By Ramon Pacheco Pardo
20.6.2024
Kim Jong-un received Vladimir Putin for a summit in Pyongyang on 19 June 2024. This was Putin’s first visit to North Korea since 2000, shortly after his inauguration as Russian president. It is thus his first visit to North Korea during Kim Jong-un’s leadership. Putin’s visit to North Korea comes after the two leaders met in the Russian Far East in September 2023. The key takeaway from the Kim-Putin Summit was the upgrading of the North Korea-Russia relationship to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership”, the result of a new bilateral treaty replacing their Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness Treaty signed in 2000. According to Kim, this means that Russia is now North Korea’s “ally”.
The new agreement includes a “military assistance” clause whereby the two countries have agreed to provide military support to the other if they come under attack. In addition, it is widely believed that North Korea will continue to provide artillery shells and missiles to Russia, thus allowing Putin to continue the invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, it is to be expected that Russia will continue to provide North Korea with fuel, food and support for its weapons and satellite programmes, and perhaps also its nuclear one. In fact, during the summit Putin indicated that Russia will work with North Korea to resist the sanctions that both countries are under, a position that Moscow was already pursuing de facto as it disregarded the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on Pyongyang.
How strong and enduring are North Korea-Russia ties?
The relationship between North Korea and Russia has arguably reached post-Cold War heights following Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and as Kim seeks to steer Pyongyang out of its self-imposed, COVID-19-related isolation. North Korea has been one of a handful of countries providing staunch diplomatic support to Russia in connection to the invasion of Ukraine, maintaining Moscow’s line that the invasion is the result of NATO’s “aggressiveness” and “expansionism”. Plus, North Korea has been transferring artillery shells and missiles to Russia, as indicated above. This way, Pyongyang has allowed Moscow to boost its offensive capabilities when it most needs it. Meanwhile, Russia has been protecting North Korea from further UNSC sanctions thanks to its veto power. Moscow has also repeatedly breached the sanctions regime on the Kim regime, thus providing Pyongyang with a lifeline while other countries hesitate to fully re-engage post-COVID-19 pandemic North Korea. Arguably, Russia has become North Korea’s strongest diplomatic, economic and military backer in recent months.
Recent history tells us, however, that North Korea-Russia ties are mainly driven by interests rather than strategic convergence. Russia did not hesitate to cease economic and security ties with North Korea following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Afterwards, Putin’s diplomatic offensive in 2000-2001 was later abandoned as Russia acquiesced to UNSC sanctions on Pyongyang from 2006. And Putin refrained from meeting with Kim Jong-un after the current North Korean leader took power, only meeting Kim for the first time in Vladivostok in 2019, with North Korea engaged in a diplomatic offensive also including South Korea, the United States (US) and China. In this respect, the 2000 North Korea-Russia treaty was telling in that it did not include any mention to “military assistance”, which Putin did not want to commit to. Were Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to end for any reason, it would not be surprising if it distanced itself from North Korea and sought stronger relations with other countries – including South Korea. Pyongyang, meanwhile, has defied past Russian calls to refrain from nuclear and other tests and to sit at the negotiation table to deal with Korean Peninsula instability. There is thus a precedent for North Korea going against Russia’s preferred policy.
What are the implications of the summit for third countries?
The Kim-Putin Summit has direct implications for third countries, including South Korea, the US and China. In the case of South Korea, the summit is yet another worrying sign that relations with Russia are poor at the moment and that Moscow will provide support to Pyongyang’s weapons and satellite programmes. Relations between Seoul and Moscow are unlikely to move in a positive direction as long as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine continues and South Korea remains one of the few non-NATO countries providing strong backing to Kyiv. If anything, the North Korea-Russia summit will validate South Korea’s position to offer non-lethal military support directly to Ukraine, as well as weapons via third countries. Meanwhile, the Kim-Putin Summit vividly illustrates that Russia’s invasion and its need for munition and weapons means that Moscow is willing to take ties with Pyongyang to unprecedented post-Cold War highs. The Republic of Korea Army thus needs to make the assumption that North Korea will be able to develop its nuclear, missile, spy satellite and other programmes much more rapidly than otherwise would be the case. There is little that South Korea can do to prevent Russia from increasing its support to North Korea, given Seoul’s stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the current, poor state of inter-Korean relations. Russia, for its part, risks straining relations with South Korea to the extent that it cannot maintain a balance between the two Koreas. This undermines Moscow’s goal of being an actor of consequence in the Korean Peninsula.
As for the US, the Kim-Putin Summit illustrates that Russia is not as isolated as the Biden administration would like. North Korea serves as an example to countries who want to take a neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict or even want to back Moscow, in that Pyongyang can benefit from Moscow’s needs without any major reprisal. Plus, the North Korea-Russia summit also demonstrates that Pyongyang has the intention to continue to offer military assistance to Moscow, which will help to prolong Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. With US-North Korea dialogue essentially stalled for years now and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine still ongoing, there is little that Washington can do to stop North Korea-Russia cooperation. However, the summit will validate the Biden administration’s position to pursue stronger trilateral ties with South Korea and Japan. Analogies of a new Cold War may seem facile, but there is no doubt that the North Korean threat and Russia’s decision to invade a third country are two powerful reasons behind the decision by Seoul and Tokyo to work trilaterally with Washington, as well as to improve their own bilateral ties. Similarly, the Kim-Putin Summit will serve Washington’s policy-makers to continue to make the case that what happens in (East) Asia matters for Europe and vice versa. This should drive more European countries to take the North Korean threat more seriously.
With regards to China, it is likely that the Xi government feels displeased with the North Korea-Russia Summit and broader rapprochement between the two countries. China considers itself to be the key country in managing relations between North Korea and third countries. Kim, expressing that Russia is North Korea’s “most honest friend and ally”, is a slap to China’s face. The Xi government has also sought to distance itself from any idea that it is part of a China-Russia-North Korea axis potentially including others such as Iran. Yet, the summit between Kim and Putin will reinforce the sense for many that autocracies are banding together to confront democracies – and China is widely seen as the key autocracy leading this process. Similarly to the case of South Korea and the US, China has limited leverage over North Korea or Russia at the moment. The Xi government seems to have no intention to strengthen ties with Pyongyang to a level that would make the latter rethink its ties with Moscow, at least for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to have its limits, including the transfer of lethal weapons that North Korea is willing to provide. Long-term, however, China will remain North Korea’s key economic and diplomatic lifeline, and thus will retain its influence over its neighbour.
