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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Kim has long sought recognition as a nuclear power. Xi may have just
given it to him
Analysis by Nectar Gan, Yoonjung Seo, CNN
Updated:
2:15 AM EDT, Wed September 10, 2025
Source: CNN
Of the more than two dozen foreign leaders invited to Xi Jinping’s in
Beijing last week, no one reaped a bigger diplomatic windfall than Kim
Jong Un.
The reclusive North Korean leader seized the global spotlight with a
high-profile debut in multilateral diplomacy, with Xi and Russia’s
Vladimir Putin in a defiant demonstration to the West that he enjoys
the backing of the world’s two most powerful autocrats – and a
central role in the alternative global order they are shaping.
On the sidelines, Kim underscored his bond with Putin, who vowed to the
sacrifices of North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Ukraine.
He also held his , restoring ties with a longtime patron strained by
Pyongyang’s growing military alliance with Moscow.
To cap it off, Kim was hosted by Xi for tea and a banquet at his
residence in Zhongnanhai, the walled leadership compound at the heart
of Chinese political power. That privilege was granted to none of the
other 26 foreign guests at the parade, except Putin.
For a young leader who had long been treated as a junior partner by
both Beijing and Moscow, the elevated treatment was a resounding
propaganda coup.
Yet his most consequential victory may not have been what was staged
for the cameras, but what was left unsaid.
For the first time, official readouts of the Xi-Kim summit made no
mention of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula – a striking
departure from the language of the five summits they held between 2018
and 2019.
Analysts say the omission could signal that Kim has secured what he
long sought: China’s tacit acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear
power.
That would mark a stunning turn for Beijing, which had long championed
the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, even as Pyongyang
accelerated its illegal nuclear and missiles programs under Kim.
“With the denuclearization goal now formally removed from the
official readout of the Xi-Kim meeting, a significant shift in
China’s long-term policy is confirmed,” said Tong Zhao, a senior
fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Reluctantly but significantly, North Korea’s most powerful ally
has abandoned the pursuit of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”
Emboldened by his trip to Beijing, Kim on Monday of North Korea’s new
high-thrust rocket engine, which state media said would be used to
power Pyongyang’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the
Hwasong-20.
“North Korea has been given justification to continue holding onto
its nuclear power,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam
University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, noting that
both leaders pledged to strengthen relations “no matter how the
international situation changes.”
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in
Seoul, said Kim was the biggest winner from Beijing’s Victory Day
parade.
“Kim’s international standing was significantly elevated,” he
said, adding that “restored ties with China through economic
cooperation could be leveraged in (future) negotiations with the US.”
US President Donald Trump has to re-engage diplomatically with Kim,
despite the collapse of his first-term attempt to strike a
denuclearization deal with the North Korean leader.
But the US president is already beset by a host of foreign policy
headaches: his attempt to end Russia’s war on Ukraine is getting
nowhere, and Israel’s unprecedented strike on Hamas officials in
Qatar, an American ally, has to his international credibility.
Tacit acceptance
As North Korea’s main ally and economic lifeline, China has long been
central to global efforts to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions
– at times working in tandem with the United States. Beijing has
played an instrumental role in bringing the Kim regime to the
negotiating table and, at multiple junctures, voted in favor of United
Nations sanctions.
But as US-China relations have deteriorated amid intensifying strategic
rivalry, Beijing has scaled back its cooperation on curbing North
Korea’s nuclear ambitions. So has Russia – once a staunch advocate
of nuclear nonproliferation – since its invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, China and Russia a US-led resolution at the UN Security
Council that sought additional sanctions over North Korea’s renewed
ballistic missile launches.
The last time China reaffirmed its commitment to a nuclear-free Korean
Peninsula was at a trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea in
2024. It drew a blistering response from Pyongyang, which denounced the
joint declaration as a “grave political provocation” and a
violation of its sovereignty.
Since then, Beijing has refrained from referencing that goal in its
official statements or documents, Zhao noted.
Meanwhile, Russia’s growing military ties with North Korea – capped
with the signing of a mutual defense treaty last year – have raised
concerns that in exchange for arms and troops, Putin may assist
Pyongyang in enhancing its missile technology and nuclear weapons
delivery systems.
In public, Russian officials have edged closer to openly endorsing
North Korea’s nuclear program. Last September, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov that Moscow considered the denuclearization of
North Korea a “closed issue,” saying it understood Pyongyang’s
reliance on nuclear weapons as the foundation of its defense. By July,
Lavrov went a step further, saying Russia “respects” North
Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
While Beijing hasn’t gone as far as Moscow, its quiet abandonment of
the denuclearization goal marks a subtle yet consequential shift –
one that could open the door to closer China-North Korea ties, or even
bolster momentum for trilateral cooperation with Russia, Zhao said.
Despite their unprecedented joint appearance atop Beijing’s Gate of
Heavenly Peace during the military parade, Xi, Putin and Kim were not
reported to have convened a trilateral summit on the sidelines.
‘Troubling signal’
Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said acceptance
of North Korea’s nuclear status may well form part of Xi and
Putin’s no longer dominated by the US and its allies.
“At the very least, China’s indulgence of Pyongyang and the nuclear
threat it poses to Asia-Pacific security suggest that such disruption
is considered to serve China’s strategic interests. So long as the
undermining of the existing order aligns with its goals, Beijing may be
willing to shield it,” he said.
That marks a stark contrast to less than a decade ago, when China and
Russia voted with the US at the UN Security Council to tighten
sanctions against North Korea in 2016 and 2017.
In fact, in 2015 it was South Korea’s then President Park Geun-hye
– not Kim Jong Un – who stood beside Xi and Putin on the Tiananmen
rostrum to review the military parade marking 70 years since the end of
World War II.
Some experts have cautioned that the public omission of
denuclearization by Xi and Kim might not amount to a shift in China’s
official stance.
Shuxian Luo, an assistant professor of Asian studies at the University
of Hawaii, Mānoa, said although the usual call for denuclearization
was dropped at the summit, Beijing is unlikely to have abandoned this
position in private discussions with North Korean officials, given its
longstanding concern about a “nuclear domino effect” in East Asia.
Beijing has long viewed Pyongyang as both a strategic asset and a
destabilizing liability.
While North Korea has served as a geopolitical buffer against the US
and its allies in East Asia, its pursuit of nuclear weapons and
ballistic missiles has undermined regional security and handed
Washington a justification to expand its military presence on China’s
doorstep. It also risks triggering a chain reaction, provoking other
regional powers like South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear
arsenals – especially amid doubts over the reliability of the US
nuclear umbrella under Trump.
Already, South Korea is facing growing calls at home for a long-term
security solution – potentially including an indigenous nuclear
deterrent, Zhao said. “While unlikely under the current progressive
government, the overall likelihood of such a development has
increased,” he added.
China’s tacit acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status may also
have been influenced by signals from senior officials in the Trump
administration expressing tolerance for allied nuclear proliferation,
as well as Beijing’s concerns about AUKUS – a program through which
the US and UK will assist Australia in building nuclear-powered
submarines, Zhao said. China has portrayed AUKUS as a step toward
transferring nuclear weapons materials.
“By interpreting these actions as evidence that Washington is
drifting away from a principled nonproliferation stance, Beijing may
thus feel justified in prioritizing its geopolitical interests over
global nonproliferation norms,” Zhao said. “This sends a troubling
signal that could embolden other would-be nuclear states to exploit
great-power rivalry for their own proliferation ambitions.”
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