Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine War, North Korea has experienced an economic miracle. It has profited greatly from arms sales to Russia and modernized its infrastructure. Historically, North Korea was kept at bay by its reliance on China for energy and trade, but its rise challenges that status quo. To understand the implications for PRC-North Korea relations and the international order, the Monitor spoke with Oriana Skylar Mastro.
Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was previously an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve Global China Strategy. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016 and 2022 (FGO).
Emma Brignall: What are the implications of North Korea’s rise for the security of the Korean Peninsula and China’s position in the Peninsula?
Oriana Mastro: I think it means, in the short term, some instability on the Korean Peninsula. There are two reasons that I write in my recent Foreign Affairs article of why I think we’re going to see some more aggression out of North Korea. The first is, due to their relationship with Russia, their military has become much more capable. That’s due to the combat experience that they’re getting on the ground fighting for Russia against Ukraine, and also part of the deal of committing those troops is some tech transfer to the North Koreans from the Russians. I think the military has become more capable on the conventional side, and that leads to increased confidence.
I also think that China has historically played a restraining role against North Korea, and even though the United States complains and wishes they would do more, generally speaking, the Chinese have tried to reel in the North Koreans as much as they see as possible.
Now that Russia and North Korea have become closer, the Chinese are worried about losing their influence, and if they lose their influence, they’re losing their role in the region and ability to protect their interests with respect to the Korean Peninsula. So now, if they play bad cop—if they’re very tough on North Korea, and the Russians swoop in—the Chinese feel like they have less space to pressure North Korea to do the right thing than they did before. What we’re seeing is the Chinese letting up and giving them more diplomatic protection, not voting so much for sanctions and other hard measures against North Korea in the UN. I think this also creates a situation in which North Korea is less constrained.
EB: What are China’s primary interests in North Korea, and has that changed?
OM: I think China has a number of interests, and some of them are current and some of them are about future trajectories. First and foremost, East Asia and Northeast Asia—with the Korean Peninsula present—is a very important part of the world, and China has been the regional hegemon and finds it necessary to be the most influential power on the Korean Peninsula. Given the U.S. alliance with South Korea, China counters that by being closer to North Korea. In the long term, they want to have a very strong say in what the future of the Korean Peninsula looks like. Even under unification—if South Korea were to become the sole government—they want to make sure they have the influence to determine, for example, that that means no U.S. troops on the Peninsula anymore. So there’s definitely a security and great-power-competition aspect to it.
On the economic side, the Chinese have always seen North Korea as an opportunity, kind of like how many countries saw China when it started reform and opening up and came out of this horrible period under Mao Zedong. There was a lot of hope that if they brought in economic rules, many people could make a lot of money rebuilding its economy. The Chinese feel the same way about North Korea. They’re right there. They look at all the ports that North Korea has to offer. They look at the return on investment that would happen if North Korea opened up. They’re maintaining their position to get preferential treatment economically in that case.
Diplomatically, they don’t actually want to pay any costs to make that happen, because that would primarily benefit the United States and they don’t really get anything out of it, but diplomatically they do get some bonus points from engaging in mediation and diplomacy. That’s also something they benefit from by being close to North Korea.
EB: More on the diplomatic side, what were the biggest takeaways for PRC-North Korea relations and the international community from the recent meeting between Xi and Kim?
OM: I think the biggest thing is that Xi Jinping went to North Korea and had nice things to say about the longevity and importance of the relationship. It reiterated that China wasn’t going to take a different tack. They were going to continue to support North Korea.
Xi had avoided visiting North Korea for many years, because China has visited many other countries since Xi’s last visit—in 2019, I think. It was definitely a choice not to put North Korea as a top priority, so just the fact that the Chinese agreed to this high-level visit and spoke very positively about the current relationship and the future of the relationship is exactly what North Korea was looking for. It brought them back to center stage in geopolitics and showed the world that they have two very important partners, Russia and China. It gives the North Koreans a lot of prestige when Kim gets photo opportunities with the Russian leader and the Chinese leader.
EB: It is often said that China does not want allies. What exactly is China looking for in Russia and North Korea, and how does that differ between the two countries?
OM: China does not want allies because alliances require choosing sides, and it precludes them from having advantageous relationships across the international system. They want a good relationship with North Korea, and they want a good relationship with South Korea. That doesn’t mean they’re against strategic relationships.
When it comes to Russia in particular, being close with Russia helps them reorder the international system to their liking to be more protective of autocracies. It has historically helped them build their military capacity to a degree that would not have been possible without Russian arms sales and technology transfer.
They also feel like their relationship with Russia is a deterrent against the United States. China does not engage in foreign military intervention, but the United States might not consider attacking a country—not because they’re close to the Chinese—but the United States does pause and think about what the Russian response might be. Outside the region, the fact that Russia might respond to something increases the costs of U.S. action against Chinese interests in other places. They can also cooperate in international institutions to protect their interests and promote the idea that the United States is a destabilizing power.
From the Chinese perspective, Russia helps support China’s rise, its bid for regional hegemony, its desire to be a global power, and to ensure the rules of the international system are beneficial to China and to impose some caution on the United States when it attempts to counter China in certain ways.
EB: Considering North Korea’s rise and increased dialogue between China and North Korea, how should the United States now engage with countries with interests in the Korean Peninsula?
OM: I don’t know what the United States should do, but I can say what I think is going to happen. It definitely puts North Korea back on the priority list. The Biden administration decided not to deal with the Korean Peninsula. President Trump—with all of the priorities they listed in the National Defense Strategy, Korea was only mentioned once, and I think that was in the context of South Korea contributing more to its defense.
I would suspect that either the Trump administration is going to start paying more attention to North Korea, maybe have a summit, and try to move diplomacy forward on some issues, whether it be exchanges on officially ending the war in exchange for some guarantees on seizure or reduction of North Korea’s nuclear program. If that does not happen, and if we don’t see more diplomatic engagement between the two sides, I think we can expect North Korea to restart tests and conduct other activities to get the attention of the international community.
EB: Building on that, with the economic miracle and with Beijing exerting less influence over North Korea, would we expect to see a dramatic change in North Korea’s behavior or more conflict in the region?
OM: I think what North Korea really wants is negotiations to get concessions. They tend to be aggressive for that reason. Some people think North Korea is in a position now that it wants to forcefully unify with South Korea, but I think that’s a minority view.
For the most part, we’ll probably see aggression as a form of coercive diplomacy. They’re using the threat of military force to gain diplomatic and economic concessions from the United States and the international community at large. From their perspective, they look at the model India followed of being accepted as a nuclear power. The North Koreans would like recognition that they are a nuclear power. I don’t see them wanting to actually use military force to achieve their goals. Rather, that’s more of a signaling device to try to get everyone back to the negotiating table.
EB: Taiwan’s defense has been another question in recent negotiations. What are the implications of the United States’ hesitation to provide arms sales to Taiwan, and would that have additional implications for the security of the Korean Peninsula?
OM: This is very problematic on a number of levels. On a political level, it has always been U.S. policy that we don’t decide an arms sale within negotiations with Beijing and how we support Taiwan’s defense. In the last summit, Trump and Xi suggested that we were discussing with the Chinese and negotiating with them on the Taiwan arms sale, which would be a violation of the Six Assurances that we put forward.
On the operational side, the best guarantee of war not happening is that the Chinese believe they can’t do it quickly. Given that it takes some time for the United States to get to sea, the main factor that makes them consider that is the strength of the Taiwan military to hold them at bay. It’s U.S. training and military equipment that will determine that. Any delays in helping Taiwan improve their capabilities is longer that Beijing continues to improve their own, and more likelihood that by the time the Chinese military feels ready to execute an amphibious landing that they look at the capabilities of the Taiwan military and it doesn’t deter them from doing so. I think it’s problematic both from an operational side and from a political messaging side.
EB: Taiwan’s domestic politics have also been shifting. How do you view the moves of KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun to take a more appeasing approach toward relations with Beijing?
OM: I don’t know how different this is from past approaches. I don’t want to use the word “extreme,” but maybe it’s more than some predecessors. It’s been the case since Ma Ying-jeou was promoting economic relations and dialogue with China. The KMT has always positioned itself as the party that is most likely to be able to manage Beijing and therefore ensure peace across the Taiwan Strait.
To a great degree, we’ve seen with some of the agreements on the economic side, that while there was a lot of economic engagement, the Taiwanese people did not feel that that brought them the security they needed. It’s interesting to see the KMT trying to come up with a different pathway of arguing that their approach to Beijing is more secure.
People have different views on this, but it has been the case that they have not won a presidency in a while, though they have won at local levels. The presidency is much more about national security and broader issues than the local elections are. That can be read as an indication that the Taiwanese people are not yet convinced that the KMT’s conciliatory approach of more dialogue with Beijing is necessarily the right way to go.
EB: And lastly, are there alternatives to defense spending that would promote the security of these two regions?
OM: There are many things. The number one issue is that China has a lot of economic leverage that imposes caution on allies and partners from deterring China. The United States has supply-chain vulnerabilities that make it more difficult to counter China. If it were possible for the U.S. government to decide that we would be the number one trading partner of all countries in Asia, that would have a huge impact on imposing costs on Beijing. The problem is that all a U.S. president can decide is what military spending and force posture in the region will be. We can’t control economics. We can incentivize companies to make certain decisions, but it is hard to decide you’re going to be the economic power somewhere. Industry and the private sector do have a huge role to play here, but they are not levers that the U.S. government directly controls.