PRC–Russia–DPRK Relations Grow Closer

Seong-Hyon Lee

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On September 4, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) published the readout of a leaders meeting between Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The document highlighted the themes of “traditional friendship” (传统友好), a “shared destiny” (命运与共), and “mutual vigilance and support” (守望相助). It called especially for deeper exchanges in the “governance of party and state affairs” (深化两党治国理政经验交流互鉴) (MFA, September 4). Notably, it omitted “denuclearization.” Four weeks later, the official readout from the meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers similarly omitted the term, instead elevating governance exchanges among socialist parties (MFA, September 28). When Premier Li Qiang (李强) met Kim Jong Un on October 9, People’s Daily coverage likewise celebrated “traditional friendship and cooperation” (传统友好合作关系) without reference to denuclearization (People’s Daily, October 10). The pattern has now hardened into a deliberate tifa (提法)—a formalized policy wording.

This shift was further confirmed in Gyeongju during the November 1 APEC leaders’ summit. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung held his first bilateral meeting with Xi, in which he called for PRC assistance on denuclearization of the peninsula (YouTube/Yonhap News TV, October 29). Yet the PRC readout entirely omitted the words “denuclearization” (无核化), “Korean Peninsula” (半岛), and “North Korea” (朝鲜) (MFA, November 1). This “split readout” was no clerical slip. In PRC political discourse, such formulation changes never occur by chance. A stock phrase dropped four times in three months across leader-, premier-, and minister-level texts signals deliberate recalibration. Beijing now acknowledges a nuclear Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as reality, not aberration.