Has Beijing given up on a nuclear weapon-free Korean peninsula?

China might be downplaying nuclear weapons by not mentioning the issue after Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea but that does not mean it has accepted its neighbour’s growing arsenal, according to analysts. Neither Beijing nor Pyongyang mentioned nuclear weapons or denuclearisation in their statements on the Chinese president’s two-day state visit to Pyongyang this week. Since Xi’s summit with US President Donald Trump in May, observers have been speculating that Beijing’s stance on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons might be softening. While a factsheet released by the White House after the leaders met said that they “confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea”, Chinese statements did not mention the issue. Instead, while in Pyongyang on his first overseas trip of the year, Xi said that China and North Korea should improve their strategic coordination to safeguard their own sovereignty, security and development. William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, said China was indeed downplaying the importance of denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula. Omitting the issue from official statements showed that China understood that North Korea’s relentless nuclear development made the goal of denuclearisation “even less realistic”, he said. This was echoed by a Chinese expert on Beijing-Pyongyang relations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. “The nuclear issue is not something China alone can solve … China cannot give North Korea what it wants, and China cannot guarantee what the US wants either,” he said, adding that it was unrealistic to expect Chinese intervention when the core parties involved were not actively seeking a resolution. The reality was that Pyongyang already had nuclear weapons and capabilities – including a nuclear retaliatory capacity – and had even enshrined this status in its constitution, he said. “Under these circumstances, trying to negotiate denuclearisation with Pyongyang is simply unrealistic.” In addition, pushing the topic after North Korea made it clear it was off the table would only sour the atmosphere of Xi’s trip, the expert said. A day ahead of Xi’s arrival in North Korea, Pyongyang described the US call for denuclearisation as an “anachronistic dream” and said its nuclear weapons programme was “irreversible”. While some have suggested that China has effectively accepted North Korea as a nuclear-armed state and shifted its objective from denuclearisation to stability, the Chinese expert called this “mere media hype” and said China had never abandoned its goal of denuclearising the Korean peninsula. He stressed that this would be a complex, systemic undertaking and a long-term task that no country could resolve alone. “It requires at least the US, North Korea, South Korea and China – and ideally Russia and Japan as well – to sit down together with a genuine, shared commitment to the goal before denuclearisation can become a reality.” He argued that instead of damaging bilateral ties by pressing a seemingly unresolvable issue, China should shelve the topic until the right conditions emerged – namely, when Washington showed genuine sincerity and Pyongyang was willing to negotiate. In addition, Beijing should consider altering its long-standing “dual-track” approach, he argued. Beijing describes this approach as simultaneously pursuing denuclearisation and “pursuing a peace mechanism” on the Korean peninsula. “At the current stage, the focus could shift to building a peninsular peace mechanism while simultaneously promoting a nuclear disarmament process between the US and North Korea, thereby framing denuclearisation as a much longer-term objective,” he noted. China has emphasised the dual-track approach since 2016. To break the security deadlock, it has called on Pyongyang to suspend its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and on Washington and Seoul to halt their large-scale joint military exercises. While these efforts briefly gained momentum during the intense diplomacy of 2018 and 2019, the progress eventually evaporated after high-level talks between Pyongyang and Washington collapsed. Yang noted Beijing had come to understand that suppressing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions would only jeopardise their relationship and further push North Korea into Russia’s orbit. Maintaining its influence in North Korea allowed China to potentially steer the country away from actions that threatened stability on the peninsula, he added. Beijing is increasingly uneasy over the growing partnership between Pyongyang and Moscow – which yielded a bilateral defence pact in 2024 and has led North Korea to send thousands of soldiers to fight in the war with Ukraine. Moscow has blocked UN sanctions, recognised it as a de facto nuclear-weapon state and reportedly transferred advanced weapons technology to Pyongyang. Shi Yinhong, a professor of international affairs at Renmin University in Beijing, said it had become increasingly difficult for China to maintain its influence over North Korea as Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow had deepened. Any efforts for Beijing to act as a mediator between Washington and Pyongyang would “surely fail” as neither side was willing to blink, he cautioned. Additional reporting by Cao Jiaxuan

Has Beijing given up on a nuclear weapon-free Korean peninsula?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}China is downplaying the issue for now, as it is unlikely that pressuring North Korea would do anything other than sour ties

China is downplaying the issue for now, as it is unlikely that pressuring North Korea would do anything other than sour ties