Kim has long sought recognition as a nuclear power. Xi may have just given it to him

Of the more than two dozen foreign leaders invited to Xi Jinping’s massive military parade in Beijing last week, no one reaped a bigger diplomatic windfall than Kim Jong Un.

The reclusive North Korean leader seized the global spotlight with a high-profile debut in multilateral diplomacy, standing shoulder to shoulder with Xi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a defiant demonstration to the West that he enjoys the backing of the world’s two most powerful autocrats – and a central role in the alternative global order they are shaping.

On the sidelines, Kim underscored his bond with Putin, who vowed to “never forget” the sacrifices of North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Ukraine. He also held his first summit with Xi in six years, restoring ties with a longtime patron strained by Pyongyang’s growing military alliance with Moscow.

To cap it off, Kim was hosted by Xi for tea and a banquet at his residence in Zhongnanhai, the walled leadership compound at the heart of Chinese political power. That privilege was granted to none of the other 26 foreign guests at the parade, except Putin.

For a young leader who had long been treated as a junior partner by both Beijing and Moscow, the elevated treatment was a resounding propaganda coup.

Yet his most consequential victory may not have been what was staged for the cameras, but what was left unsaid.

For the first time, official readouts of the Xi-Kim summit made no mention of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula – a striking departure from the language of the five summits they held between 2018 and 2019.

Analysts say the omission could signal that Kim has secured what he long sought: China’s tacit acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear power.

That would mark a stunning turn for Beijing, which had long championed the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, even as Pyongyang accelerated its illegal nuclear and missiles programs under Kim.

“With the denuclearization goal now formally removed from the official readout of the Xi-Kim meeting, a significant shift in China’s long-term policy is confirmed,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Reluctantly but significantly, North Korea’s most powerful ally has abandoned the pursuit of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”

Emboldened by his trip to Beijing, Kim on Monday watched a test of North Korea’s new high-thrust rocket engine, which state media said would be used to power Pyongyang’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-20.

“North Korea has been given justification to continue holding onto its nuclear power,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, noting that both leaders pledged to strengthen relations “no matter how the international situation changes.”

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Kim was the biggest winner from Beijing’s Victory Day parade.

“Kim’s international standing was significantly elevated,” he said, adding that “restored ties with China through economic cooperation could be leveraged in (future) negotiations with the US.”

US President Donald Trump has already signaled his willingness to re-engage diplomatically with Kim, despite the collapse of his first-term attempt to strike a denuclearization deal with the North Korean leader.

Tacit acceptance

As North Korea’s main ally and economic lifeline, China has long been central to global efforts to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions – at times working in tandem with the United States. Beijing has played an instrumental role in bringing the Kim regime to the negotiating table and, at multiple junctures, voted in favor of United Nations sanctions.

But as US-China relations have deteriorated amid intensifying strategic rivalry, Beijing has scaled back its cooperation on curbing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. So has Russia – once a staunch advocate of nuclear nonproliferation – since its invasion of Ukraine.

In 2022, China and Russia jointly vetoed a US-led resolution at the UN Security Council that sought additional sanctions over North Korea’s renewed ballistic missile launches.

The last time China reaffirmed its commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula was at a trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea in 2024. It drew a blistering response from Pyongyang, which denounced the joint declaration as a “grave political provocation” and a violation of its sovereignty.

Since then, Beijing has refrained from referencing that goal in its official statements or documents, Zhao noted.

Meanwhile, Russia’s growing military ties with North Korea – capped with the signing of a mutual defense treaty last year – have raised concerns that in exchange for arms and troops, Putin may assist Pyongyang in enhancing its missile technology and nuclear weapons delivery systems.

In public, Russian officials have edged closer to openly endorsing North Korea’s nuclear program. Last September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that Moscow considered the denuclearization of North Korea a “closed issue,” saying it understood Pyongyang’s reliance on nuclear weapons as the foundation of its defense. By July, Lavrov went a step further, saying Russia “respects” North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

While Beijing hasn’t gone as far as Moscow, its quiet abandonment of the denuclearization goal marks a subtle yet consequential shift – one that could open the door to closer China-North Korea ties, or even bolster momentum for trilateral cooperation with Russia, Zhao said.

Despite their unprecedented joint appearance atop Beijing’s Gate of Heavenly Peace during the military parade, Xi, Putin and Kim were not reported to have convened a trilateral summit on the sidelines.

‘Troubling signal’

Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status may well form part of Xi and Putin’s vision for a world order no longer dominated by the US and its allies.

“At the very least, China’s indulgence of Pyongyang and the nuclear threat it poses to Asia-Pacific security suggest that such disruption is considered to serve China’s strategic interests. So long as the undermining of the existing order aligns with its goals, Beijing may be willing to shield it,” he said.

That marks a stark contrast to less than a decade ago, when China and Russia voted with the US at the UN Security Council to tighten sanctions against North Korea in 2016 and 2017.

In fact, in 2015 it was South Korea’s then President Park Geun-hye – not Kim Jong Un – who stood beside Xi and Putin on the Tiananmen rostrum to review the military parade marking 70 years since the end of World War II.

Some experts have cautioned that the public omission of denuclearization by Xi and Kim might not amount to a shift in China’s official stance.

Shuxian Luo, an assistant professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii, Mānoa, said although the usual call for denuclearization was dropped at the summit, Beijing is unlikely to have abandoned this position in private discussions with North Korean officials, given its longstanding concern about a “nuclear domino effect” in East Asia.

Beijing has long viewed Pyongyang as both a strategic asset and a destabilizing liability.

While North Korea has served as a geopolitical buffer against the US and its allies in East Asia, its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles has undermined regional security and handed Washington a justification to expand its military presence on China’s doorstep. It also risks triggering a chain reaction, provoking other regional powers like South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear arsenals – especially amid doubts over the reliability of the US nuclear umbrella under Trump.

Already, South Korea is facing growing calls at home for a long-term security solution – potentially including an indigenous nuclear deterrent, Zhao said. “While unlikely under the current progressive government, the overall likelihood of such a development has increased,” he added.

China’s tacit acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status may also have been influenced by signals from senior officials in the Trump administration expressing tolerance for allied nuclear proliferation, as well as Beijing’s concerns about AUKUS – a program through which the US and UK will assist Australia in building nuclear-powered submarines, Zhao said. China has portrayed AUKUS as a step toward transferring nuclear weapons materials.

“By interpreting these actions as evidence that Washington is drifting away from a principled nonproliferation stance, Beijing may thus feel justified in prioritizing its geopolitical interests over global nonproliferation norms,” Zhao said. “This sends a troubling signal that could embolden other would-be nuclear states to exploit great-power rivalry for their own proliferation ambitions.”

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