North Korea signals readiness for war, and key ally China may be powerless to stop it

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North Korea would not exist without China. In October, 1950, less than four months after dictator Kim Il Sung launched an invasion to forcibly unify the Korean Peninsula, his regime was on the verge of destruction. South Korean and United Nations forces had taken Pyongyang, and North Korea’s army was hemmed in.

Chinese leader Mao Zedong, unwilling to see the defeat of a fellow communist government and wary of sharing a border with a U.S. ally, decided to intervene. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops poured into North Korea and succeeded in pushing Pyongyang’s opponents back to the 38th parallel, where the war has been paused since 1953, though never officially ended.

Today, China remains North Korea’s most important trading partner and ally – the only country believed to have any major influence over current ruler Kim Jong Un.

So with North Korea apparently preparing – as some analysts believe – for another war, this time with potentially even more devastating consequences for both the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world, those analysts are wondering if China can rein in its bellicose neighbour.

“The situation on the peninsula is now at an unprecedented stage of tension,” said Lü Chao, a professor at Liaoning University’s Institute of American and East Asian Studies. “It has reached the most serious confrontation since the end of the war.”

Last week, Mr. Kim announced that North Korea was abandoning the cause of peaceful unification and now regarded the South as its “primary foe.” Since the start of the year, Pyongyang has conducted multiple missile launches, including of a hypersonic missile capable of dodging some South Korean defences, and tested the country’s underwater nuclear weapons system.

Pyongyang said the latter test, on Jan. 19, was in response to the largest-ever joint military drills by the U.S., South Korea and Japan, which those countries argue are necessary to maintain readiness in the face of North Korean threats.

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North Korea analysts Robert L. Carlin and Siegfried S. Hecker – neither of whom are known for alarmism – recently warned that Mr. Kim may have “made a strategic decision to go to war.”

“We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s ‘provocations,’ ” they wrote this month.

Some experts doubt this assessment, pointing out that North Korea does not appear to be stockpiling weapons and is moving ahead with relaxing COVID-19 controls and reopening its borders to foreigners. Thomas Schafter, a former German ambassador to North Korea, wrote last week that Pyongyang’s increased aggression is likely preparation for a potential second Trump administration in the U.S., setting the stage to de-escalate next year and secure concessions from Washington.

During Donald Trump’s first term, he held three historic summits with Mr. Kim, and the two Koreas also moved toward rapprochement, though nothing concrete was achieved and that progress has unravelled since the changes of administration in both Washington and Seoul.

North Korea has subsequently moved closer to its traditional allies China and Russia, particularly the latter, with Mr. Kim travelling to the Russian Far East to meet with President Vladimir Putin and providing arms to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. Pyongyang said Sunday that Mr. Putin would travel to North Korea early this year, the first visit by a Russian leader in more than two decades.

Pranay Vaddi, the White House’s senior director for arms control, recently warned that the security threat from North Korea could “drastically” change over the coming decade as a result of increased co-operation with Russia.

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China also appears to be drawing closer to North Korea, with the two countries naming 2024 a “year of friendship,” and bilateral trade reaching its highest level since before the pandemic.

Top Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao, speaking alongside North Korean envoy Ri Ryong Nam in Beijing last week, said China would work with North Korea “to carry forward our traditional friendship, deepen strategic communication, promote mutually beneficial co-operation, advance bilateral ties and to safeguard regional peace and stability.”

Chinese state media have largely blamed the recent increase in tensions on Seoul, pointing to President Yoon Suk Yeol’s hardline policy toward North Korea and greater military co-operation with Japan and the U.S. This month, Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called for all sides to “exercise calm and restraint, refrain from fuelling tensions and avoid further escalation.”

“As a neighbouring country, China stands for keeping the peninsula peaceful and stable,” he said.

Indeed, unlike Russia, which might benefit from increased tensions in East Asia that distract the U.S. from the war in Ukraine, China stands to lose as much as anyone from a war between the Koreas. As in the 1950s, China could be pulled into a war on the peninsula, costing the country soldiers and resources that President Xi Jinping would prefer to focus elsewhere – such as a potential conflict over Taiwan.

“No one benefits from the outbreak of a hot war, this has always been China’s attitude,” said Prof. Lü, adding that a second Korean conflict could bring “unimaginable consequences” to all countries involved.

Bjorn Alexander Duben, a Northeast Asian studies specialist at Jilin University in northeastern China, told the South China Morning Post last month that “Beijing does not mind minor crises arising that keep the U.S. occupied, but it does not want deeper global instability – especially in light of China’s unfavourable economic situation.”

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What is unclear, however, is whether Beijing can actually prevent North Korea from launching a war if Pyongyang decides conflict is necessary.

Writing last year, Bruce Bennett, a senior researcher at the Rand Corporation, said there has been “considerable friction” between North Korea and China, and Pyongyang “has a history of defying Chinese influence.” After coming to power, Mr. Kim had both his uncle and half-brother killed; both men were seen as close to Beijing, and the latter, Kim Jong Nam, lived for years under Chinese protection.

China has considerable economic leverage over North Korea, but as with Western sanctions, this may not be enough to sway Pyongyang. At the height of the pandemic, North Korea cut itself off almost entirely from the rest of the world, which caused widespread misery among ordinary people, but did nothing to slow down Mr. Kim’s weapons programs.

If war does truly appear to be on the horizon, China may seek to make it clear to Mr. Kim that it will not bail him out as it did his grandfather. During a previous round of escalation at the start of the Trump administration, some Chinese military analysts suggested Beijing would not be obliged to defend its ally if North Korea used nuclear weapons, as this would breach a treaty between the two countries.

But that, too, may be an insufficient deterrent. In his speech last week, the North Korean leader said Pyongyang’s enemies were the ones pushing it toward war – and promised to “inflict an unimaginably crushing defeat” on them if forced to do so.

With files from Alexandra Li and Reuters