIAN LUO "

 How America Can Encourage Beijing to Rein in Pyongyang

 

Since talks collapsed between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, in 2019, North Korea’s reckless drive for long-range nuclear capabilities has fueled tensions on the Korean Peninsula to new heights. But Pyongyang’s provocations obscure a deeper shift in the region: China’s growing reluctance to rein in its troublesome ally. For years, Beijing has played a crucial role in bringing North Korea to the negotiating table, and it has at times been a key partner in international efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile ambitions. China has supported UN Security Council resolutions to inhibit North Korea’s nuclear program and even worked with Washington to tighten sanctions against Pyongyang, despite criticism from Russia for doing so. But in the face of its growing rivalry with the United States, China has quietly stepped back from this cooperative approach.

In recent months, some foreign policy experts in Washington and Seoul have grown cautiously optimistic that the “comprehensive strategic partnership” forged between North Korea and Russia, in 2024, might draw China back in. Beijing’s reserved response to Pyongyang’s provision of weapons and combat troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine—dismissing it as a bilateral matter between Pyongyang and Moscow—betrays a thinly veiled discomfort with its smaller ally’s latest gambit. At the same time, observers in Washington and Seoul have become hopeful that growing public support in South Korea for developing an independent nuclear deterrent might provide Beijing with another compelling reason to renew its efforts to restrain the North’s belligerence.

Reinvigorating joint U.S.-Chinese efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear program is indeed possible. Both great powers continue to publicly endorse some level of denuclearization. In May 2024, China, Japan, and South Korea issued a joint declaration reaffirming their commitment to a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. In February 2025, the Trump administration issued its own trilateral statement with Tokyo and Seoul, pledging to pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea. But many of the pathways recently proposed for incentivizing Beijing’s cooperation rest on shaky assumptions. Analysts in Washington and Seoul often overestimate the impact that tensions between China and North Korea will have on their relationship. Despite the many historical periods of unease between the two countries, China’s policy toward North Korea’s nuclear program has been shaped more by its broader strategic calculations vis-à-vis the United States than by frustration with its defiant ally.

Likewise, the belief that North Korea’s increasing closeness with Russia will rupture Beijing’s relationship with Pyongyang is misplaced. History suggests the opposite: Beijing has been more, not less, likely to tighten its ties with Pyongyang when North Korea is drifting toward Moscow. In the late 1960s, for example, China deliberately strengthened its ties to North Korea in fear that Pyongyang was tilting toward the Soviet Union.

Hoping that the possibility of South Korean nuclearization might spur Chinese cooperation on North Korea is equally misguided, and the prospect could even backfire. Rather than inducing cooperation, such a move could trigger a harsh response from Beijing. South Korea’s deployment, in 2016, of the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, for example—intended to counter North Korean missile threats—prompted sweeping economic retaliation from China. Chinese tourism to South Korea plunged by two-thirds between 2016 and 2017, and sales of South Korean cars, such as Hyundai and Kia, dropped by more than half in China. The development of a South Korean nuclear weapons program could trigger even harsher punishment—and might lead Beijing to tacitly accept further advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities.

If Washington wants China to cooperate on containing Pyongyang’s aggression, it should focus on reassuring Beijing about its core strategic interests—above all, Taiwan. The history of negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program shows that China has been more amenable to working with the United States when it feels secure about its vital interests, and no interest matters more to Beijing than preventing Taiwan’s independence—an issue that U.S. policy can directly shape. Beijing has repeatedly used its cooperation on the North Korean issue as leverage to push the United States to hold the line on Taiwan. By reaffirming the United States’ “one China” policy and signaling a continued U.S. willingness to restrain Taipei’s unilateral moves toward independence, the Trump administration could nudge Beijing toward resuming its efforts to curb Pyongyang.

Such diplomacy need not take the form of a sweeping “grand bargain.” Instead, a more limited, realistic arrangement—focused on managing and reducing the risk of military conflict on the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait—offers a more viable path. With a narrowly defined scope and clear set of boundaries, Washington and Beijing could lower tensions and preserve stability in East Asia at a time when the world can ill afford another conflict or crisis.

A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

Beijing has long viewed North Korea as both a dangerous liability and a strategic asset. Above all, China fears that its unpredictable and often aggressive client state could spark a military conflict with South Korea and the United States, potentially dragging Beijing into a second Korean War. Even short of provoking outright conflict, North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile capabilities still threaten to trigger a regional arms race. The United States and its allies have already expanded missile defense deployments in East Asia, which Beijing views as a direct threat to its strategic deterrence capabilities. Although China retaliated against South Korea for deploying THAAD in 2016, Chinese state media acknowledged that North Korea bore some responsibility. A 2017 commentary in China’s state-run Global Times, for example, blamed Pyongyang for giving Washington and Seoul a justification for THAAD deployment and argued that the North’s provocation had harmed China’s strategic interests.

Beijing is also acutely aware of the risks posed by its shared border with North Korea. Pyongyang’s continuing nuclear and missile developments could invite new rounds of international sanctions, potentially crippling North Korea’s already fragile economy and causing a refugee crisis in northeast China. Nearly half of North Korea’s known major nuclear sites lie within 30 miles of the shared border, making any nuclear mishap—whether caused by an accident in North Korean operations or a preemptive U.S. strike—a possible environmental disaster for China. Beijing’s worst strategic nightmare is a unified Korean Peninsula under Seoul’s leadership, with a continued U.S. military presence, which a sudden collapse of the North Korean regime could produce.

Beijing is acutely aware of the risks posed by its shared border with North Korea.

For all these reasons, China has long regarded Pyongyang’s nuclear program as a headache and has consistently affirmed denuclearization as a policy goal. Chinese President Xi Jinping even openly warned Pyongyang, in 2013, that “no one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains.” At times, Beijing has taken harsh measures toward North Korea—including temporarily suspending oil shipments, restricting Chinese tourism, and applying financial sanctions to the North—although such efforts have typically been short-lived and halfhearted.

But North Korea also serves China’s strategic interests in two important ways—both with respect to Taiwan. First, in the event of a military showdown over Taiwan, North Korea could help tie down, or at least distract, U.S. forces in the western Pacific, forcing Washington to keep a substantial number of its military assets in the Korean theater. This logic is not new. As early as 2007, the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association—a quasi-official body under the auspices of the Chinese foreign ministry—asserted in its annually published yearbook that Taiwan and North Korea were “intrinsically linked.” An immediate North Korean threat might also dissuade Seoul from supporting any U.S. military operations beyond the peninsula. If Beijing were ever to conclude that force was the only path to unification with Taiwan, it might be more inclined to tolerate—or even shield—North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs because a nuclear-armed North Korea could, in theory, help create a more favorable strategic environment for Chinese military operations across the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing has also long viewed its cooperation on the North Korean nuclear issue as a source of leverage to push for U.S. accommodation of its interests on Taiwan. Since the early 2000s, Chinese officials and strategists have made it clear, both privately and publicly, that they expect reciprocity on the two issues. In 2003, a Chinese official told The Washington Post that China was “not linking the issues. . . . But what we are saying is this: The United States cannot expect us to continually give unless it gives us something, too.” According to the political scientist Zhao Quansheng, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong acknowledged to him, in 2005, that Beijing had worked with Washington on North Korean denuclearization partly to elicit U.S. cooperation on Taiwan (noting, however, that Beijing had used the linkage strategy very cautiously). In 2008, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks, Yang Jiemian—the head of the government-affiliated think tank Shanghai Institute for International Studies and brother of then Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi—suggested to senior U.S. officials that the United States could coordinate with China on the Taiwan issue in exchange for China’s help restraining North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. And in 2019, amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan and stalled negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, Chinese foreign policy experts warned that Beijing’s willingness to help move the negotiations forward would hinge on the United States’ approach to its relations with China and argued that U.S. violations of China’s redline on Taiwan were partly to blame for the deadlock.

PUSH AND PULL

Since the early 1990s, Beijing’s willingness to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions has followed a discernible pattern. When Beijing perceived Washington to be more willing to play ball on Taiwan and felt secure about its interests regarding the island, Chinese leaders were more willing to pressure North Korea. But when the United States took steps that Beijing perceived as threatening to its position on Taiwan, China became more reluctant to cooperate—sometimes even overtly shielding the North.

The first North Korean nuclear crisis erupted in 1993, when Pyongyang declared its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, after facing pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency to allow inspections of suspected nuclear sites. At the time, U.S.-Chinese relations were still recovering from the fallout of Beijing’s crackdown on the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square. Beijing, still resentful of U.S. sanctions and criticism of its record on human rights, declined to formally participate in the negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program. But China did play an active behind-the-scenes role, serving as an informal intermediary between Washington and Pyongyang. China did not vote in favor of a UN Security Council resolution calling for North Korea to comply with IAEA safeguards, but by abstaining, it allowed the measure to pass. According to U.S. diplomats involved in the negotiations, Beijing also signaled that it would abstain from a Security Council resolution to impose limited sanctions on Pyongyang, and warned that if such sanctions were adopted, it would cut off oil and food supplies to North Korea. These moves helped convince Pyongyang to come to the negotiating table, where it agreed, under the 1994 Agreed Framework signed with the United States, to give up its nuclear program in exchange for energy assistance. China did not seek U.S. assurances on Taiwan in return for its cooperation, partly because Beijing remained confident that Washington would maintain only unofficial ties with the island—but that faith would soon falter.

The second North Korean nuclear crisis broke out in October 2002, when the United States accused Pyongyang of operating a clandestine uranium-enrichment program that violated the 1994 Agreed Framework. This time, China played a far more active diplomatic role, partly because the strategic context had shifted. Beijing’s latent confidence in U.S. unofficial ties with Taiwan had been shaken by the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait crisis, when Washington allowed Taiwanese leader Lee Teng-hui to visit Cornell University, where he had studied. Beijing viewed this as a breach of the U.S. pledge to conduct relations with Taiwan on a strictly unofficial basis, and responded with military drills in the Taiwan Strait. Then, in 2000, Taiwan elected Chen Shui-bian from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as president. When, in August 2002, Chen claimed that “one country exists on each side of the Taiwan Strait” and proposed to hold a referendum on Taiwan’s formal independence, Beijing became even more unsettled. During a summit with President George W. Bush in Texas that October, Chinese President Jiang Zemin urged Washington to go beyond merely “not supporting” Taiwan’s independence and to explicitly “oppose” it. At the same summit, he pledged China’s cooperation with the United States on the North Korean nuclear issue. In December 2003, while standing next to visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Bush publicly rebuked Chen, declaring, “We oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo,” and warning that Chen’s comments and actions indicated that “he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose.”

As North Korea continued advancing its nuclear program, Beijing played a major part in the international efforts to halt and roll it back. In August 2003, Beijing helped launch the Six-Party Talks, hosting Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and the United States to further these efforts. In September 2006, Beijing suspended oil exports to North Korea for a month to dissuade Pyongyang from conducting a nuclear test. When Pyongyang went ahead with the test anyway, Beijing issued a statement denouncing North Korea’s action as hanran, or “blatant”—a rare and unusually strong public condemnation of its ally by Chinese standards—and temporarily suspended financial transactions between major Chinese banks and North Korea. The talks ultimately collapsed in 2009, after Pyongyang withdrew and carried out a second nuclear test. But China, reassured by Washington’s stance on Taiwan, had shown a consistent willingness to pressure its longtime ally.

Between 2009 and 2017, as cross-strait tensions eased, China took an even harder line on North Korea. The election of Ma Ying-jeou, from the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang party, as Taiwan’s president in 2008 ushered in a period of considerably better ties between Taipei and Beijing. Worrying less about Taiwan, Beijing increasingly viewed North Korea’s nuclear provocations as a threat to China’s security interests rather than as an insurance policy against Taiwan’s independence. Beijing resented the repeated North Korean nuclear and missile tests, which gave Washington and Seoul justification to strengthen their military cooperation, which they did by deploying systems such as THAAD and intensifying joint military exercises. China therefore voted in favor of multiple rounds of UN sanctions against North Korea—in 2009, 2013, 2016, and 2017—and its tone toward Pyongyang grew more critical. Chinese strategists began openly suggesting that Beijing should abandon Pyongyang, and senior Chinese officials increasingly emphasized that Chinese–North Korean ties were “normal” state-to-state relations rather than a “blood alliance,” as they had traditionally been described. In a clear signal of Beijing’s frustration, Xi visited South Korea during his second year in office, in 2014, before he visited North Korea, breaking the tradition that a new Chinese leader visit Pyongyang before Seoul. When U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwanese President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (of the DPP) spoke over the phone in December 2016, China protested. But Trump refused to grant Tsai a second call, primarily out of concern that it might derail Chinese cooperation on North Korea, likely helping sustain Beijing’s willingness to continue exerting pressure Pyongyang through 2017.

Starting in 2018, however, things began to shift. During Trump’s first term, a bipartisan consensus emerged in Washington favoring a tougher policy toward China, which, as Beijing continued escalating pressure on Taipei, also meant strengthening relations with Taiwan. Against this backdrop, North Korea once again looked more like a strategic asset than a liability for Beijing. In March, just days after the White House announced Trump’s summit with Kim and after Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act, which encouraged exchanges between U.S. and Taiwanese officials, Xi hosted Kim in Beijing for his first visit to China. Xi told Kim that the traditional bond between the two countries “should not and would not be altered by a single period of time or a single issue,” signaling his renewed commitment to the partnership. That September, Beijing sent Li Zhanshu, the Chinese Communist Party’s number three official, to attend North Korea’s founding day military parade. To be sure, China’s abrupt shift was also driven by its concern that a breakthrough in U.S.–North Korean relations could marginalize China on the Korean Peninsula. Beijing did believe, however, that direct U.S.–North Korean dialogue could lower tensions in ways that would ultimately serve China’s security interests.

China has long regarded Pyongyang’s nuclear program as a headache.

As U.S.-Chinese tensions over Taiwan ratcheted up in 2019 and 2020—fueled by growing Chinese pressure on the island, major U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and multiple high-level U.S. officials’ visits to Taipei—Beijing grew more overt in its support for Pyongyang, even as North Korea resumed missile tests and refused diplomatic engagement with the United States. In June 2019, Xi visited North Korea for the first time as China’s leader. In March 2020, Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi praised the “positive steps” Pyongyang had taken toward denuclearization and blamed the United States for having failed to reciprocate those efforts and for causing the deadlock in negotiations. That fall, at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War, Xi revived the description of the two countries’ relationship as one “forged with blood.”

China’s support for North Korea peaked early in the Biden administration, as Beijing perceived Washington’s posture to be increasingly confrontational, particularly on Taiwan. Two joint statements issued by the United States in 2021, with Japan in April and South Korea in May, emphasized the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. President Joe Biden’s repeated off-the-cuff remarks suggesting a U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese attack, although consistently walked back by administration officials, further alarmed Chinese leaders.

It was in this context that China renewed its mutual assistance treaty with North Korea in July 2021. When Pyongyang intensified its missile testing in the spring of 2022—including the launch of three ballistic missiles capable of reaching the continental United States—China, along with Russia, vetoed a U.S.-proposed UN Security Council resolution calling for additional sanctions against Pyongyang. This marked China’s first and only veto, to date, of a resolution targeting North Korea, and it came just three days after Biden made remarks suggesting, for the third time, that the United States had an obligation to defend Taiwan. In August, Pyongyang returned the favor by condemning U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, echoing Beijing’s outrage.

As Washington and Beijing took steps to de-escalate tensions following Pelosi’s visit, China’s overt support for North Korea began to recede. At the Biden-Xi summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022, Biden reaffirmed the United States’ adherence to the “one China” policy and its opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. (He also refrained from repeating his earlier remarks about U.S. commitments to Taiwan’s defense.) This more cautious approach continued through the trilateral summit at Camp David, in August 2023, where the United States, Japan, and South Korea issued a joint statement reaffirming that there was “no change in our basic positions on Taiwan” and urged a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues. Beijing, for its part, quietly dialed down its engagement with Pyongyang. When North Korea celebrated the anniversary of the end of the Korean War and the Kim regime’s founding, in July and September, respectively, Beijing sent the Politburo member Li Hongzhong and Vice Premier Liu Guozhong—two officials who ranked well below Li Zhanshu, who attended the same events in 2018.

Continued affirmation of the official U.S. position on Taiwan has coincided with China’s continued willingness to scale back its support for North Korea. In response to Taiwan’s election of the DPP presidential candidate Lai Ching-te in January 2024, whom Beijing views as a staunch advocate of Taiwan’s independence, Biden pronounced, “We do not support independence.” The State Department further emphasized the U.S. commitment to advancing the unofficial U.S.-Taiwanese relationship in a way consistent with its “one China” policy. Two months later, when the UN Security Council voted on whether to renew the mandate of an independent expert panel monitoring North Korea’s violations of UN sanctions, China abstained (although Russia again vetoed the measure). And in May, China reaffirmed its support for denuclearization in a joint statement with Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang responded furiously, calling the statement a “grave political provocation.”

MEETING IN THE MIDDLE

Even with Beijing’s recent distancing from North Korea, and Washington’s reaffirmation of its position on Taiwan, the risk of miscalculation over either issue remains dangerously high—high enough that the United States and China could be dragged into a direct military confrontation. A conflict in the Taiwan Strait or on the Korean Peninsula—or worse, in both—could quickly spiral into a broader war with devastating global consequences.

To mitigate this risk, some analysts have proposed that the United States should seek a “grand bargain” with China. According to this view, Washington could make major concessions on Taiwan, such as explicitly ruling out military intervention in the event of a crisis in Taiwan, in exchange for Beijing’s accommodation of U.S. interests on issues such as North Korea, the South China Sea, and trade. But there is little, if any, appetite in Washington these days for any such grand bargain. More fundamentally, the proposed idea rests on the flawed assumption that great powers can exert total control over their smaller partners. Client states have agency. As both Beijing’s experience dealing with Pyongyang and, to a lesser extent, Washington’s experience with Taipei demonstrate, these smaller partners are not mere pawns to be traded away. They can act unilaterally in ways that complicate their patrons’ strategic goals.

The other end of the policy spectrum is barely a bargain at all. Some analysts argue that China and the United States should base negotiations on single issues, instead of chasing an ambitious but unlikely grand bargain. Single-issue bargaining, however, can reinforce a zero-sum mindset, making it harder to generate the mutual gains needed to reach agreements.

Rather than choosing between these extremes, Washington should pursue a middle path: a focused effort to work with Beijing to manage and reduce military risks on the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. Such a cross-issue bargaining approach would offer a higher chance of success than single-issue negotiations because it creates possibilities for side deals that would be unattainable were the bargaining to remain confined to a single issue area.

To that end, the United States should leverage China’s willingness to rein in North Korea when it feels secure about its vital interests, especially Taiwan. The Trump administration should consistently and publicly reaffirm key elements of the “one China” policy, underscoring the unofficial nature of U.S.-Taiwan relations, pronouncing U.S. opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo by either Beijing or Taipei, and reiterating that the United States does not support Taiwan’s independence. Such assurances would both reduce North Korea’s strategic value to China and reinforce the perception in Beijing that Pyongyang’s recklessness—not Taipei’s actions—is the greatest threat to regional stability and to China’s strategic interests. China, for its part, should consider easing its military, economic, and diplomatic pressure campaigns against Taiwan—steps that would not only lower cross-strait tensions and advance Beijing’s stated goal of peaceful unification, by appealing to the “hearts and minds” of the Taiwanese people, but also better protect Washington from domestic criticism of its efforts to reassure Beijing on the Taiwan issue.

At the same time, China should press North Korea, even if only in private, to refrain from new nuclear tests, suspend intercontinental ballistic missile launches, scale back short-range missile tests, and reengage in dialogue with the new South Korean government to reduce hostilities and military tensions. If Pyongyang were to meet these conditions, Washington should, in coordination with Seoul and Beijing, consider calibrated steps toward diplomatic reengagement with North Korea and limited sanctions relief.

There is little, if any, appetite in Washington these days for a grand bargain.

This middle ground approach is more politically feasible than a grand bargain—in both Washington and Bejing—because it would not demand a fundamental shift in either side’s long-standing policy toward its respective smaller partner. It would not require China to abandon North Korea or the United States to forsake Taiwan. Instead, it recognizes that the two great powers share a fundamental interest in preventing a catastrophic war in East Asia even as both face limits on how far they can—or are willing to—go in restraining their partners.

Precisely because of those limits, such a framework would be brittle. Washington and Beijing must therefore maintain realistic expectations and tolerance for imperfection. Pyongyang and Taipei are autonomous actors, capable of resisting pressure by their patrons and of taking action to force their patrons’ hands. Sustaining cooperation will also require that the United States and China remain dedicated to a narrowly focused joint effort. Any attempts to bundle in other contentious issues such as trade, technology, or critical minerals would likely doom the entire arrangement, increasing the risk that disagreements in one area would derail progress in others.

If the United States hopes to constrain North Korea’s nuclear program, it will need at least tacit support from China—and ideally, Beijing’s active cooperation. Progress will not be linear, but there is precedent for it. Between 2002 and 2008, active diplomatic efforts by Washington and Beijing worked to curb very real risks of military conflict, on both the Korean Peninsula and across the Taiwan Strait. A joint risk control and reduction framework would not be a perfect solution to the underlying disputes over North Korea and Taiwan, but it could function as a stabilizing guardrail, minimizing the risk of escalatory spirals and creating space for leaders to explore more durable security arrangements for the region.

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