PYONGYANG – Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a two-day summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday, marking his first visit to the North Korean capital in seven years.
While state-run media in both China and North Korea produced thousands of words of coverage regarding the meeting, they made no mention of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
The omission of “denuclearisation”-a term previously central to diplomatic communications between Beijing, Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo-indicates a potential shift in how China views Pyongyang’s nuclear status and how it intends to manage one of Asia’s most volatile security challenges.
A Departure from Previous Diplomatic Norms
Until 2019, China and the United States acted, at least nominally, as partners in diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. During that period, Beijing routinely used the term “denuclearisation” to describe the goal of nuclear disarmament and backed multilateral frameworks such as the Six-Party Talks.
During his last visit to North Korea in 2019, Xi was quoted in Chinese media stating that his nation would “play a constructive role in the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.”
The current silence contrasts sharply with those previous commitments. Analysts suggest Beijing may now acknowledge that diplomacy is unlikely to convince Kim Jong Un to surrender the weapons he considers his primary guarantee against outside interference, even as China continues to oppose any use of force or regime-change scenarios.
For policymakers in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, the absence of the familiar “denuclearisation” language raises questions about whether Beijing still supports the longstanding objective, articulated in multiple UN Security Council resolutions on non-proliferation, of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula-or whether it is settling into managing, rather than reversing, North Korea’s nuclear status.
North Korean Nuclear Expansion
The absence of public criticism from Beijing coincides with an acceleration of Pyongyang’s military capabilities.
Last week, Kim Jong Un unveiled a new plant designed to produce nuclear ingredients and pledged to increase nuclear forces “at an exponential rate.”
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung reported on Monday that North Korea is currently producing enough nuclear fuel annually for approximately 10 to 20 bombs. Lee also stated that the North is close to perfecting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology capable of reaching the United States mainland.
Kim Jong Un has since enshrined North Korea’s nuclear status within the national constitution, dedicating a significant portion of the country’s industry and bureaucracy to sustaining the program and making it politically and legally harder to reverse.
The accelerating programme places North Korea in direct violation of binding global non-proliferation norms overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, heightening pressure on regional governments to decide how far they are willing to go in enforcing existing sanctions and deterrence policies.
Conflicting Readouts on US-China Relations
The diplomatic rift is further evidenced by conflicting accounts of a recent summit between President Xi and US President Donald Trump, underscoring how nuclear diplomacy on the peninsula has become entangled with broader US-China strategic competition.
- The White House: Stated that the two leaders confirmed a shared goal to denuclearise North Korea and reaffirmed commitments to implement existing sanctions.
- Beijing: Stated only that the leaders “discussed the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula,” omitting any explicit joint endorsement of denuclearisation.
Kim Yo Jong, a senior official and sister of Kim Jong Un, dismissed the US version of the meeting as “false information” on Sunday. She further described any US push for North Korean denuclearisation as an “anachronistic dream,” signalling Pyongyang’s intention to frame its nuclear status as permanent and non-negotiable despite continued international pressure.
Beijing’s Stability Priority
Jiyong Zheng, dean of the Institute of Regional Studies at Tianjin Foreign Studies University, notes that China prioritizes regional stability above all else, fearing that a collapse in Pyongyang could trigger a mass migration of millions across the shared border and potentially invite US or allied forces to move closer to Chinese territory.
Zheng argues that Beijing has shifted its focus to prioritize stabilization over disarmament, even if that means tolerating a nuclear-armed neighbour under strict conditions.
“China is increasingly concluding that a rigid denuclearisation-first approach is impractical and may worsen the regional security environment,” Zheng said.
This strategy allows Beijing to call for the denuclearisation of the “entire Korean Peninsula,” a phrasing that includes a demand for the US to end its nuclear commitments to South Korea and cease the deployment of nuclear-capable bombers in the region. The formulation aligns with China’s longstanding opposition to US extended deterrence arrangements, which it views as a constraint on its own strategic space in Northeast Asia.
Strategic Implications for Asia
The perceived shift in Beijing’s stance has created tension in Seoul, where officials are balancing alliance obligations, domestic security concerns, and an already fragile relationship with China.
While South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Il insisted on Tuesday that China continues to support disarmament, other analysts suggest the reality is more complex, with Beijing publicly backing denuclearisation while privately adjusting to a long-term nuclear North Korea.
Park Won Gon, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University, suggested that Beijing may prefer to keep North Korea within its sphere of influence to maintain leverage in negotiations with the United States and to prevent any future unified Korea from tilting decisively toward Washington.
Seong-Hyon Lee, a senior fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, argues that the silence is a “deliberate strategic signal.” According to Lee, by tacitly accepting North Korea’s nuclear status, China positions itself as an indispensable stakeholder in any future negotiations, ensuring that no new security architecture on the peninsula can be built without Beijing’s consent.
However, Leif-Eric Easley, also a professor at Ewha Womans University, cautioned that this “strategic embrace” is not a “blank check.” Easley stated that North Korea’s persistent military expansion is “pushing the limits of what its larger neighbour will tolerate,” raising the risk that a miscalculation in Pyongyang could force Beijing into crisis-management decisions it has long sought to avoid.
