Russia's growing ties with North Korea making China uncomfortable, claim US officials

US Deputy Secretary Kurt Campbell said that China is increasingly becoming uncomfortable with the growing ties between North Korea and Russia as the ongoing war in Ukraine continues to escalate. The comments from the US official came while he was discussing whether China supports the presence of North Korean troops in Russia.

The officials noted that China has been silent about the recent developments in the war and many speculate that Beijing might be worried that the military collusion in Ukraine will help an American drive to form a network of alliances with South Korea and Japan in East Asia.

The remarks from the US official came after China extended a rare olive branch to Japan, expressing its intention to remove a buoy it installed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone near the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The island has been a major flashpoint of contention between the two nations and the Chinese act is seen as a symbolic effort to encourage those inside Japan that do not want to be drawn into a US-led conflict with China.

‘Coordination between Pyongyang and Moscow is unnerving to China’

While discussing the matter in a recent seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, Campbell insisted that the growing coordination between Pyongyang and Moscow is “unnerving to China”.

“The topic that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for Chinese interlocutors is the DPRK [North Korea] engagement with Russia,” the American official said during the panel discussion. “In some of the discussions we have had it seems we are informing them of things that they were unaware of with regard to DPRK pursuits, and they are concerned that Russian encouragement might lead the DPRK to contemplate either actions or military actions that might not be in China’s interests,” he added.

Campbell pointed out that China’s discomfort with the growing ties between Russia and North Korea can be seen by the fact that Beijing has not weighed in directly on the matter. “China has not weighed in directly to criticise Russia but we do believe that the increasing coordination between Pyongyang and Moscow is unnerving them,” he added.

Dennis Wilder, a former CIA assistant director for East Asia and Pacific, reiterated the same assertion. “The radio silence in Beijing on this subject is staggering. There is not a word in the Chinese press either about the strategic agreement made between Russia and North Korea in the summer or about sending troops,” he said at the event.

“If Russia goes down the road of nuclear assistance to North Korea this will bolster the Americans’ alliances in east Asia and maybe create a true NATO so President Xi Jinping is in a very very difficult spot,” the former CIA official added.

However, not everyone agreed with the idea. Andrew Shearer, the director general of Australia’s Office of National Intelligence, expressed scepticism about the idea that China is uncomfortable with the ties between Pyongyang and Russia. “The idea of driving wedges between Putin and Xi is pretty fanciful and if we do not face up to the reality that Putin is only still in the war in Ukraine today due to China’s military, diplomatic and dual-use support we are not going to fashion effective strategies,” he said.

Similar doubts were also expressed by observers from Japan. “There is no way that China did not know what Russia was planning. China cannot afford to see Russia lose against the West, and if Russia wins it helps set up a propaganda advantage and precedent for China in seeking to control Taiwan,” said Prof Emi Mifune, of the faculty of law at Komazawa University. While China’s silence made many speculate that Beijing is uncomfortable with the recent developments, some claim that President Xi Jinping’s administration is just putting the developments on the back burner.