On Ukraine crisis and North Korea, China stresses ‘legitimate security concerns’ | NK News

On Ukraine crisis and North Korea, China stresses ‘legitimate security concerns’ | NK News

On Ukraine crisis and North Korea, China stresses ‘legitimate security concerns’

Experts say Beijing’s support for Russia and DPRK reflects a shared stance against ‘Western aggression’

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Chaewon Chung March 3, 2022

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Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet at the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Feb. 4, 2022 | Image: The Kremlin

China’s call for the international community to respect Russia’s “legitimate security concerns” as it invades Ukraine echoes Beijing’s position on North Korea, experts say, and aligns with a broader push against U.S. primacy.

Beijing has stood by its longtime partner Pyongyang throughout the Biden administration’s recent sanction push and condemnations against missile launches, all the while urging Washington and Seoul to acknowledge North Korea’s “reasonable” and “legitimate concerns.”

“Beijing is lending support to Moscow and Pyongyang’s respective claims that their aggressive behaviors are warranted and being driven by the actions of the West,” Patricia Kim, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, told NK News.

“Moreover, Beijing’s expression of sympathy for Russia and North Korea in their struggles against Western hegemony reinforces its own narrative that the United States and its allies are unjustly encircling and containing China,” Kim said.

China has insisted that the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected,” including with regard to “the Ukraine issue,” but it has refrained from criticizing Russia’s invasion. On Wednesday, China was one of 35 nations that abstained from voting on a U.N. resolution calling for Russia to “unconditionally withdraw” from Ukraine.

Beijing is “clearly not very happy with the situation in Ukraine, but also wants to not condemn Russia too harshly,” said Ed Pulford, a China expert at the University of Manchester. “So one thing that China has been emphasizing, even though this has been changing, is its opposition to NATO expansion or its sympathy with Russia’s position that NATO expansion is a cause for concern for Russia.” 

Pointing to China’s growing efforts to assemble its own strategic partners, Kim of the Brookings Institution described Beijing’s “growing comradery” with Moscow and Pyongyang as “quite concerning,” adding that the country has become less willing to use its influence to oppose its partners’ aggression.

Hoo Chiew Ping, senior lecturer in strategic studies and international relations at the National University of Malaysia, noted that the Ukraine crisis comes as China and the U.S. are “competing over moral superiority” as part of their “confrontation in political, economic and security domains.”

Meanwhile, North Korea has also emphasized Russia’s security concerns, while even more explicitly voicing support for Moscow. The DPRK was one of only five countries to vote against the U.N. resolution condemning Russia on Wednesday, with its ambassador to the U.N. claiming that Washington’s “hegemonic policy” is the “root cause” of the Ukrainian crisis.

“China and North Korea’s international perspectives are increasingly aligned,” Tong Zhao, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told NK News.

Noting that North Korea blamed “hostile forces” for its inability to join the Beijing Olympics, Zhao said the two allies believe “Western aggression” has caused the “fundamental security challenge” for both countries.

“And I can testify that this feeling is widely shared within China’s policy community here in Beijing,” Zhao said.

Edited by Bryan Betts

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