Is China peeved – or pleased – by North Korean troops in Ukraine?

Paul Eckert

China remains officially agnostic about North Korea’s deployment of troops to help Russia’s war in Ukraine – a dispatch that analysts say holds potential trouble for Pyongyang’s main backer Beijing even as both communist nations share the goal of supporting Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian repeated the line Beijing has used in the face of increasingly definitive and detailed accounts of the dispatch to, and movements within, Russia of Korean People’s Army forces from the North.

“China does not have information on that and our position on the Ukraine crisis is consistent and clear. We always believe that all parties need to promote the deescalation of the situation and strive for a political settlement,” Lin said at Friday’s daily news briefing in Beijing.

North Korea has sent nearly 12,000 troops to Russia, including 500 officers and three generals, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate said, adding that the first sightings of North Korean soldiers were recorded on Tuesday. Reports say troops are disguised as ethnic minorities from Siberia.

South Korea last week released detailed satellite images it said showed the first deployment of North Korean troops to Russia. The United States also said on Wednesday it had seen evidence that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for possible deployment in Ukraine.

China is usually secretive about foreign policy issues, and especially about ties with North Korea, but there are real concerns in Beijing behind this silence, analysts say.

“Beijing is clearly uncomfortable with the news that North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia to assist Moscow’s war in Ukraine for a number of reasons,” said Patricia Kim, a fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington.

Adding to regional troubles

For one, Beijing sees a tightening Russia-North Korea alignment as reducing its own influence with those states, and worries that any military assistance Pyongyang gets from Moscow in return for deploying troops might make it more aggressive in Northeast Asia, she told Radio Free Asia Korean.

“China has no interest in the rise of a militarily strengthened and emboldened North Korea that might take greater risks and bring chaos to the region,” Kim said.

Also, a bolder Pyongyang would add to the troubles stoked by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, which has been a main source of regional tension for decades.

Even before the Ukraine troop deployment, North Korean nuclear saber-rattling and other acts of aggression had been drawing the United States, Japan and South Korea ever closer together in an alliance Beijing has viewed as an Asian NATO aimed at constraining Chinese power.

Reports of North Korean troops poised to fight in Ukraine “continue to confirm the growing connection between transatlantic and Indo-Pacific security,” Sen. Ben Cardin, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement Friday.

North Korea is China’s only treaty ally, posing the risk of deeper entanglement in the Ukraine conflict, further undercutting Beijing’s already strained attempts to portray itself as a neutral party and a force for peace.

“While China has taken a neutral stance on the surface regarding the war, it is clearly sympathetic to Russia,” said Naoko Aoki of the Rand Corporation think tank. “But China does not want instability in its own region, which could be heightened as a result of North Korea’s troop deployment.”

For its part, “North Korea has been complaining quite a bit about the Japan-South Korea-United States cooperation, and how that impacts not only North Korea but also Russia and China,” she told RFA Mandarin.

Chinese leverage?

Aoki says the Ukraine deployment of North Korean troops means Beijing will again face calls to use its leverage on Pyongyang.

“We don’t know how President Xi and the Chinese are looking at this,” said John Kirby, spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council in Washington.

“One would think that if you take their comments at face value about desiring stability and security in the region, particularly on the Korean Peninsula, one would think that they’re also deeply concerned by this development,” he said at the White House on Wednesday.

If Beijing moves beyond the current denial phase and becomes worried about North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine, its role as the main economic and diplomatic benefactor of Kim Jong Un’s regime in Pyongyang gives it many tools.

“North Korea still clearly needs China for economic support, which Russia is not in a position to give,” said Aoki.

“If the past is any guide, China’s pressure on North Korea, if it takes place, is likely to be applied quietly and will be difficult to observe from the outside,” she added.

The Financial Times reported Friday that China has been signaling its unease with closer North Korea-Russia ties, sending senior official Zhao Leji to Pyongyang in April. In June, Kim and Putin agreed to a strategic partnership with a mutual assistance clause.

In a letter last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Kim for a congratulatory message on the 75th anniversary of Communist China’s founding — but dropped the customary reference to North Korea as a “friendly neighboring country,” the Times reported.

Keeping Xi’s hands clean

One school of thought, however, holds that Beijing will be happy to sit back and watch North Korea take steps that China supports but is not willing to do on its own.

“In many ways, China benefits from North Korean support for Russia as it reduces the pressure on Beijing to support Moscow with direct military aid while also straining the military capacities of the United States,” said Troy Stangerone of the Wilson Center in Washington.

David Maxwell, vice president at the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, said China “may be quietly pleased” as North Korea offers a “convenient cut out” to send lethal aid and now troops to help Putin.

“Xi likely does not want Putin to fail, but he does not want to get his hands dirty by providing lethal aid from China to Russia,” he told RFA Korean. “Xi can keep his hands clean while KPA troops fight and die for Putin.”

Reporting by Soyoung Kim for RFA Korean and Bing X for RFA Mandarin.