{"id":653,"date":"2026-06-09T11:06:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=653"},"modified":"2026-06-09T11:06:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:06:56","slug":"analysis-chinese-president-xis-silence-on-nuclear-arms-is-a-gift-to-north-koreas-kim-jong-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=653","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Chinese President Xi\u2019s silence on nuclear arms is a gift to North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un"},"content":{"rendered":"
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TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Chinese and North Korean state-run media this week devoted thousands of words to Xi Jinping<\/span> \u2018s summit with Kim Jong Un<\/span>, but made no mention of a key matter for Washington: the North\u2019s steadfast pursuit of nuclear weapons that could threaten the United States and its allies in Asia.<\/p>\n

Read more China\u2019s President Xi returns home after closely watched trip to North Korea<\/a><\/p>\n

The silence says more than reams of the carefully framed propaganda. <\/p>\n

Until disarmament talks finally fell apart in 2019, Washington and Beijing were yearslong partners in diplomacy seeking to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for much-needed aid and political recognition. <\/p>\n

Beijing routinely called for \u201cdenuclearization\u201d \u2014 a bureaucratic term for nuclear disarmament \u2014 and there was hope in Washington, as well as in Seoul and Tokyo, that China would use its perceived influence as Pyongyang\u2019s diplomatic and economic protector to push the North on the nuclear standoff. <\/p>\n

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Xi\u2019s visit to Pyongyang on Monday and Tuesday \u2014 his first visit there in seven years<\/span> \u2014 could spell the end of that hope \u2014 and signal a significant shift in how he views the North\u2019s nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

From Beijing\u2019s perspective, Xi\u2019s silence may be an acknowledgment of how far North Korea\u2019s nuclear program has come since Kim Jong Un took power in 2011 \u2014 and also how unlikely it is that diplomacy could get the North to give up the weapons it sees as its largest guarantee against outside interference. <\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s silence on nuclear arms is golden for North Korea<\/h2>\n

The Chinese leader\u2019s last trip to North Korea, in 2019, was starkly different \u2014 Xi was quoted in Chinese media as saying his nation would play a constructive role in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. <\/p>\n

Beijing wants, above all, stability in North Korea and the region. A collapse in Pyongyang could send millions streaming across their long shared border.<\/p>\n

To that end, China has often avoided directly pushing for the end of North Korea\u2019s nuclear program, according to an analysis by Jiyong Zheng, dean of the Institute of Regional Studies at Tianjin Foreign Studies University in China. <\/p>\n

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Instead, Beijing called for the denuclearization of the entire Korean Peninsula \u2014 a careful wording that allowed China to also express a desire for an end to U.S. commitments to use its nuclear arsenal to protect South Korea and the deployment of U.S. nuclear capable bombers near the Korean Peninsula. <\/p>\n

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In recent months, Beijing has signaled it wants to prioritize stabilizing the situation on the peninsula, with denuclearization as a second aim, Zheng wrote.<\/p>\n

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