China focuses on North Korea-Russia friendship

Chinese tourists crowded onto a 12-story building in the bitter autumn wind, vying for the best spot to photograph the border between Russia and North Korea.

The three national flags overlapped on the map on the wall illustrate that Fangchuan, located in the northeastern corner of China, is a unique place.

“I stand here with great pride… Russia is on my left and North Korea is on my right,” said one woman traveling with a colleague. “There are no borders between peoples.”

This may be overly optimistic. Like the Chinese territory she visited that was caught in the middle, Beijing is caught between its sanctioned neighbors.

Concerns about the budding alliance between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un have peaked in recent weeks with reports that North Korea has deployed thousands of troops to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That was before Pyongyang launched a banned intercontinental missile on Thursday, its longest-ever flight to date – following weeks of rhetoric targeting Seoul.

“China seeks a reasonable, highly controlled relationship with North Korea,” said Christopher Green, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. “And North Korea’s relationship with Russia could undermine that.”

If Xi Jinping is unable to shape the Putin-Kim alliance to suit his interests, China is likely to be caught between the cracks as anger and anxiety in the West grow.

Moscow and Pyongyang deny that North Korean soldiers are heading to Ukraine, in what is widely seen as a major escalation. But the United States says it has seen evidence of this following accusations from South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence services.

The first report was released ahead of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s meeting with his Russian counterpart at the BRIC summit in early October, casting a shadow over a gathering intended to send a defiant message to the West.

China’s allies appear increasingly to be out of its control. As a senior partner in the triad, Beijing seeks to be the stable leader of a new world order that is not led by the United States. But that’s hard to do when one ally is waging war in Europe and another is accused of aiding the invasion.

“China is dissatisfied with how things are going, but they are trying to keep their dissatisfaction relatively quiet,” Green said.

This is certainly a sensitive subject for Beijing, and judging by the reaction to our presence in this border town, which appears to welcome tourists but not journalists.

We were in the public area the whole time, but the team was stopped, questioned repeatedly, followed, and our footage was deleted.

The hotel asked to keep my passport for “my safety and the safety of others.” The police visited our hotel room and they also blocked the road to the port of Hunchun, which gives us a closer look at the current trade between Russia and China.

On the observation deck in Fangchuan, it was obvious that most tourists came to see North Korea.

“I saw a guy riding a bicycle,” said a girl looking through binoculars. Her friend rushed over to take a look: “Oh! What a mysterious country this is.

Nearby is the Tumen River, which flows slowly through the three countries. It is China’s gateway to the Sea of ​​Japan, which has a territorial dispute with Tokyo.

The 1,400-kilometer-long (870-mile) Chinese border has some of the only platforms with clear views of North Korea. South Korea’s border with North Korea is a nearly impenetrable barrier known as the heavily mined and heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone.

Someone gave me a pair of binoculars. Some people rode aging bicycles through the village, but there were few other signs of life. One of the largest buildings is a school, with a sign calling on children to “study well for North Korea.”

“North Korea has always been our neighbor. It’s not new to us. “Being able to see their lives made me realize that China is prosperous and powerful. “

Without China, its biggest benefactor, Kim Jong-un’s regime would certainly have difficulty surviving.

This is not always the case. In the early 1960s, Chinese people crossed the shallow waters of the Tumen River to escape famine. Some even went to school in North Korea because they thought the education system was better back then.

The collapse of North Korea’s economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – the Soviet Union had been its main source of aid and cheap oil – triggered severe food shortages and eventually famine.

Soon, North Korean refugees were risking being shot across the often-icy Tumen River to escape hunger, poverty and repression. Currently, there are more than 30,000 people in South Korea and an unknown number living in China.

“Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea has effectively had no choice but to maintain good relations with China, which has been its only benefactor,” Mr Green said.

But now, he added, Russia “is providing an alternative, and North Korea is looking to exploit that alternative.”

Mao Zedong, the first leader of the People’s Republic of China, once compared the relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang to that of “lips and teeth”: “the lips are dead and the teeth are cold”.

Aidan Foster-Carter, a sociologist who has studied North Korea for decades, said Beijing now finds itself suffering from a lack of gratitude because Kim Jong-un’s lips are “kissing elsewhere.”

“North Korea has been a hell comrade to Russia and China. They take as much money as they can [then] Do what they love.

Analysts point out that Kim Jong Un has been flattering Xi Jinping and Putin over the past year. While Kim Jong-un has not met Xi Jinping since 2019, he has met Putin twice in the past year or so. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the two sanctioned leaders closer than ever. Putin seeks more support for his war, while Kim Jong Un hopes to consolidate his power through alliances and attention.

From the Chinese border, it is easy to see the flourishing relationship between the two sides.

The whistle of a train interrupts tourists’ chatter as a steam engine pulls a long line of freight cars slowly across a railway bridge from Russia to North Korea. It stopped in front of a South Korean sign facing China that read: “Towards a new victory!”

The United States estimates that Kim Jong Un has sold more than 1 million artillery shells and Hail rockets to Moscow for use in Ukraine, but North Korea denies this.

But there is no doubt that the two countries have strengthened their cooperation after signing a security agreement in June to help each other in the event of “aggression” by either country.

“On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, which is actually a historically important event, your language towards Xi Jinping was very blunt and formal,” Foster-Carter said.

“Yet on Putin’s birthday, Kim Jong-un called him ‘my closest comrade.’ If you were Xi Jinping, what were you thinking?

It’s hard to know because China has shown no signs of interfering in Russia’s alliance with North Korea.

The United States has taken note of Beijing’s uneasiness, and the two rivals may have similar goals this time.

Last week, State Department officials raised the issue of North Korean troops in Russia with Chinese diplomats.

Beijing does have a choice – in the past, it has cut oil and coal supplies to North Korea and complied with U.S.-led sanctions to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

China is already grappling with U.S. accusations that it sold parts to Russia to help invade Ukraine. Beijing’s trade with Moscow is also booming even as it attempts to contend with Western tariffs.

Xi Jinping maintains close ties with Russia because he needs Putin’s help to challenge the U.S.-led world order. But he has not stopped trying to repair relations with Europe, Britain and even the United States. China has also been holding talks with Japan and South Korea to ease historic tensions.

But Kim Jong Un’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Seoul has renewed South Korea’s debate over whether it should have its own nuclear arsenal. The presence of North Korean troops on the battlefield in Ukraine will only further undermine Beijing’s plans.

South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol has discussed the possibility, discussed “concrete countermeasures” and talked about strengthening security cooperation with Ukraine and NATO.

For regions where China hopes to gain greater influence, a nuclear-armed South Korea or “East Asia NATO” are not ideal. An emboldened Kim could also receive stronger U.S. support for his allies Seoul and Tokyo — in the form of warships and even weapons.

“For a long time, China has pursued a “three no’s” policy in Northeast Asia, one of which is the denuclearization of North Korea. It’s clearly a failure,” Mr Green said.

Now Beijing fears an alliance with Russia could destabilize North Korea, he added: “It might even be good for Vladimir Putin, but not actually good for Xi Jinping.”

Experts say Beijing shares the West’s concerns about what military technology Putin might sell to Kim in exchange for troops.

“Of course it’s a satellite,” Mr. Foster Carter said. “But Putin is bad – not crazy. Russia knows North Korea is a loose cannon, as China knows. Give [Kim] More nuclear weapons technology is not a good thing for anyone.

Experts believe Xi is unlikely to take any drastic action because China needs a stable North Korea — and if he cuts off aid, there could be a refugee crisis at the border.

But Kim Jong Un may also need to make a decision.

Foster-Carter said that while Russia was paying for the shells and troops, it was China that “has been gritting its teeth to keep North Korea going. I just wonder at what point is Beijing going to turn on Pyongyang?”

Kim Jong Un’s deadly gamble could also have far-reaching consequences at home – 25 million North Koreans are cut off from the outside world and completely dependent on Kim Jong Un’s regime for survival.

Across the Tumen River in Fangchuan, a North Korean soldier looked at us, and we looked at him.

On the Chinese side, food stalls selling noodles and sizzling octopus were steaming. He could probably hear the giggling tourists taking photos with the latest cameras and cell phones, which he was prohibited from owning.

The shallow river is an abyss that neither tourists nor soldiers can cross.