Putin's visit to N Korea: source of a tripartite anxiety

The recent visit of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to North Korea has added new dimensions to the relationship that has been existing between Russia, China and North Korea. It has also given rise to an osmotic effect on South Korea.
Putin was received with a welcome hug in Pyongyang where the visit also focused on two large portraits of Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin. All of these were designed to worry the West. On arrival the Russian leader was ferried to the Kumsusan guesthouse, the same place where the ally Chinese president Xi Jinping had stayed previously. North Korean state media showed the capital ablaze with light from street lamps and buildings. It was a striking image for a country suffering from a chronic electricity shortage.
It may be noted that Putin’s first visit to Pyongyang since 2000 was a chance for Russia and North Korea to display their friendship, and this was done through Kim declaring his “full support” for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Analysts have observed that this open exhibition of growing friendship between Russia and North Korea has resulted in growth of anxiety in South Korea, Japan, the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). It has, in this context, also been interpreted as evidence of how these two leaders feel they need each other - Putin badly requiring ammunition to keep the war going in Ukraine and North Korea needs money.
However, Putin also knows that the real power in the region was not in Pyongyang or Moscow, suffering from the clout of sanctions, but in Beijing led by the Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Analysts have observed that Beijing urged President Putin not to visit Pyongyang straight after meeting President Xi in May. This was so because Mr Xi is already under considerable pressure from the US and Europe to cut support for Moscow and to stop selling its components fueling the war in Ukraine. In this context, China knows that just as the world needs the Chinese market, Beijing also needs foreign tourists and investment to fight off sluggish growth and retain its spot as the world’s second-largest economy. It is now offering visa-free travel to visitors from parts of Europe as well as from Thailand and Australia. In addition, its pandas are once again being dispatched to foreign zoos.
So far, China has also provided political cover for Mr Kim’s efforts to advance his nuclear arsenal, repeatedly blocking US-led sanctions at the United Nations. However, western analysts realise that President Xi is no fan of an emboldened Kim Jong Un. Strategic experts in that region have underlined that Pyongyang’s weapons tests have enabled Japan and South Korea to set aside their past history to ink a defence deal with the US. In addition, when tensions raise, more US warships also turn up in Pacific waters, triggering Chinese fears of an “East Asian NATO”. Such denotations of Beijing’s disapproval may eventually force Russia to reconsider selling more technology to the North Koreans, which has been one of the US’ biggest concerns.
At this point it would also be correct to refer to another dimension that President Putin needs to remember. It has been observed that Putin needs to realise that it is not worth displeasing China, which buys Russian oil and gas, and remains a crucial ally in a world that has isolated him. Similarly, North Korean policy makers also need to understand that at least 80 per cent of its business is with China. One analyst has described the China-North Korea relationship as an oil lamp that keeps burning.
It would, however, be pertinent to refer here to the impressive-sounding Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement (CSPA) between the two countries, announced at the meeting between Mr Putin and Mr Kim. Tessa Wong of BBC has pointed out that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un have an agreement pledging that Russia and North Korea will help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country. It has not been defined as to what would constitute aggression.
Kim has now said that Putin’s visit had taken their relationship to “a new, high level of alliance”. The pact cements a rapidly blossoming partnership that has worried the West. It could also have significant ramifications for the world, say observers. Any kind of mutual defence treaty could possibly see Moscow assisting Pyongyang in a future conflict on the Korean peninsula, while North Korea could openly help Russia in its war on Ukraine. Kim is already accused of supplying Russia with weapons, while Putin is thought to be giving the North Koreans space technology that could aid their missile programme.
The Russian leader’s column in the North Korean state newspaper has also highlighted shared interests to “resolutely oppose” Western ambitions to “hinder the establishment of a multi-polar world order based on a mutual respect for justice”. Many have expressed anxiety about this format. Nevertheless, geo-strategic observers feel that the evolving situation between Russia and North Korea will not be aimed at tainting the position of China in that region.
Nevertheless, it needs to be mentioned that Putin, as expected, has taken issue with Western sanctions on Russia and North Korea, saying that they both “do not tolerate the language of blackmail and diktat” and would continue to counter the West’s use of “sanctions strangling” to maintain “hegemony”.
The agreement is likely to anger Seoul, which had ahead of the meeting warned Russia against going “beyond a certain point”. National Security adviser Chang Ho-jin had told his Russian counterpart that Moscow “should take into consideration which among North Korea and South Korea will be more important to it, once Russia ends its war with Ukraine”. This evolving scenario has led Rachel Lee, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank’s Korea programme, to observe that the agreement could have “significant implications for the region and the world”. It was also noted that besides the possibility of Russian intervention in a fresh conflict between the two Koreas, “if North Korea continues to supply weapons to Russia, and Russia provides advanced military technology to North Korea, we can face an even greater global weapons proliferation problem.” On the other hand, Chad O’Carroll, a North Korean specialist from NK News, said on X, formerly Twitter, that the clause could open the door to conflict-related co-operation, including the possibility of North Korean soldiers assisting Russia in Ukraine.
Analysts Motoko Rich reporting from Tokyo and Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul have also pointed out that with ballistic missiles regularly flying nearby, Japan and South Korea need little reminder of the threat that North Korea and its nuclear arsenal poses to its neighbours.
Strategists still appear to be sorting through the text of the agreement to understand how far it would extend, either in terms of Putin’s war in Ukraine or any future conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Nevertheless, the pledge, along with indications that Russia could help bolster North Korea’s continuing quest to build its nuclear capabilities has obviously rattled officials in Tokyo and Seoul.
Kim appears to have grown increasingly hostile toward South Korea and this year abandoned a long-time goal of reunifying with the South, however unlikely that might have been. Now he describes the South solely as an enemy that has to be dominated if necessary, through a nuclear war. It may be mentioned in this regard that he has often tested his ballistic missiles by flying them toward Japan, demonstrating North Korea’s provocative stance toward its former coloniser.
All these factors associated with Kim’s alliance with Putin, according to western analysts, might escalate tensions in northeast Asia by sharpening a divide between the democratic partnership among the United States, South Korea and Japan on the one side, and the autocratic camp of Russia, North Korea and China on the other.
As a result of this emerging scenario, Koh Yu-hwan, former head of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for Unification Studies has observed that “it is bad news for international efforts to prevent North Korea from advancing its nuclear and missile technologies.”
President Putin subsequently flew off to Vietnam, but not before the two Heads of State exchanged gifts. Putin gave Kim a second luxury Aurus car - and even took him for a spin in it. The first had been presented to Kim during his visit to Russia. He also gave Kim a ceremonial admiral’s dagger and a tea set. In return Kim gave several works of art said to feature Putin’s likeness.
The scenario unravelling in North Korea has led to Japan vowing to increase its defence budget as permitted under its pacifist Constitution. Nevertheless, it is going to try and purchase more fighter jets and tomahawk missiles. The Japanese leadership has also agreed to strengthen bilateral ties with South Korea and have also drawn closer in a three-way partnership with the US to create mutual security arrangements and more seriously have a larger number of trilateral diplomatic meetings, military exercises and intelligence sharing, according to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
The revival of a Cold War-era mutual defence pledge between North Korea and Russia in this fraught global moment has obviously startled other countries in the region. This has led Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow in Asian studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington to observe - “what I think is more dangerous is that it shows that the relationship will be more long term than perhaps we initially thought and that it may be more strategic than transactional. We do not know the parameters of how far each country will go in support of each other.”
KCNA has also noted that the agreements between South Korea, Japan and the US require the countries to take steps to prepare joint measures for the purpose of strengthening their defence capabilities to prevent war and protect regional and global peace and security. The agency has however not specified what those steps are, or whether they would include combined military training and other cooperation.

Muhammad Zamir, a former Ambassador, is an analyst specialised in foreign affairs, right to information and good governance, can be reached at [email protected]