For decades, China anchored its official approach to North Korea on the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The phrase appeared in defense white papers, joint statements, and diplomacy, serving as Beijing’s rhetorical proof that it opposed Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.
But late last November, China released its latest white paper on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation—and for the first time in years, the document excluded any explicit reference to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. In its place were vague calls for “peace,” “stability,” and a resolution through “political means” as well as a reiteration of China’s “impartial stance” on the issue.
This pattern has held throughout Beijing’s recent diplomatic exchanges. Even after Pyongyang fired at least two missiles into the sea separating the Koreas and Japan on Jan. 4, official readouts from this week’s summit in Beijing between Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung downplayed the issue. Although Lee reportedly requested his Chinese counterpart to assume a mediating role on the Korean Peninsula, this was clearly not the meeting’s focus, as evident by the request’s absence from the post-summit briefings from both sides. Tellingly, the summit produced no official joint statement.
These omissions mark a meaningful shift: Beijing is deprioritizing a goal it increasingly views as unrealistic and strategically inconvenient. This quiet divorce from its long-held denuclearization aim reflects new calculations regarding regional instability, regime collapse, and the potential loss of strategic ground to the United States. In retreating from denuclearization, however, China may be setting the stage for the exact outcomes it most seeks to avoid.
The language of Chinese foreign-policy documents is rarely accidental, and omissions are often as revealing as new additions. Previous arms control and security statements, including Beijing’s posture during the 2005 Six-Party Talks, explicitly articulated China’s commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. That commitment was reaffirmed in the 2017 Policies on Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation and emphasized in China-Korea-Japan trilateral summit joint statements in 2015, 2018, and 2019. Xi consistently framed denuclearization as a shared objective in summit meetings and phone calls with South Korean leaders as recently as 2021. Even in July 2023, Chinese officials asserted their commitment to North Korean denuclearization in diplomatic gatherings, including at the United Nations.
The November 2025 white paper changes tact, emphasizing stability over disarmament, dialogue over pressure, and balance over enforcement. While these priorities are not new, the absence of denuclearization as an explicit objective signals a break from decades-long rhetoric.
This shift matches recent behaviors. Beijing has called for the U.N. to relax sanctions enforcement on North Korea, restored cross-border trade, and shielded Pyongyang, its only formal treaty ally, from further punitive measures at the Security Council through vetoes and abstentions. Beijing continues to call for peace in the region but shows little appetite for exerting the real leverage it commands as Pyongyang’s economic lifeline, representing 98 percent of North Korea’s total trade, to roll back the nuclear program.
The 2024 China-Korea-Japan trilateral summit—held after nearly five years of hiatus—resulted in a joint statement that lacked a unified position on complete denuclearization, and last September, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi refrained from mentioning denuclearization during a bilateral meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun. The November meeting between Xi and Lee on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, omitted denuclearization from the Chinese statement entirely. And this week’s summit in Beijing—the first state visit by a South Korean president to China in eight years—once again excluded denuclearization in official statements, likely reflecting an effort to spotlight the symbolic “full restoration” of bilateral ties and cooperation on areas including technology and the environment.
November’s white paper did not indicate a new policy so much as acknowledge the existing reality: Denuclearization has rarely topped Beijing’s priority list in practice. Instead, Chinese policymakers’ overriding concerns have been to prevent military conflict that could draw in the United States, destabilize Northeast Asia, and send refugees across the Yalu River, causing social instability in China’s border region—which has a significant ethnically Korean minority. A sudden collapse of the Kim regime could produce similar outcomes, along with the prospect of a unified Korea aligned with Washington.
These priorities are captured in the often cited Chinese “Three Nos” framework: no war, no instability, no nukes. But the first two nos seem to matter much more to Beijing than the last. North Korea’s nuclear weapons register as a secondary threat; from Beijing’s perspective, Pyongyang’s arsenal primarily deters South Korea and the United States, not China. As long as North Korea remains internally stable and externally contained, its nuclear status is an uncomfortable but manageable scenario.
This calculus is evident when considering China’s reactions to North Korean and South Korean nuclear development, respectively. North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile provocations resulted in collective sanctions and diplomatic warnings—often accompanied by selective and uncoordinated easing or quiet violations. Meanwhile, South Korea’s decision to deploy a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in 2016 triggered a diplomatic freeze and unilateral economic coercion on a far greater scale than was deployed against Pyongyang.
That calculus has hardened even as North Korea’s capabilities have expanded. Pyongyang now possesses at least 50 assembled nuclear warheads and a more refined missile technology bolstered by Russian technological transfers. In 2024 and 2025, 32 missile provocations—including ballistic and cruise missile tests, long-range rocket launches, and live-fire artillery drills against South Korea—demonstrated significant qualitative improvements in missile capabilities. The 2022 nuclear forces law and a constitutional amendment in 2023 formalized North Korea’s irreversible nuclear status and made weapons modernization a constitutional duty.
Beijing appears to have accepted that denuclearizing North Korea has become unrealistic. Nuclear weapons are central to the Kim regime’s domestic legitimacy, and rolling back the program would require pressure severe enough to threaten regime survival, the scenario Beijing fears most.
China’s rhetorical change also reflects broader regional developments. North Korea has reemerged as a geopolitical variable in U.S.-China relations; since his return to the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump has signaled a willingness to reinitiate conversations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and hinted at his openness to acknowledge North Korea’s status as a nuclear state. The latest National Security Strategy omits both denuclearization and a dedicated North Korea section.
U.S. interest incentivizes Beijing to pull Pyongyang closer. Despite tensions over North Korea’s sixth nuclear test in 2017, high-level exchanges peaked in 2018 and 2019, with 14 high-level visits during those years—notably bracketed by Kim’s meetings with Trump in Hanoi and Singapore. When summit diplomacy stalled in subsequent years, Beijing-Pyongyang exchanges similarly evaporated.
Now, a U.S.-North Korea deal bypassing Chinese channels would create uncertainty at best and threaten Beijing’s regional influence at worst. China’s military parade last September showcasing solidarity within the “Axis of Upheaval” signaled both consolidation among Beijing’s closest allies and its continued influence over Pyongyang amid growing engagement interest from Washington and Seoul.
The deepening of the North Korea-Russia relationship is also at play; North Korea is the biggest supporter of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, and Pyongyang appears to have received technology transfers, economic assistance, and diplomatic backing from Moscow. The 2024 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty was Russia’s highest-level commitment to North Korea in decades, raising acute entrapment fears: A more confident North Korea may take greater military risks that could drag China into unwanted conflict. Pressuring North Korea too hard risks pushing Pyongyang further into Moscow’s orbit and decreasing Beijing’s ability to moderate escalatory behavior.
China’s rhetorical shift may also reflect its own nuclear trajectory. Beijing is expanding and diversifying its nuclear forces, and recent satellite imagery points to sustained investment and potential expanded testing capability at the Lop Nur test site. Beijing may thus be concerned that denuclearization language could constrain its own nuclear flexibility.
In this environment, insisting on denuclearization offers diminishing returns for China. Yet while Beijing’s recalibration may be understandable, it fundamentally threatens China’s core interests.
First, an unchecked and expanding nuclear arsenal increases regional instability. As Pyongyang acquires more nuclear warheads and delivery systems, the probability of accidents and misperception rises. North Korea’s constitutional elevation of preemptive nuclear strike options and automatic nuclear response doctrine creates hair-trigger scenarios and even greater nuclear asymmetry on the peninsula.
Further, the more confident Pyongyang becomes in the coercive leverage of its weapons, the more likely it is to turn to missile tests and artillery provocations instead of diplomacy—a playbook Pyongyang has followed since the failure of the 2019 Hanoi summit and as recently as this past weekend. With no meaningful diplomatic channel restored and little incentive to change course, there is scant reason to expect a shift in Pyongyang’s behavior.
Next, China’s posture could accelerate security enhancements in Seoul and Tokyo, as well as tighter cooperation among U.S. allies. North Korea’s growing aggression and China’s inaction have driven tighter cooperation among South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Since the 2023 Camp David summit, all three countries have established North Korean missile warning data sharing and expanded the scope and frequency of joint maritime exercises and flights, which Beijing has strongly opposed.
Beijing has also issued vocal opposition to the recently agreed nuclear-powered attack submarine development between South Korea and the United States and the establishment of the Nuclear Consultative Group, designed to strengthen U.S. extended deterrence to South Korea in times of contingency. But China’s abandonment of North Korea’s denuclearization only fuels concerns over insecurity, the very condition driving such cooperation.
Finally, tolerating North Korea’s nuclear status erodes Beijing’s own leverage over Pyongyang. If Kim believes his most valuable strategic asset is no longer negotiable with Beijing, he has little incentive to heed Chinese preferences on other matters.
This dynamic is already evident: Even under Beijing’s tacit acceptance of its nuclearization since 2023, North Korea has increasingly bypassed Chinese recommendations for regional stability, conducted a satellite launch when Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Seoul, and strengthened ties with Russia. North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia and increasingly autonomous foreign-policy maneuvers also suggest diminishing deference, a posture that risks Beijing becoming sidelined on decisions concerning its own security.
By retreating from denuclearization, Beijing hopes to avoid the risks of pressuring Pyongyang too hard. Yet, in doing so, it may be accelerating the very dynamics it seeks to prevent: an emboldened North Korea that disregards Chinese counsel and a tightening security architecture among U.S. allies that more closely encircles China.
Ultimately, Beijing is betting that stability can be preserved even as North Korea’s nuclear arsenal expands. It is a wager born of frustration with an unreachable goal and fear of worse alternatives. But it is also a gamble that may not pay off.