North Korea, explained.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hosts an official welcome ceremony for Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in Pyongyang, North Korea, 25 March 2026 (Belarussian Presidency/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Kim is consolidating ties with a small cluster of partners – Moscow matters, but China offers a particular prize.
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North Korea’s evolving diplomatic logicNorth Korea’s evolving diplomatic logic
North Korea has long been one of the world’s most isolated states, and its diplomatic circle continues to contract. Yet Pyongyang is not passively absorbing that isolation. It is actively reshaping its external relationships to extract maximum value from a diminishing set of partners.
The most visible dimension of North Korea’s diplomatic repositioning in recent years has been its expansion of ties with Russia. But China’s crucial role has also recently resurfaced, given Pyongyang’s enduring need for a channel to Washington.
Pyongyang has also invested in a broader cluster of relationships that, while limited in number, could offer concrete economic, political, and diplomatic returns.
The Belarus relationship illustrates this dynamic. The March summit between Kim Jong-un and President Alexander Lukashenko produced agreements spanning agriculture, education, IT, and trade, and was followed by Minsk’s decision to open an embassy in Pyongyang. Economic exchanges have grown alongside these diplomatic moves, with reports of North Korean truck parts flowing to Belarus and large volumes of Belarusian meat products moving in the opposite direction. Military cooperation, including potential North Korean arms transfers, remains a subject of analysis among experts, as does the possible dispatch of North Korean labourers to Belarus, comparable to existing arrangements in place with Russia.
The Belarus relationship also carries a diplomatic dimension that goes beyond economics. Lukashenko’s engagement with the Trump administration has raised the possibility, however limited, of Minsk serving as a back channel between Pyongyang and Washington. Belarus’ foreign minister has indicated Lukashenko’s openness to such a mediating role. Reports of emerging consultations about trilateral cooperation between Russia, Belarus and North Korea reinforce the sense of an informal alignment taking shape.
Pyongyang has also moved to restore and expand ties in Southeast Asia. The arrival of a new Indonesian ambassador in Pyongyang marked the full normalisation of diplomatic channels after the pandemic, and Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono’s visit to Pyongyang last October produced a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. Relations with Vietnam also remain substantive, anchored by high-level exchanges and recent agreements in health care, aviation and defence.
No other partner in Pyongyang’s current network holds Beijing’s proximity to Washington, regional leverage or institutional credibility.
While these relationships are less strategically consequential than those with Russia or China, they contribute to a diversified diplomatic portfolio, and to North Korea’s broader effort to portray the image of a powerful state with global reach.
Rather than seeking a broad-based diplomatic presence, Pyongyang appears to be prioritising depth over breadth, focusing on partnerships that offer concrete benefits instead of mere ideological alignment. This aligns with the regime’s longstanding emphasis on autonomy, while acknowledging the practical limits of complete self-reliance.
Xi Jinping holds talks with Kim Jong-un at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, 4 September 2025 (Huang Jingwen/Xinhua via Getty Images)
This logic leads, ultimately, back to Beijing. However useful Russia has proven in the short term, China remains indispensable to North Korea’s long-term strategic position. High-level engagement has intensified accordingly. During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to Pyongyang, Kim stated that North Korea places “top priority” on further developing its relationship with China and expressed, for the first time publicly, explicit support for China’s position on Taiwan.
The timing of Wang’s visit is particularly relevant given the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting slated for May. There has been much speculation about whether a Trump-Kim meeting could happen during Trump’s visit to China.
Given that North Korea’s primary national security concerns continue to centre on the United States, resuming diplomacy with Washington remains a priority for Pyongyang, even as Kim has raised the number of conditions required to return to talks.
Recent developments may be sharpening that urgency. The US-backed operation against Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the ongoing conflict with Iran illustrate the risks of prolonged confrontation with Washington for states operating outside the bounds of the US-led international order. While a preemptive US strike against North Korea remains unlikely given its nuclear deterrent, the status quo also remains far from ideal for Pyongyang. Economic stagnation, compounding sanctions pressure and deepening diplomatic isolation carry their own costs, and those costs accumulate over time.
This context helps explain part of Kim’s recalibration toward China. Among Pyongyang’s current partners, Beijing is the most plausible candidate for a facilitating role in any future diplomatic opening with Washington. With inter-Korean relations having effectively collapsed, Seoul is no longer in the position it was during the Moon Jae-in era to facilitate talks between Washington and Pyongyang.
No other partner in Pyongyang’s current network – not Moscow, not Minsk, Hanoi, Jakarta, or the others – holds the proximity to Washington, regional leverage or institutional credibility that Beijing alone could bring to such a role. Whether Beijing would be willing, or the extent to which it would be able, to serve that function remains uncertain, but from Pyongyang’s vantage point, China likely represents the most viable option among those available.
Still, this isn’t to say that North Korea is in a weakened position. The leadership is more emboldened than it has been in decades, and could continue to function the way it has for years yet, even in the absence of diplomatic progress with the United States. The pursuit of the partnerships is less a sign of desperation than of calculation.
About the author
Gabriela Bernal
Dr Gabriela Bernal is a Korean affairs analyst based in Seoul, South Korea, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the European Centre for North Korean Studies.
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