North Korea supplying Russia Chinese weapons
The X factor in the war in Ukraine is whether China will end up supplying weapons to Russia the way the US is supplying them to Ukraine. I submit that China will not.
But it faces an abiding dilemma: China has a geostrategic interest in seeing Russia prevail. But it fears doing anything to help Russia that would incur Western sanctions.
I have argued in several commentaries that China has resolved this dilemma by using North Korea to help Russia.
Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, plans to travel to Russia this month to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin to discuss the possibility of supplying Russia with more weaponry for its war in Ukraine and other military cooperation, according to American and allied officials.
(The New York Times, September 4, 2023)
The prospect of this meeting has Washington all atwitter (sorry, Elon). Political pundits are ridiculing it. Because, they say, North Korea only has third-rate, malfunctioning weapons and munitions to supply.
They are right. Sanctioned North Korea supplying Russia with weapons is like sanctioned Russia supplying Iran with consumer electronics.
But those pundits are missing the strings China is pulling behind the scenes. Because this meeting is all about North Korea and Russia formalizing the conduit for China to supply Russia with first-rate, highly functioning weapons.
China, the Puppeteer
China and Russia inked their “Friendship Without Limits” agreement in February 2022 – mere weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. Far from a coincidence, that was an overt cue hidden in the guise of diplomacy.
I suspect China knew Russia’s intent. Just as it knew Russia would use its 2008 Beijing Olympics as cover to invade Georgia.
For decades, China has seen geostrategic benefits in pulling strings to enable North Korea to menace Western countries. And, because of its pariah status on the world stage, North Korea cannot resist China playing it like a puppet on a string. China is its patron and only friend.
But China probably can’t believe its dumb luck. Because, thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is now an even bigger pariah on the world stage. And, like North Korea, Russia cannot resist China playing it like a puppet on a string. China is its patron and only friend.
In other words, North Korea and Russia have become de facto vassal states of China. That means China’s Xi Jinping is poised to treat North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin the way Putin telegraphed his intent to treat Kim when they met in 2019. The humiliating irony cannot be lost on Putin
But the geostrategic benefits China sees in playing Russia are immeasurable. After all, Russia can menace Western countries in ways that make North Korea’s menacing missile tests and cyber-hacking look genteel.
China lies and denies
Like Russia, China thrives on denying the obvious. Neither of them even bothers to seek plausible deniability. For example, the whole world saw Russia assassinate Yevgeny Prigozhin. Yet Russia denies having anything to do with it and, like OJ, has vowed to find out who did it.
Likewise, the US caught China hacking the emails of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. That was like a parent catching a kid with their hand in the cookie jar. Yet China denies having anything to do with it. And it maintained its denial this week when she confronted them.
So, it’s no surprise that China would deny sending weapons to Russia. But China’s growing rift with the West has it brooding with defiance.
This rift stems from US-led efforts to de-risk or decouple Western economies from China’s increasingly restrictive, authoritarian economy. US retaliatory restrictions on the export of highly coveted chip technology figure prominently in this respect. And all of this is happening in the context of China’s declared intent to do to Taiwan what Russia is doing to Ukraine…
That’s why it seems like a categorical geopolitical imperative for China to supply weapons to Russia to match the weapons the US supplies to Ukraine. But it speaks volumes that the US directly supplies Ukraine with democratic pride. By contrast, China seems willing to supply Russia only with autocratic shame.
But that’s because China wants to avoid provoking the US to lead Western countries in sanctioning it like they are sanctioning Russia. Granted, China has become notorious for the bull-in-a-china-shop diplomacy it dispatches its wolf warriors to carry out. But, when it comes to confrontation, it’s like a master puppeteer. And Russia and North Korea have made themselves willing puppets.
In short, China wants to have its cake (trade with Western countries) and eat it too (enable North Korea and Russia to menace Western countries).
North Korea as China’s conduit to Russia
It’s self-evident that China sees Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a dress rehearsal for the invasion it longs to launch in Taiwan. For its part, North Korea couldn’t care less. But it’s self-evident that North Korea relishes the global attention it would get by serving as a conduit for Chinese weapons to Ukraine.
It would also benefit from the nuclear technology a now-desperate Russia might be willing to barter away (for its weapons and Iran’s drones). Never mind that, thanks to the enduring MAD principle, all North Korea can do with its nukes is to keep test-firing them away.
That’s why this reported meeting between Kim and Putin is all about setting terms for their trilateral weapons arrangement. And it’s noteworthy that, while snubbing this weekend’s G20 summit in India, Xi is planning a second bilateral summit with Putin.
I suspect they plan to arm Russia to win a war of attrition against Ukraine and its Western suppliers. And they are undoubtedly emboldened by the cracks now developing in that Western alliance – with Republicans leading a chorus of influential voices calling for a halt to all military aid to Ukraine.
Putin’s blunder makes Xi wonder
Putin boasts that he’s just emulating Peter the Great by reclaiming land for Mother Russia. But the battles he’s waging across Ukraine are turning out to be little more than killing fields. Frankly, Putin’s boast rings as hollow as Adolf Hitler’s about his Third Reich would reign for 1,000 years. This, especially given how his invasion of Ukraine has also reduced Russia to pariah status.
That must give Xi cause to wonder:
- Whether the economic and political fallout would be worth the geostrategic benefits. (Notably, that fallout could include the IOC banning Chinese athletes along with Russian ones at the 2024 Paris Olympics.)
- Whether this dress rehearsal has already shown that an invasion of Taiwan would be a march of folly.
Of course, Kim and Putin would like nothing more than for Xi to order that march. Because then they could welcome Xi into their pariahs’ club. And nothing would boost their fledgling “axis of autocracies” more than that.