The Implications of the Putin-Kim Summit: A Conversation with Dr. Victor Cha
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I'm Bonnie Lin, Director of the China Power Project and Senior Fellow for Asian Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this episode of the China Power Podcast, Dr. Victor Cha joins us to discuss recent developments in the North Korea-Russia relationship and its impacts on China. How should we view the recent Putin-Kim summit and debuting of Russia-North Korea relations? And what does it mean for China, regional security, and the ongoing war in Ukraine?

Dr. Victor Cha is Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair at CSIS. He is also the Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Government at Georgetown University. He was appointed in 2021 by the Biden administration to serve on the Defense Policy Board in an advisory role to the Secretary of Defense.

From 2004 to 2007, he served on the National Security Council and was responsible for Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island nations. Dr. Cha was U.S. Deputy Head of Delegation at the Six Party Talks. He received his Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. degree from Columbia University and has a B.A. honors from Oxford University.

Victor, thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah, it's my pleasure. So I'd like to start with a little bit of history. As we're looking now at Russia's relationship with North Korea, I think it's important to understand how that relationship has evolved over time. There's been a lot of coverage of the 1961 alliance between the Soviet Union and North Korea, and experts have compared that alliance to what we're seeing now between the two countries.

Could you share a little bit of how you assess the 1961 relationship between the two countries and what that relationship obligated both sides to do during the Cold War? Well, I think the 1961 alliance was...

comparable to a mutual defense treaty, although it wasn't really mutual. It was really a one-way security guarantee that the Soviet Union provided to North Korea in the aftermath of the Korean War and also amidst what was brewing as a split between the Soviet Union and China that benefited North Korea quite a bit, benefited Kim Il-sung quite a bit.

But it was effectively an automatic intervention promise commitment by the Soviet Union in case of aggression against North Korea. In theory, it worked both ways, but it really didn't. It was really the Soviet promise to North Korea.

It was basically in effect for about 30 years until the end of the Cold War. And what did the Soviet promise entail? Did it specify providing anything more than arms or did it leave those terms relatively vague? I think if you look at it from their perspective, for the purposes of deterrence, if they were seeking to deter so-called aggression from the West, it was to their advantage to leave the terms rather vague.

just a commitment, a security commitment, but to leave the terms vague. And I believe that's what they did. And how would you compare this to what we've seen between China and North Korea? How much weight has North Korea typically attached to Soviet military aid compared to aid from China? What are our expectations in terms of how much the Soviet Union was willing to aid North Korea versus how much China was willing to do so?

So the Chinese relationship with North Korea on the security side was similar as treaty of, I can't remember the exact term, friendship and security. It was similar in that sense. I think in practice,

It wasn't so much what they got from each side, although the North Koreans managed to get a lot of both from each side, but a lot of it had to do with different periods of time. So during the Great Leap Forward, for example, Kim Il-sung focused a lot on assistance from the Soviet Union. During the Cultural Revolution, he focused a lot on assistance from the Soviet Union. When Khrushchev

succeeded Stalin and focused a lot on revolution by socialist means, not sort of the revolutionary doctrine of Mao. Kim Il-sung leaned more towards the Chinese. Both the Chinese and Soviets actively courted the North Koreans because of the split between them.

And so they got a lot from both sides. And it all depended in the very beginning of the North Korean system. They got support from both the Chinese and the Soviet Union. But I believe it was after the first five-year plan in North Korea that the Soviet Union greatly curtailed their support because they didn't understand the five-year economic plan for North Korea, whereas the Chinese continued to provide assistance. And Victor?

You mentioned that the Soviet treaty with North Korea ended at the end of the Cold War, basically about three decades since it was signed. But my understanding is that the China-North Korea treaty is still in effect.

So as you look at what has happened since the early 1990s to now, has there been more expectation from North Korea's end that China would provide it with military assistance in the event of a contingency rather than Russia? I think certainly after 1990, that was the case. When the Soviet Union normalized relations with South Korea in 1990, it came with a $3 billion loan agreement that South Korea provided to the Soviet Union. And I believe...

Yeltsin around that time actually said that the security guarantee was no longer valid. So I think from a North Korean perspective that deprioritized Russia in terms of thinking of them as a security patron. Didn't completely disqualify them, but certainly deprioritized them. But then two years after the Soviet Union, China normalized relations with South Korea

And while they did not openly negate elements of their relationship, the North Koreans were extremely upset that the Chinese did that. Even though Kim Jong-il was not in power yet, right? His father was in power, right?

and would be in power for another two years after China normalized relations with South Korea, Kim Jong-il, the eventual successor, was extremely upset with what China did. And even though they still were security partners, I do not believe that Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il made a trip to China for the next decade.

In name, after 1990, the primary security partner was China, but that was also suspect for these other reasons. Thank you, Victor. This gives us really good background and context to try to understand what we saw recently with Putin's trip to Pyongyang. And you wrote a recent article about the Putin-Kim meeting. Could you share with us your perspective of why was this summit and the travel by Putin to North Korea so significant?

And what were your major takeaways? So it was significant in the sense it was the first time in over two decades that the Russian leader had gone to North Korea. And it was a return visit for a visit that Kim took less than a year prior to that. In the context of what we just discussed,

The agreement that was reached between the two, certainly written differently from the Cold War agreement, but in all effect, it is very similar to the Cold War agreement in that it's a rejuvenation of North Korea-Russia security ties and a mutual security agreement between the two.

The language in it is pretty clear. It says that if the other is in war, then a partner will provide military and other assistance without delay, by all means possible, in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, which is related to the right of collective defense.

So this is effectively a security treaty between the two sides. And what is different about it from the past is that, as we talked about during the Cold War, it was a mutual security treaty, but really all the benefits moved in one direction from the Soviet Union to North Korea, whether that was in terms of the security guarantee, in terms of food and fuel at heavily subsidized prices,

or in terms of loans that the Soviet Union provided to North Korea. And there was really not much that the North Koreans could provide in return. This is much more of a mutual relationship because

North Korea is arguably providing for Russian security by providing them ammunition for the war in Ukraine. And Russia stated its commitment to North Korea in their eyes in the face of a strengthening U.S.-Korea alliance, strengthening U.S.-Korea-Japan military exercising.

things of that nature. So it's similar in the sense that we're seeing a rejuvenation of the security guarantees, but it's different in the sense that this time it actually works both ways. And in terms of what North Korea can provide Russia, you mentioned ammunition for Ukraine. As we look forward, is there anything else that you could see North Korea providing to Russia that is either building on what we're already seeing or significantly different from now?

Well, certainly it's the ammunition that's the most obvious and important thing. According to the South Korean government, over 5 million rounds of ammunition have been provided by North Korea to Russia for the war in Ukraine. According to the U.S. government, 11,000 shipping containers were

of weapons have moved from North Korea to Russia. We at CSIS have actually tracked the route of this using satellite imagery from the port of Najeon in North Korea to Daenye in Russia, and then by rail from Daenye westward across the entire continent to the war front and three munitions depots in particular on the war front with Ukraine.

So they provided that. Ukraine has reported that North Korean ballistic missile parts have been found in Ukrainian cities, which means that they're providing Russia also with ballistic missiles. There has been some talk and speculation in the media about North Korea sending troops to the war in Ukraine. I don't think that's likely.

I certainly think that North Korea will send laborers because there's sort of slave labor traffic that takes place between North Korea and Russia. And it's possible that some of those laborers could be working in support of the war effort, which would be bad, undeniably bad. But I don't think that North Korea is going to send troops to Russia. So it's largely been munitions and ballistic missiles. This is significant. It's a violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

It's a violation of a lot of things and possibly laborers, but I don't think that they'll send troops. And what is North Korea receiving from Russia right now? How do we see that relationship expanding given this newly signed treaty? So that's really the big question because we're not sure what Russia is giving them. We assume when this relationship started at the beginning of the war in Ukraine that the

North Korea was providing small amounts of ammunition purchased by the Wagner Group and that they were getting some cash, but also fuel and food in return for these shipments, which was important for North Korea at the time in 2023, 2022, 2023.

Because they were just coming out of the pandemic lockdown. They were in lockdown for three and a half years. So they needed it badly. Food, fuel, medicine, everything had been stocked out because they completely cut off from the world during the pandemic. And they did it for a year longer than everybody else because they have no vaccine infrastructure. They have no vaccines. Their population is just very vulnerable.

And so they needed all of that. But the question that naturally arises is, what else could the Russians be providing? The North Korean leader is clear about what he wants because he's talked about military satellite technology, nuclear submarine technology, advanced ICBM technology, and a variety of other things.

He hasn't said that these are the things he wants from Russia, but he said these are the things that he wants to develop a modern nuclear weapons force, to be a modern nuclear weapons state.

The question really is, is Kim going to drive a hard bargain and say, I don't want food and fuel, I want this technology because you really need this ammunition badly to fight the war in Ukraine. You cannot fight this war in Ukraine without the additional North Korean artillery. I think that's factually correct based on

the experts that we've talked to on this, that they really do need the North Korean ammunition. So the question is, what are they giving in return? And of course, then that makes this agreement have much broader ramifications. It's a bilateral agreement between Russia and North Korea, but it's obviously affecting the security of Europe. And it would be affecting U.S. homeland security too, if Russia was proliferating technology to North Korea in return for weapons.

And do you have a sense, Victor, if Kim Jong-un drove a hard bargain with Putin at the summit and obtained what he wanted? I know it might be a bit hard to be able to untangle all of this from the outside, but any sense from your perspective on whether Kim was satisfied from the most recent summit with Putin? Well, if we look at the pictures, he certainly seemed satisfied. They both looked very happy. They seemed very happy with the outcome.

Like you said, from the outside, it's really hard to tell. I don't even know from the inside, the US government really knows because technology is a hard thing to see from satellite imagery, right? Which is, we don't have a lot of assets on the ground in North Korea, if any. I do think that a comment by the DNI, Avril Haines,

On the occasion of the release of the annual threat assessment, Director Haynes said that there was concern that Russia might be dropping long-held nonproliferation norms in its dealings with North Korea. As somebody on the outside reading this, that sort of statement really sets off alarm bells because it's spoken in the context and the sentence, the way it was phrased, suggests that they have a very

very good understanding of what the past interaction between Russia, the Soviet Union was with North Korea. And that was that during the Cold War,

The Soviet Union helped North Korea a lot. They really were very stingy with sort of this high-end military technology. They weren't as willing to provide that, whether we're talking about missiles or nuclear, they weren't willing to provide that. In fact, the first experimental nuclear reactor that North Korea got was from the Soviet Union.

a very small one. But the condition that the Soviet Union made for giving this reactor to North Korea was that North Korea had to sign on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

So for listeners who remember North Korea being the only country to withdraw from the nonproliferation treaty as it pursued its nuclear weapons program, some of them might have thought, well, I didn't even know they were in the nonproliferation treaty regime. And they were largely because of the Soviet Union, because the Soviet Union said you have to be in it. You have to sign on to IAEA, safeguards, the whole kit and caboodle.

And so I think Director Haynes' statement was significant because it says, may be dropping long-held non-proliferation norms, which suggests clearly an understanding of how the Soviet Union used to do this, and they might not be doing it this way anymore. And the reason for that, of course, is that Putin needs the ammunition. And Kim Jong-un may drive a hard bargain. I mean, that's sort of the realpolitik.

dealing with each other, right? I mean, he knows he needs this ammunition to maintain a daily burn rate of 10,000 rounds of ammunition a day on Ukraine. And that's only going to be possible with support from North Korea. So why not

make the price for that as high as the North Koreans can make it, which I think is what they're doing. And it does seem that Russia's improvement of relations with North Korea and dropping of its long-held non-proliferation norms may also be rubbing off on China. This may, when Putin visited China, the Putin-Xi joint statement had a section on North Korea that was quite different from 2023, and it was more pro-North Korea.

And when China held its trilateral with Japan and South Korea, the joint statement that came out of it did not use the term complete denuclearization, only denuclearization. Yeah, I mean, in terms of the plus three statement, the phrase on denuclearization is not what I would call airtight. You could probably drive a truck through a lot of the space in that statement made somewhat ambiguous statement.

For obvious reasons. I mean, the South Koreans and the Japanese would like it to be read one way and the Chinese would not want to commit to that. But still, even though I think it afforded China a bit of room, the North Koreans still came out and they were very upset with it. And they were very upset with China on it because it was a statement by the three that included just for the fact that it included the term denuclearization, even though it didn't, as you said, Bonnie, it didn't say complete denuclearization.

The North Koreans were upset with it. They released a statement about it. The effect of that was that any Korean and Japanese negotiators that were left with a bad taste in their mouth after negotiating that clause because it didn't really push as far as they would have liked it to push immediately felt better because if the North Koreans were upset, that was the effect they wanted it to have. So it worked in that sense. Very interesting.

I did want to go back a bit and try to understand what else Russia could provide North Korea, and this might be a bit hypothetical, but if we were to envision a contingency on the Korean Peninsula, do you think the new treaty signed between Russia and North Korea would obligate Russia to provide certain types of support? And will Russia actually provide that support from your perspective? So if we go by the letter of agreement that the two leaders inked, Russia's

Russia is obligated to provide military and other assistance to North Korea in case North Korea was under attack in a war. Whether they would actually provide that, we don't really know. During the Korean War, Stalin was certainly involved in the war, but he sort of kept an arm's length distance, providing technical assistance, providing some military equipment, and

having Soviet pilots in the sky trying to provide some protection for North Korean and Chinese troops. And it was Chinese troops that were on the ground during the fighting. Stalin did this to basically avoid escalating to World War III with the United States. This is a different position for Russia because they've clearly stated that they will support North Korea if North Korea were in a war with military and other assistance. The other assistance is ill-defined, but it could be everything from...

troops to fighter jets. We just don't know. But it's meant to have its deterrent effect. The other thing that's worth noting is that this is a security relationship that has been signed between the two sides.

by two countries who are nuclear powers, and both of them have stated that they would consider first use of nuclear weapons. Russia, in the case of Ukraine, to try to deter NATO involvement. Shortly after that, the North Koreans made a similar statement about conditions under which they would consider first use of nuclear weapons. And so that is, of course, different from the Cold War as well.

I would like to unpack the significance of a military treaty signed between two nuclear powers.

I'm having a little trouble wrapping my head around what the implications of that are. With this treaty now in place, does that mean both countries would support each other more if one or both of them use nuclear weapons? I mean, it's hard to know what the implications are, but it's clear what we're talking about, right? We're talking about two countries, two leaders that signed an agreement to sign up to defend each other. If

if the other were in war, both of them having nuclear weapons and both of them having a spouse at one point or another, that they did not rule out the first use of nuclear weapons, largely to deter the other side from getting involved in a conflict. What does this mean? Like, we don't really know exactly what it means. The danger, of course, with North Korea is that they continue to build up their nuclear weapons program while their conventional military continues to decay,

with very little training, very little fuel, all these sorts of things. I mean, arguably their ammunition stockpiles have gotten much better because in supplying the Russians for the war in Ukraine, they were able to get rid of all their duds from like the 1950s and I'm sure are producing new ammunition today that they're both stockpiling themselves as well as giving to the Russians for the war in Ukraine.

But we don't really know what the meaning of this is going forward. But it is, I think, quite concerning and potentially destabilizing that you have this alliance between two countries that have talked about first use of nuclear weapons. Of course, there are countries that have a no first use, but that is different from laying out the conditions under which you might use nuclear weapons first.

I wonder if one way to interpret this is at the minimum, this treaty could mean that if one of the countries, whether that's Russia or North Korea, uses nuclear weapons, they would expect the other country to support them.

I think right now, at least when we think about China's support to Russia, China has repeatedly emphasized to Russia to not use nuclear weapons. So there are question marks as to whether China's strong support to Russia would still continue in its current form if Russia were to use nuclear weapons.

But perhaps North Korea has a different calculus in China vis-a-vis Russia. Yeah, I'm not aware of any sort of conversation like that between Russia and North Korea, which is, of course, more concerning. But I'm not aware of any conversation like that. You know, maybe it's happened before.

behind closed doors, but North Korea has basically written into its own domestic law the first use of nuclear weapons. And Victor, before we transition to looking at how China plays into North Korea's calculations for strengthening relations with Russia, I do want to ask you a broader question. With this new treaty now between Russia and North Korea, to what extent do you expect North Korea to be even more emboldened, to be even more provocative?

Or do you think North Korea is already as provocative as it can be? You know, it's a really good question and it's not one that we have the answer to. The short answer is that, yes, theoretically, North Korea's risk acceptance goes up now that it knows it has the backing of Russia to deter any other sort of activity on the other side. So theoretically, that's the case. I mean, what we do know empirically is

based on the data that we've collected, is that North Korea is really going to be very active in 2024 in terms of their belligerent behavior, because in part, because it's a U.S. election year, U.S. presidential election year. And we always see

the level of provocations by North Korea go up in the U.S. presidential election year, particularly under Kim Jong-un. It goes up fourfold from his father during U.S. election year. So that's something we expect to see. Now, whether this security treaty with Russia is

creates even more reasons for them to be even more provocative. We don't really know the answer to that. I feel like what North Korea is doing lately, some of it is, of course, testing new capabilities. They've been recently trying to test a

re-entry vehicle, much larger warheads on ballistic missiles, you know, four and a half ton sized warheads on ballistic missiles, things of that nature. But a lot of what they're doing also is now operational exercising. And that is the sort of thing where there's the potential for accident or escalation. You know, it's entirely possible that we could actually see military exercises pursuant to this agreement between Russia's

Russia, and North Korea. Whether that is naval exercises or it is conventional exercises or it's a combination of conventional and non-conventional exercising that would heighten tension, but it could also raise North Korea's risk acceptance when it comes to things it might do in particular to South Korea. Thank you. I want to now transition to discussing the China factor in North Korea's calculation.

You mentioned earlier that North Korea has in the past played China and the Soviet Union off of each other. How do you look at the recent Putin-Kim meeting and the extent to which North Korea is taking China into its consideration as it deepens its relationship with Russia? So I think tactically, there were real incentives for Kim Jong-un to tighten the relationship with Russia.

As we said, the need for ammunition by Russia for the war in Ukraine allows Kim to stock up on many of the things that he needed after the three and a half year COVID lockdown. But I would imagine nothing happens in international relations and foreign policy for only one reason, even though in IR theory, we always try to come up with monocausal theories. We all know in reality, it doesn't happen for one reason. And from a North Korean perspective,

almost certainly they saw advantages of doing this vis-a-vis China. My sense, and you can tell me, Bonnie, if this is not right, but my sense is that when Kim Jong-un started, there was not a lot of activity between North Korea and China, in part because I don't think the Chinese leadership really liked Kim Jong-un. But we really see it sort of picking up

after Trump decides that he's going to do summit diplomacy with North Korea. So in the two years of summit diplomacy with North Korea between Trump and Kim from 2018-2019, I think there are five summit meetings between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un.

And then once that summitry fails, Kim Jong-un and Xi, I think, meet one more time. And that's probably to give a readout of what happened in Hanoi between Trump and Kim. But there hasn't really been any meeting since then.

And so I think from a North Korean perspective, they see this as an opportunity to try to bring the Chinese even closer to the North Koreans after this period in which there hasn't been much activity really since 2019. When I was doing the negotiations of the six-party talks,

in Beijing, and we always used to ask Chinese to use their influence on North Korea because they were the most important trading partner for North Korea. The Chinese would always say, people like Wu Dawei would always say, oh, you know, you Americans think we have a lot of influence on North Korea, but we really don't. Like, they don't listen to us. They

Chinese behavior suggests that as little influence as they have over North Korea, whatever influence they have, they guard it very jealously. And so if the United States gets too close to North Korea, they will step in. And I think the North Korean play is that they know improving their relationship with Putin, they're also going to get the Chinese to come knocking at the door because the Chinese don't ever want anybody to have more influence over North Korea than they have.

even though they like to tell the West they don't have any influence. In that sense, I think Kim is making a smart play because he's getting what he needs from Putin. And at the same time, he's trying to draw the Chinese in as well. On your point that China seeks to maintain its influence, perhaps dominant influence over North Korea, we've definitely seen subtle changes in China's policy towards North Korea and more desire from the Chinese to coordinate with their Russian counterparts in North Korea.

But in terms of how Kim views Putin and Xi, do you think North Korea views Russia as a potentially more reliable partner than China? So I certainly think historically they've always seen the Chinese as the more reliable partner. Maybe that's still the case today. It's really hard to say at this point. Kim Jong-un is not his grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

And North Korea was in a very different place in the Cold War than it is today. Certainly right now, it looks like there's a very good reason for the North Koreans and the Russians to be fully engaged. And I think Kim Jong-un will stick with that and then see at the same time what he can get from China at the same time that he's engaging with Russia. So in a sense, it is

Kind of classically what his grandfather did, playing between the Soviet Union and China during the Sino-Soviet split.

In this case, though, it's not so much as a split. It's that they're leveraging the fact that they know that Chinese get uncomfortable when the North Koreans get too close to the other side, whether that is Russia or the United States. And so I think Kim will leverage that for as much as he can. I think the other interesting dynamic here is that we see I was doing something else with our colleague Jude Blanchett.

And we were talking about possible Chinese reactions. And one of them might be to try to offer carrots to Russia in order to get Russia not to proliferate to North Korea. Because proliferation to North Korea is definitely not in Chinese interests.

And so one idea is, well, maybe the Chinese will try to incentivize the Russians not to proliferate to North Korea. That makes sense on a one-dimensional chessboard, but it doesn't make sense on a two-dimensional chessboard because the United States and the Europeans are not going to be very happy if China is increasing their support.

for Russia to prosecute the war in Ukraine. So, you know, there are many different angles to this that have not been carefully worked out. But at the same time, it does show that this agreement that they've reached has, you know, in many ways, opened up a lot of options for

for North Korea and Russia that they certainly did not have before. Thank you, Victor. I want to spend the last couple of minutes discussing the implications for the United States and our allies and partners. From your perspective, looking at the results and the immediate aftermath of the Putin-Kim meeting, how should U.S. allies and partners respond to this most recent summit?

Well, I think the U.S. government has responded as you would expect. They're not happy with this. It's a real threat. I feel like the U.S. government was paying attention to this, but it clearly had its hands full with the war in Europe and the war in Gaza, and then after that, the war in Gaza, such that I think they put a lot of intelligence on this and they had talking points for it, but I don't feel like they're actually dealing with it.

And now they're forced to deal with it, not just keep throwing intelligence assets on it and carving out some talking points. But they need to sort of develop policy now to deal with this. And I don't think there's a direct answer to dealing with it. There's no direct answer to trying to disrupt DPRK-Russia military ties. Very hard to do. P.

PSI-type activities, very hard to do with the way the weapons are transported. Unless we want to start a war with Russia, it's very difficult to intercept all of this or to stop it. But I think there are things that they can do. First and foremost—

with the NATO summit, there's an opportunity for the leaders to really make a strong collective security statement about the U.S. allies in Asia and the threat posed by Russia and North Korea. A threat to one is a threat to all, or the security of one is the security of all. I would have liked to see a statement like that coming out of there. It hasn't been something that

the allies in Asia have done before, as you know. It's largely been bilateral and now lately these mini-laterals, but to have some sort of collective defense, collective security statement, I think would be very important. And then I think there are things to do on the sanctions side. We know that a lot of ammunition, a lot of equipment, a lot of

satellite equipment that the North Koreans and the Russians have are not completely indigenously produced by Russia and North Korea. They come from all over the world. So really trying to clamp down on that sort of activity, I think, would be appropriate and important. The qualification is you can't do that through another UN Security Council resolution or

Because we're not going to have any UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea for the foreseeable future, as long as China and Russia are going to obstruct them. So it would need to be done through a different organization like NIS.

NATO AP-4 or like the G7 to try to coordinate sanctions policy or secondary sanctioning policy on these components that might be making their way into North Korean and Russian military systems. And Victor, what do you expect in terms of military responses from both the United States and the ROK?

Have the Koreans reached out after the Pudong Kim summit to ask for increased support, increased coordination, or deepened coordination with the United States? Is there a desire to engage in more military exercises and other operations? As you would expect, they have had a number of phone calls between the two sides. You know, reaffirmations of the security commitment. We'll probably see more in terms of exercising bilaterally as well as trilaterally with Japan.

The most interesting reaction that we've seen thus far from the South Koreans has been the opposite, like moving in the opposite direction. And what I mean by that is that we have seen an uptick in talk in South Korea about the nuclear option. Whether we're talking about the general public or strategic elites, I think what the Russia-North Korea Security Treaty did was to create more talk in South Korea about nuclear

Not that they should go nuclear, but should they consider this as an alternate path? You combine that with the uncertainty about our own elections here in the United States, this creates a fertile environment for those sorts of things to start to circulate. So in the aftermath of the Russia-North Korea security treaty, three prominent South Korean conservative politicians came out and

and advocated for South Korea getting nuclear weapons. And then the think tank for the National Intelligence Service, which is the main intelligence agency in South Korea, the think tank for that produced a report saying,

last week that also suggested that South Korea should think about possibly pursuing nuclear weapons. And these sorts of statements are significant because they don't represent the uninformed general public. No offense to the general public. They are foreign policy elites. And this group traditionally has been much less positive on the nuclear option for South Korea. So

So, you know, on the one hand, I think the South Korean reaction has been to hold tighter to the United States. At the same time, it's also caused this alternative discourse among elites that have been generally not in favor of going nuclear to start to have this conversation in a little bit more depth. Thank you, Victor.

The last question I want to end on is to get your sense if there is any opportunity for the United States to work with China to divide the growing Russia-North Korea relationship. You mentioned this briefly earlier that South Korea's growing interest in nuclear weapons and the similarities between how North Korea and Russia think about using nuclear weapons are all very concerning for China.

So it seems that potentially there might be some alignment interest between the United States and China. But of course, whether this alignment can translate into policy coordination is very uncertain. I welcome your thoughts on this. Yeah, I mean, I would say as a veteran of six-party talks where we are probably at the height of working with China on North Korea, there was always unfulfilled potential.

in terms of the United States and China working together on North Korea, because it's not a complete overlap of interests, but neither of us want to see a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.

And so I think there's always the opportunity. And I think there would be receptiveness on the U.S. side. I just don't think China is ready to do that. I mean, you would know better than I, but I just do not get the sense that they have any idea about what they should do given this new situation, whether they should lean on North Korea, whether they should lean on Russia, whether they should engage North Korea, engage Russia, work with the United States. One thing that's clear is that

They are using this as a way to try to draw the South Koreans in, right? And to try to pull the South Koreans away from the U.S.-Japan relationship.

trilateral relationship. But I think the South Koreans are wise enough to know that's very limited because the Chinese will never go so far as to abandon North Korea or to criticize them in public. So I think China may have half of a game plan when it comes to South Korea, but I don't feel like they have a game plan when it comes to Russia, North Korea, or the United States when it comes to this recent development.

That's a good positive note to end on. And it's useful to know that China does not have a full game plan yet for dealing with growing Russia-North Korea relations and the ROK's nuclear ambitions. I think that leaves space for the United States to continue to shape Chinese activities and behavior where possible.

Thank you so much, Victor, for this fascinating discussion and your insights across the board. I really appreciated you joining my podcast today. Thanks, Bonnie. It's a real pleasure and honor to be on the China Power podcast.