China, Russia and North Korea: A fearsome but weak axis

“The Russian army and people will certainly win a great victory in the sacred struggle for the punishment of a great evil that claims hegemony and feeds an expansionist illusion,” said North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, as he raised a glass of wine in a toast to Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. 

The “great evil” Kim was referring to is the United States, which he apparently sees as fighting a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.  

As Kim’s comments show, dangerous powers believe they are locked in a do-or-die conflict with the U.S. and its partners. On the side of North Korea and Russia is the supporter of both, the People’s Republic of China. That grouping is coalescing: For the first time ever, North Korea will join Russia-China naval exercises. 

Unfortunately, the U.S. and its partners do not acknowledge the existence of the struggle. The world, despite what Washington and friends think, has already divided into two camps and dangerous actors are seeking to take down the existing international system. 

The meeting of the North Korean and Russian leaders at a Russian spaceport this month is a symbol of that global division.  

According to the Biden administration, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as North Korea calls itself, is planning to supply items to the Russian military for use on the Ukraine battlefield, particularly 152 mm artillery rounds. Washington has threatened new sanctions if North Korea does so. 

Pyongyang and Moscow do not seem overly concerned by Washington’s words. After all, North Korea has already been supplying Russia in the Ukraine war and Washington has done nothing. Moreover, the Biden administration, despite threats to impose sanctions, has not done anything about China’s direct provision of lethal aid to Moscow — ammunition and “other high consumption rate items,” for instance — for use in the ongoing war. 

President Biden is continuing a record of decades-long failure to enforce sanctions on North Korea and those — primarily China, Pakistan and Russia — proliferating nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology and materials to North Korea. What many see as the weakest nation on Earth has defied the strongest in history to develop weaponry to threaten the world. Similarly, American-led sanctions on Russia with regard to Ukraine have been less effective than necessary. 

In these circumstances, Kim and Putin are openly showing disrespect for America. They met at a space launch site as an in-your-face gesture. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, adopted in 2006, essentially prohibits North Korea from launching objects into space because such launches employ ballistic missile technology, which the nation is not permitted to have or use.   

Yet for all the expressions of friendship and solidarity, there are obstacles to a North Korea-Russia partnership. Kim Jong Un, along with his father and grandfather, long played Beijing and Moscow off against the other, and relationships have always been cold and transactional.  

Moreover, although Russia, North Korea and China can form a fearsome-looking coalition, the nature of their regimes makes the formation of durable, long-term relationships impossible. One of them — North Korea — is totalitarian, another is fast moving back to totalitarianism — China — and authoritarian Russia has always been suspicious of others. Totalitarian and suspicious societies rarely get along with other states for long, at least on an equal basis. 

To make matters worse, Chinese leaders are pushing the notion that they have the right to rule tianxia — “all under heaven” — which, by definition, makes cooperation with the others only short-term. The “contradictions,” as China’s communists say, are irreconcilable. 

During a conversation with David Maxwell of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, he called the trio a “threesome of convenience” and said it was weak “because their relationship is not built on trust and each serves its own interests only.” 

Free societies, on the other hand, are better able to form strong alliances. Maxwell, a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran who served five tours of duty in South Korea, compares the Russia-China-North Korea combination to the grouping now called JAROKUS, composed of Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States.  

JAROKUS, he points out, “is built on a foundation of trust, with strong people-to-people relationships, mutual interests and the shared values of freedom, free-market principles, rule of law and human rights.” 

There has been more than a century of historical animosity dividing Japan and Korea, however. Japan and the United States are treaty allies and South Korea and the U.S. are treaty allies, but Japan and South Korea are not allies and have often treated the other as an adversary. It has been a longstanding U.S. policy to get Tokyo and Seoul to work closely with each other. 

Former President Moon Jae-in often stoked hatred of Japan, but his successor, current President Yoon Suk Yeol, has worked hard to bridge the divide. Yoon has suffered politically for his efforts to normalize relations with Tokyo, but eventually, the South Korean public will see things as Yoon does, in large part because China and North Korea are threatening South Korea 

In any event, the combined military and economic power of the JAROKUS countries is greater than that of the China-led coalition. Unfortunately, the coalition of malign states is far more determined — and is in fact driving events in both North Asia and in the fields of Ukraine.  

“Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years,” Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin in Moscow as the Chinese leader was bidding farewell on March 22. “And we are driving this change together.” 

This month, a bold Kim Jong Un said essentially the same thing to Putin.  

There is a new global struggle, and one side is not afraid of speaking about it in public. 

Gordon G. Chang is the author of “The Coming Collapse of China” and the just-released “China Is Going to War.” Follow him on Twitter: @GordonGChang.