Chinese language authorities within the northeastern metropolis of Shenyang reportedly arrested a North Korean IT specialist in late April 2025, accusing him of stealing drone expertise secrets and techniques.
The story was later circulated by a number of Chinese language on-line shops. Given the tight censorship in China, this suggests a level of tacit editorial approval from Beijing – though some websites later deleted the story. In a response to Yonhap over the alleged incident, a Chinese language Overseas Ministry spokesperson famous that North Korea and China have been “friendly neighbors” that maintained “normal” personnel exchanges, with out denying the main points.
The incident suggests a uncommon semipublic spat between the 2 neighboring communist international locations, contradicting the picture of China and North Korea as “brothers in arms.”
As a scholar of Northeast Asian safety, I see the arrest – which has gotten little consideration in English-language media – as consultant of a wider, extra nuanced image of the 2 international locations’ present relations. There are indicators that Beijing is rising pissed off with Pyongyang – not least over North Korea’s rising closeness with Moscow. Such a improvement challenges China’s conventional position as North Korea’s main patron.
Briefly, the arrest may very well be a symptom of worsening ties between the 2 international locations.
Beijing’s dilemma over North Korea
North Korea has lengthy been seen by Beijing as each a strategic safety buffer and inside its pure sphere of affect.
From China’s perspective, permitting a hostile power to realize management of the peninsula – and particularly the north – might open the door to future navy threats. This concern partly defined why China intervened through the Korean Struggle of 1950-1953.
Past safety, North Korea additionally serves as an ideological ally. Each international locations are run by communist events — the Chinese language Communist Social gathering and the Staff’ Social gathering of Korea — though the previous operates as a Leninist party-state system with a partial embrace of market capitalism, whereas the latter stays a inflexible socialist state characterised by a robust persona cult.
Chinese language President Xi Jinping holds a welcoming ceremony for North Korean chief Kim Jong Un in Beijing on Jan. 8, 2019.
Xinhua/Li Xueren by way of Getty Pictures
Even right this moment, Chinese language state media continues to spotlight the bonds of “comradeship” with Pyongyang.
Nevertheless, Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions have lengthy troubled Beijing. North Korea has performed a number of nuclear checks since 2006 and is now believed to own nuclear weapons able to focusing on South Korea, Japan and U.S. bases within the area.
China helps a denuclearized and steady Korean peninsula – each for regional peace and financial development. Just like the U.S., Japan and South Korea, China opposes nuclear proliferation, fearing North Korea’s periodic checks might provoke U.S. navy motion or set off an arms race within the area.
In the meantime, Washington and its allies proceed to strain Beijing to do extra to rein in a neighbor it usually views as a vassal state of China.
Given China’s financial ties with the U.S. and Washington’s East Asian allies – primarily South Korea and Japan – it has each cause to keep away from additional instability from Pyongyang.
But to North Korea’s isolationist rulers, nuclear weapons are very important for the regime’s survival and independence. What’s extra, nuclear weapons can even restrict Beijing’s affect.
North Korean chief Kim Jong Un worries that with out nuclear leverage, China might attempt to intrude within the inside affairs of his nation. After the loss of life if Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011, Beijing was thought to favor Kim Jong Un’s elder half-brother Kim Jong Nam as successor — presumably prompting Kim Jong Un to have him assassinated in 2017.
However regardless of ongoing tensions over the nuclear concern, China has continued to assist the North Korean regime for strategic causes.
For many years, China has been Pyongyang’s prime buying and selling accomplice, offering essential financial support. In 2023, China accounted for about 98% of North Korea’s official commerce and continued to provide meals and gasoline to maintain the regime afloat.
Pyongyang friends up with Putin
But over the previous few years, extra of North Korea’s imports, notably oil, have come from one other supply: Russia.
North Korea and Russia had been shut allies through the Chilly Struggle, however ties cooled after the Soviet Union collapsed within the early Nineties.
Extra lately, a shared hostility towards the U.S. and the West usually has introduced the 2 nations nearer.
Moscow’s worldwide isolation following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and its deteriorating ties with South Korea specifically have pushed it towards Pyongyang. North Korea has reportedly provided giant portions of ammunition to Russia, changing into a vital munitions provider within the Ukraine warfare.
Although each governments deny the arms commerce – banned underneath United Nations sanctions – North Korea is assumed to have acquired gasoline, meals and entry to Russian navy and area expertise in return. On March 8, 2025, North Korea unveiled a nuclear-powered submarine that consultants consider could contain Russian technological help.
By 2024, Russian forces have been utilizing round 10,000 shells per day in Ukraine, with half sourced from North Korea. Some front-line items have been reportedly utilizing North Korean ammunition for as much as 60% of their firepower.
Excessive-level visits have additionally elevated. In July 2023, Russia’s protection minister, Andrey Belousov, visited Pyongyang for the seventieth anniversary of the Korean Struggle armistice, adopted by Kim Jong Un’s go to to Russia in September for a summit with President Vladimir Putin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean chief Kim Jong Un share a toast throughout a reception in Pyongyang on June 19, 2024.
Vladmir Smirnov/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
In June 2024, Putin visited Pyongyang, the place the 2 international locations signed a complete strategic cooperation settlement, together with a pledge that every would come to the opposite’s support if attacked.
Quickly after, North Korea started sending troops to assist Russia. Intelligence from the U.S., South Korea and Ukraine signifies that Pyongyang deployed 10,000 to 12,000 troopers in late 2023, marking its first involvement in a significant battle because the Korean Struggle. North Korean troopers reportedly obtain a minimum of US$2,000 monthly plus a bonus. For Pyongyang, this transfer not solely gives monetary achieve but additionally fight expertise ought to warfare ever reignite on the Korean Peninsula.
Why China is frightened
China, too, has remained on pleasant phrases with Russia because the warfare in Ukraine started. So why wouldn’t it really feel uneasy in regards to the rising closeness between Pyongyang and Moscow?
For starters, China views Pyongyang’s outreach to Moscow as a problem to its conventional position as North Korea’s primary patron. Whereas nonetheless depending on Chinese language support, North Korea seems to be searching for better autonomy.
The strengthening of Russia–North Korea ties additionally fuels Western fears of an “axis of upheaval” involving all three international locations.
Not like North Korea’s confrontational stance towards the West and its neighbor to the south, Beijing has supplied restricted assist to Moscow through the Ukraine warfare and is cautious to not seem a part of a trilateral alliance.
Behind this technique is a need on behalf of China to take care of steady relations with the U.S., Europe and key Asian neighbors like Japan and South Korea. Doing so could also be one of the best ways for Beijing to guard its financial and diplomatic pursuits.
China can also be involved that with Russian assist in nuclear and missile applied sciences, Pyongyang could act extra provocatively — via renewed nuclear checks or navy clashes with South Korea. And this might solely destabilize the area and pressure China’s ties with the West.
A defiant and provocative Pyongyang
The timing of the alleged spy drama could provide additional clues concerning the state of relations.
It got here only a day after North Korea formally confirmed it had deployed troops to assist the Russian warfare effort. It additionally introduced plans to erect a monument in Pyongyang honoring its troopers who died within the Ukraine warfare.
The final spy case like this was in June 2016 when Chinese language authorities arrested a North Korean citizen within the border metropolis of Dandong. It reportedly adopted Pyongyang informing China that it might completely pursue its nuclear weapons program.
The China-North Korea relationship deteriorated additional when North Korea efficiently examined a hydrogen bomb in September 2016, prompting Beijing to again U.N. Safety Council sanctions in opposition to Pyongyang.
Once more, this time North Korea reveals little signal of bending to China’s will.
On April 30, Kim oversaw missile launches from North Korea’s first 5,000-ton destroyer, touted as its most closely armed warship.
None of which is able to assist ease Beijing’s issues. Whereas China nonetheless sees Pyongyang as a vital buffer in opposition to U.S. affect in Northeast Asia, an more and more provocative North Korea, fueled by a rising relationship with Russia, is beginning to look much less like a strategic asset — and extra like a legal responsibility.
