{"id":49335,"date":"2026-07-26T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=49335"},"modified":"2026-07-27T11:39:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T03:39:33","slug":"north-korea-and-china-what-drives-their-unbreakable-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2026\/07\/26\/49335\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea and China: What drives their \u201cunbreakable friendship\u201d?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Xi Jinping\u2019s June visit to Pyongyang revealed a CCP regime on the backfoot, needing to shore up China\u2019s influence in its geopolitical \u201cbackyard\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info<\/a><\/p>\n

North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong-un used Chinese president Xi Jinping\u2019s visit on June 8-9, officially to mark the 65th anniversary of China\u2019s only existing defence pact, to showcase the Pyongyang regime\u2019s military advances and its \u2018graduation\u2019 as a fully-fledged nuclear power. The message from Kim\u2019s regime was that North Korea\u2019s nuclear weapons program is not on the table for negotiations. North Korea has around 60 nuclear warheads, with enough fissile material to make 20 to 30 more. Beijing\u2019s position changed around two years ago, from \u201cdenuclearisation\u201d of Korea, to no longer mentioning this while not formally renouncing it either.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s visit was significant for several reasons. This was his first and so far only foreign visit of the year. He is scheduled to go to the US in two months. This contrasts with visits to four countries in the first half of 2025. Presidents Trump and Putin went to Beijing for separate visits in May, as did more than 20 other leaders of foreign governments so far this year.<\/p>\n

To some, this abnormal level of one-way diplomatic traffic is a sign of Xi\u2019s and China\u2019s growing strength on the world stage. It shows the CCP (so-called Communist) dictatorship is more powerful than ever, they conclude. Foreign media reports claim the CCP has adopted a \u201chome court\u201d model of diplomacy, letting the world come to Xi\u2019s door in accordance with his increased standing.<\/p>\n

We believe this is yet another example of the international commentariat completely misreading processes in China. The Xi regime has in reality been significantly weakened in the past few years, continuing into the first dramatic months of 2026. Firstly, this is due to a debilitating economic crisis rooted in a five-years-and-counting property crash, unleashing a Japan-style debt crisis, deflation, subdued growth, weak domestic demand and \u2013 in China\u2019s case \u2013 mass unemployment.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the economic downturn has aggravated factional tensions within the Chinese capitalist class and regime, processes largely invisible to the public at large, but noticeable in the unending wave of military purges and disappearances, which are also unprecedented in the 99-year history of the PLA (People\u2019s Liberation Army, the CCP\u2019s military wing).<\/p>\n

CCP on hard times<\/h3>\n

The mistaken \u2018Xi is stronger than ever\u2019 analysis, does not even consider that this internal CCP and PLA power struggle could be an important factor keeping Xi from traveling \u2013 fearing possible moves against him in his absence, or preferring to be \u2018hands on\u2019, or probably both. Even within the country, Xi has only left the capital, Beijing, on four occasions since November 2025, for short tours, which is also noteworthy.<\/p>\n

While the CCP\u2019s main antagonist US imperialism is in deep trouble, boxed into an apparent \u2018forever war\u2019 with Iran, which puts the fate of the global capitalist economy on a knife-edge, this year has also been a year of serious setbacks for Xi and Chinese imperialism. The limits of its ability to project strength, openly challenge the US and defend its allies in crucial regions such as Latin America and the Middle East have been exposed. China\u2019s economic power \u2013 mainly its export dominance \u2013 is still formidable, but the limits of its geopolitical power are being laid bare in Venezuela, Panama, Iran and Cuba.<\/p>\n

The CCP\u2019s economic strategy requires clinging on to what remains of capitalist globalization, increasingly a bygone era, to be able to absorb China\u2019s exports and prop up its struggling economy. This also requires, for the time being, avoiding an escalation of the US-China conflict by adopting a de facto deferential position towards Trump.<\/p>\n

The last time Xi went to North Korea was in 2019 and that year he also visited Brazil, France, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Nepal and Russia. During this diplomatic outreach he welcomed the first G7 country, Italy, into China\u2019s imperialist mega project, the BRI (it left in 2023). The China-led BRICS forum, which Xi attended in Brazil in 2019, was then widely viewed as a possible alternative to Western imperialist hegemony.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, it seems that Xi has lost interest in attending BRICS summits because of that group\u2019s limitations and internal divisions. Iran is a full member of both BRICS and the CCP-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), but the reader will be hard pressed to find a record of any protest, let alone action, from these bodies in support of Iran as it is attacked by the US. The SCO, which is ostensibly a forum for regional security (!) called for \u201crestraint\u201d from all sides and appealed to the United Nations to \u201cdefend peace\u201d. BRICS could not even manage a verbal protest: A May meeting of the bloc in New Delhi could not agree on a final communiqu\u00e9 \u2013 the UAE, another BRICS member, whose regime is the most pro-war and pro-Israel of the Gulf dictatorships, opposed any statement of solidarity with Iran.<\/p>\n

This paralysis confirms ISA\u2019s assessment of BRICS as something akin to a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d. It is not an actual trade bloc nor is it unified around any plan or vision to challenge US hegemony, contrary to the illusions of some groups on the left.<\/p>\n

It is therefore more than symbolic that Xi\u2019s only foreign visit so far in 2026 is to North Korea, a longtime underling and dependent, which Beijing now worries is straying too far under Russia\u2019s sway.<\/p>\n

Nuclear program<\/h3>\n

Historically, US imperialism is the number one cause of the North Korean regime\u2019s relentless push to develop nuclear weapons. The US has never signed a peace agreement with North Korea since the Korean War and US-led invasion of 1950-53.<\/p>\n

In 2017, zigzagging between escalatory threats and the hope of striking a historic nuclear deal, first-term Trump threatened to \u201ctotally destroy\u201d North Korea \u2013 language that today is addressed to Iran on a regular basis. Currently lacking a nuclear bomb, Iran has been subjected to an aerial bombardment by the US and Israel unprecedented in the history of warfare. That war, the abduction of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in Venezuela, and Trump\u2019s escalatory attacks on Cuba are viewed from Pyongyang as full vindication for its nuclear weapons program.<\/p>\n

The Kim Jong-un regime has used its nuclear program as a strategic tool to remain in power despite decades of severe international sanctions, to reinforce the idea that only the \u201csupreme leader\u201d can safeguard the country against military attack and also to reinforce brutal totalitarian rule. The consolidation of Kim\u2019s rule over the past two to three years as a result of his very profitable alliance with Putin\u2019s Russia has led to further increases in repression, surveillance, forced labour and invasive personal controls to sniff out any signs of dissent. Outside of the relatively prosperous capital city of Pyongyang, half of North Koreans live in absolute poverty and 11m of its 26m population are undernourished.<\/p>\n

The Ukraine war and Russia\u2019s reliance on North Korean munitions and manpower have facilitated a strategic pivot by Kim\u2019s regime away from its previous positions: Korean reunification, \u201csunshine\u201d negotiations with South Korea, and attempts to gain economic concessions and sanctions relief from Western imperialism. In March, the regime deleted the longheld call for \u201cKorean reunification\u201d from its constitution. It also deleted the word \u201csocialist\u201d from the title of the country\u2019s constitution. This was significant, as a further step away from \u201cideology\u201d, even though the constitution and regime have never been socialist.<\/p>\n

These latest amendments formalise the sharp reorientation that started two years ago, which tore up more than a decade\u2019s worth of attempts by Kim and his father Kim Jong-il to reach an accommodation with US imperialism and its allies.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the regime demolished monuments to reunification \u2013 including a famous monument built by Kim\u2019s father \u2013 and destroyed road and rail links leading to the South. The propaganda content of the new policy is that Kim\u2019s regime is now strong, independent, \u201cand nuclear\u201d \u2013 it has no use for agreements with Seoul or Washington. Nuclear acceleration is built into this new course.<\/p>\n

Four days before Xi Jinping touched down in Pyongyang, Kim unveiled a new nuclear processing plant with claims this will boost the production of weapons grade nuclear material by 75 percent. There will be an \u201cexponential\u201d expansion of North Korea\u2019s nuclear forces, he boasted. In late May, North Korea\u2019s military tested its own version of the American HIMAR rocket and also a purported \u201cAI guided\u201d cruise missile.<\/p>\n

Whether these achievements are exaggerated or not, the messaging on the eve of Xi\u2019s visit was unmistakeable: North Korea is now a stronger asset within the anti-Western bloc, which includes China and Russia, so its price is rising. While there were smiles all around, it is clear that Xi\u2019s mission was to remind Kim\u2019s regime that in their complex triangular relationship it is China, not Russia, that is top dog. For their part, the North Koreans were happy to set off a bidding war between Beijing and Moscow.<\/p>\n

China has for three decades been the dominant power and \u201cbenefactor\u201d for the North Korean regime, which seemed close to collapse on several occasions during this period following the collapse of Stalinism and the USSR. China accounts for more than 90 percent of North Korea\u2019s total trade. But the ties Kim has forged with Putin since the start of the Ukraine war have significantly strengthened his hand internally and within the wider geopolitical chess game of Northeast Asia. This has diluted China\u2019s formerly exclusive leverage over North Korea causing growing concern in Beijing.<\/p>\n

The Russian connection<\/h3>\n

Clearly, Xi did not undertake this trip to unlock significant economic deals. China\u2019s economy is around 1,000 times bigger than North Korea\u2019s. Xi\u2019s mission was to steady a historically prickly but crucial geopolitical alliance.<\/p>\n

In the inter-imperialist power struggle, with Trump\u2019s aggressive militarism suffering a major setback in the Middle East, but still not extinguished, the CCP needs a Russia that is not too strong but also not too weak. Putin\u2019s growing influence over North Korea is an irritation for Beijing, but Russia\u2019s current alarming recent setbacks in the Ukraine war are a bigger concern, even if a continuation of the military stalemate of the past few years is still the most likely.<\/p>\n

While its diplomacy is vague and evasive by design, the CCP does not oppose North Korea\u2019s involvement in Putin\u2019s war effort, because its bottom line behind fake expressions of \u201cneutrality\u201d is that Russia must not lose the war. At the same time Beijing is unnerved by the scale of sensitive Russian military technology transfers that Kim Jong-un has been able to extract in exchange for his support.<\/p>\n

Exports of Russian oil to North Korea have increased nearly tenfold since 2022 to around 1.5 million barrels per year. This is far above UN sanction levels, but with Russia itself the world\u2019s most sanctioned country, the international sanctions against Pyongyang are no longer its problem.<\/p>\n

Of even greater importance to Kim\u2019s regime is access to previously off-limits advanced military technology. North Korea has sent between 9-12 million artillery shells and up to 20,000 soldiers as \u201ccannon fodder\u201d to Putin\u2019s war. South Korean sources put the North\u2019s losses at 6,000 killed or wounded.<\/p>\n

In return, Russia has given North Korea air defence systems, advanced satellite and space-based technologies, GPS jamming and electronic warfare equipment and improved missile launch technologies. Pyongyang may also have obtained nuclear propulsion systems to upgrade its submarine fleet.<\/p>\n

Historically, both Beijing and Moscow have refused to pass such military technology to Pyongyang, fearing the consequences of equipping such an unpredictable and unstable regime with advanced weapons systems. It is precisely this Russian military support that has been a game changer, strengthening Kim\u2019s hand and increasing his regime\u2019s geopolitical wiggle room.<\/p>\n

Historical roots<\/h3>\n

Historically, going back to when the three neighbours were Stalinist regimes (non-capitalist dictatorships that claimed to be \u2018socialist\u2019), there was never any genuine trust or comradeship in their relations. Every Stalinist dictatorship was fundamentally nationalist. They pursued narrow national economic planning that leaned towards autarchy, and they defended the privileges and power of a national bureaucratic elite.<\/p>\n

Kim Jong-un\u2019s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, first developed the skillful while thuggish art of balancing and creating competition between his two gigantic \u201csocialist\u201d neighbours. On more than one occasion he jailed and executed pro-CCP and pro-Soviet factions within North Korea\u2019s ruling elite. The relationship between these states, continuing through the process of capitalist restoration, has always been transactional and fraught with tensions under a mask of \u201csolidarity\u201d.<\/p>\n

A glimpse of this reality is given in the recent memoirs of Mike Pompeo, who visited North Korea in 2018 for talks with Kim Jong-un as Secretary of State in Trump\u2019s previous administration. Pompeo recalls that he told Kim, \u201cThe CCP always tells the US that if American troops leave South Korea, Chairman Kim will be very pleased.\u201d To this, Pompeo says \u201cKim excitedly struck the table with his hand and shouted, \u2018The Chinese are liars!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Pompeo\u2019s account: \u201cKim said he needs US forces in South Korea to protect himself from the CCP, and that the CCP wants the US military to withdraw so they can treat the Korean Peninsula like Tibet and Xinjiang.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Pompeo, who harbours ambitions of becoming the next right-wing US president, has his own reasons for presenting their talks in this way, there is nothing shocking or unbelievable here. Kim\u2019s point about US troops in Korea and the CCP\u2019s ambitions, reflected his policy at that time \u2013 for an accord with US imperialism \u2013 while his regime\u2019s dislike and distrust of the CCP is not news. In 2013, Kim Jong-un executed his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was regarded as a go-between for Beijing. This was a warning to Xi\u2019s regime and also to other \u201cpro-China\u201d elements in North Korea\u2019s ruling circle.<\/p>\n

Superficially, the Pyongyang summit confirmed the \u201cunbreakable friendship\u201d between the Chinese and North Korean regimes. But reading between the lines, the North Korean side understands they are dealing with a Chinese leader who has been weakened \u2013 who has not successfully stood up to Trump in Venezuela, Panama or Cuba \u2013 and a Chinese regime that is shakier at home.<\/p>\n

The two-day visit saw the Korean hosts deliver several diplomatic slights and subtle put downs. The crowd mobilised to greet Xi was only one-tenth the size of his previous visit in 2019. On a stone plinth unveiled to commemorate the two countries\u2019 1961 treaty, Kim\u2019s name was written in larger script than Xi\u2019s. This is reminiscent of the scene in Chaplin\u2019s film \u2018The Great Dictator\u2019 when the German f\u00fcrhrer Hynkel and his Italian counterpart Napaloni compete to sit higher by repeatedly raising their barbershop chairs.<\/p>\n

For dictatorships such as the Kim and Xi regimes, state visits and top-level diplomatic exchanges are choreographed down to the smallest detail, according to a strict hierarchical pattern that makes other country\u2019s diplomacy look unscripted and impromptu by comparison. Such seemingly petty details therefore invariably have a significance and are rarely accidental.<\/p>\n

Another example of this were the photos from Pyongyang of Xi Jinping wearing eyeglasses during a musical performance. These were broadcast by North Korea\u2019s state media. But such images have never been seen in China. Chinese media and internet promptly censored all the Korean photos of a bespectacled Xi, in defence of their \u2018strongman\u2019 and his officially flawless vision.<\/p>\n

Regional perspective<\/h3>\n

The Kim regime has achieved a degree of stabilisation and room to manoeuvre. This should not be overstated. Much will change when the Ukraine war finally ends. Xi Jinping was nevertheless forced to break his self-imposed travel ban in order to bring Kim \u201cinto line\u201d and address new and serious issues for Chinese imperialism and the CCP-state portending to the increasingly unstable and dangerous global environment. These include the pressure from a re-militarising Japanese imperialism which is pushing forward aggressively with its alliance-building with South Korea, Australia and other regional states amid uncertainty over the US role in the region.<\/p>\n

Historically, and still today, the Chinese regime needs North Korea as a buffer against US power and its 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea. Previously, the CCP opposed the North\u2019s nuclear arms program, officially favouring \u201cdenuclearisation\u201d, because it feared this could set off a chain reaction pushing Japan and other rivals of Chinese imperialism to develop nuclear weapons. Technically, this is something Japan could accomplish quite rapidly \u2013 within weeks \u2013 which is why it is described as a \u201cpara nuclear\u201d or \u201cnuclear-latent\u201d state.<\/p>\n

In the new situation, however, the main focus of Japan\u2019s right-wing nationalist Takaichi government and its huge militarisation drive is openly stated to be China, with North Korea as a footnote. Hence the CCP has begun to backpedal on \u201cdenuclearisation\u201d for Korea.<\/p>\n

If US imperialism was ever to abandon its decades-long East Asia strategy, to pull back from Taiwan, withdraw its forces from Japan and South Korea \u2013 replicating the nascent trend underway in Europe \u2013 the likely outcome would be the development of nuclear weapons by several of today\u2019s US allies and an even more furious arms race across the region.<\/p>\n

The New York Times described North Korea\u2019s recent geopolitical rise as a \u201cmiraculous transformation\u201d. It stands in sharp contrast to three decades of extreme isolation and internal turmoil that followed the collapse of the USSR and other Stalinist regimes in the early 1990s. Kim \u201cis recognized at home and abroad as North Korea\u2019s most powerful leader to date, surpassing even his grandfather [Kim Il-sung], the country\u2019s founder, because he has achieved the status of a de facto nuclear power,\u201d noted Choe Sang-Hun in the same Times article.<\/p>\n

Denuclearisation is off the table<\/h3>\n

The survival doctrine of the North Korean regime, under the absolute monarchy of the Kim family, is based on a \u201cwar economy\u201d, with vast networks of private capitalists (\u201cmoney lords\u201d \u2013 donju) accounting for around 50 percent of GDP, under an\u00a0 authoritarian militarised state control, with the nuclear weapons program at its core.<\/p>\n

Expressing the new realities of 2026, the nuclear weapons issue was expunged from the June summit agenda whether Xi Jinping had wanted to raise this or not. The North Koreans used Xi\u2019s visit to send a message to the US, Japan, and others, that its nuclear weapons program is not up for negotiation \u2013 even Xi Jinping cannot change our minds!<\/p>\n

The day before Xi\u2019s arrival, Kim Yo-jong, the ruler\u2019s sister, also a leading figure in the regime, announced in the regime\u2019s newspaper Rodong Sinmun that the country\u2019s status as a nuclear weapons state is an \u201cabsolutely non-negotiable\u201d and \u201cirreversible red line\u201d. She stated that Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear forces are meant for actual combat deterrence, not for diplomatic bartering.<\/p>\n

After the Xi-Trump summit in May, the official White House readout claimed the two sides had \u201cconfirmed their shared goal to denuclearize North Korea\u201d, while this explicit formulation was noticeably missing from Beijing\u2019s version, which only mentioned \u201cthe Korean Peninsular issue\u201d.<\/p>\n

Possibly, the North Koreans suspected the CCP leaders had made private commitments to Trump. We cannot exclude that a section of the CCP regime might want to use this as a bargaining chip, for extending the trade truce or in a future trade-off over Taiwan. Therefore, Kim\u2019s regime used the Pyongyang summit to make clear that this door is closed. The US claims were \u201cfalse information\u201d and a \u201ccomplete fabrication\u201d read Kim Yo-jong\u2019s statement. This was to put pressure on Xi and at the same time underscore North Korea\u2019s strategic pivot away from nuclear negotiations and reunification.<\/p>\n

East Asia is a crucial economic region for global capitalism, following several decades of unprecedented industrialisation, where imperialist power struggles and the dominant US-China rivalry are now increasing in tempo. Capitalist regimes are all to one degree or another pursuing right wing nationalist and militarist agendas, posing terrible dangers for the working masses of the entire region. Marxists analyse not for its own sake but in order to organise and build an international socialist alternative, which is the only way out of this unfolding nightmare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xi Jinping\u2019s June visit to Pyongyang revealed a CCP regime on the backfoot, needing to shore up China\u2019s influence in its geopolitical \u201cbackyard\u201d Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong-un used Chinese president Xi Jinping\u2019s visit on June 8-9, officially to mark the 65th anniversary of China\u2019s only existing defence pact, to showcase the Pyongyang […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":49340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[148,124],"tags":[207,174,216,7720,38560,915],"class_list":["post-49335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international","category-news","tag-ccp","tag-china-2","tag-imperialism","tag-north-korea","tag-pyongyang","tag-xi-jinping"],"yoast_head":"\nNorth Korea and China: What drives their \u201cunbreakable friendship\u201d?\u00a0 - 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