{"id":18349,"date":"2025-09-10T06:37:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T06:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/?p=18349"},"modified":"2025-09-10T06:37:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T06:37:04","slug":"xi-jinping-acknowledges-kim-as-a-nuclear-power-with-massive-military-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/10\/xi-jinping-acknowledges-kim-as-a-nuclear-power-with-massive-military-parade\/","title":{"rendered":"Xi Jinping Acknowledges Kim as a Nuclear Power With Massive Military Parade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Of the more than two dozen foreign leaders invited to Xi Jinping\u2019s massive military parade<\/a> in Beijing last week, no one reaped a bigger diplomatic windfall than Kim Jong Un.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reclusive North Korean leader seized the global spotlight with a high-profile debut in multilateral diplomacy, standing shoulder to shoulder<\/a> with Xi and Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin in a defiant demonstration to the West that he enjoys the backing of the world\u2019s two most powerful autocrats \u2013 and a central role in the alternative global order they are shaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the sidelines, Kim underscored his bond with Putin, who vowed to \u201cnever forget\u201d<\/a> the sacrifices of North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Ukraine. He also held his first summit with Xi in six years<\/a>, restoring ties with a longtime patron strained by Pyongyang\u2019s growing military alliance with Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To cap it off, Kim was hosted by Xi for tea and a banquet at his residence in Zhongnanhai, the walled leadership compound at the heart of Chinese political power. That privilege was granted to none of the other 26 foreign guests at the parade, except Putin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a young leader who had long been treated as a junior partner by both Beijing and Moscow, the elevated treatment was a resounding propaganda coup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet his most consequential victory may not have been what was staged for the cameras, but what was left unsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time, official readouts of the Xi-Kim summit made no mention of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula \u2013 a striking departure from the language of the five summits they held between 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts say the omission could signal that Kim has secured what he long sought: China\u2019s tacit acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would mark a stunning turn for Beijing, which had long championed the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, even as Pyongyang accelerated its illegal nuclear and missiles programs under Kim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the denuclearization goal now formally removed from the official readout of the Xi-Kim meeting, a significant shift in China\u2019s long-term policy is confirmed,\u201d said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReluctantly but significantly, North Korea\u2019s most powerful ally has abandoned the pursuit of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emboldened by his trip to Beijing, Kim on Monday watched a test<\/a> of North Korea\u2019s new high-thrust rocket engine, which state media said would be used to power Pyongyang\u2019s newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNorth Korea has been given justification to continue holding onto its nuclear power,\u201d said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University\u2019s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, noting that both leaders pledged to strengthen relations \u201cno matter how the international situation changes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Kim was the biggest winner from Beijing\u2019s Victory Day parade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKim\u2019s international standing was significantly elevated,\u201d he said, adding that \u201crestored ties with China through economic cooperation could be leveraged in (future) negotiations with the US.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US President Donald Trump has signaled his willingness<\/a> to re-engage diplomatically with Kim, despite the collapse of his first-term attempt to strike a denuclearization deal with the North Korean leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the US president is already beset by a host of foreign policy headaches: his attempt to end Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine is getting nowhere, and Israel\u2019s unprecedented strike on Hamas officials in Qatar, an American ally, has dealt another blow<\/a> to his international credibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This photo released by North Korean state media Rodong Sinmun shows Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping having a tea chat at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing on September 4, 2025.KCNA\/AP<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tacit acceptance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As North Korea\u2019s main ally and economic lifeline, China has long been central to global efforts to rein in Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear ambitions \u2013 at times working in tandem with the United States. Beijing has played an instrumental role in bringing the Kim regime to the negotiating table and, at multiple junctures, voted in favor of United Nations sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as US-China relations have deteriorated amid intensifying strategic rivalry, Beijing has scaled back its cooperation on curbing North Korea\u2019s nuclear ambitions. So has Russia \u2013 once a staunch advocate of nuclear nonproliferation \u2013 since its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, China and Russia jointly vetoed<\/a> a US-led resolution at the UN Security Council that sought additional sanctions over North Korea\u2019s renewed ballistic missile launches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time China reaffirmed its commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula was at a trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea in 2024. It drew a blistering response from Pyongyang, which denounced the joint declaration as a \u201cgrave political provocation\u201d and a violation of its sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, Beijing has refrained from referencing that goal in its official statements or documents, Zhao noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Russia\u2019s growing military ties with North Korea \u2013 capped with the signing of a mutual defense treaty last year \u2013 have raised concerns that in exchange for arms and troops, Putin may assist Pyongyang in enhancing its missile technology and nuclear weapons delivery systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In public, Russian officials have edged closer to openly endorsing North Korea\u2019s nuclear program. Last September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared<\/a> that Moscow considered the denuclearization of North Korea a \u201cclosed issue,\u201d saying it understood Pyongyang\u2019s reliance on nuclear weapons as the foundation of its defense. By July, Lavrov went a step further, saying Russia \u201crespects\u201d North Korea\u2019s nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Beijing hasn\u2019t gone as far as Moscow, its quiet abandonment of the denuclearization goal marks a subtle yet consequential shift \u2013 one that could open the door to closer China-North Korea ties, or even bolster momentum for trilateral cooperation with Russia, Zhao said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite their unprecedented joint appearance atop Beijing\u2019s Gate of Heavenly Peace during the military parade, Xi, Putin and Kim were not reported to have convened a trilateral summit on the sidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vladimir<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un arrive at the Tiananmen rostrum for the military parade on September 3, 2025.cnsphoto\/Reuters<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Troubling signal\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said acceptance of North Korea\u2019s nuclear status may well form part of Xi and Putin\u2019s vision for a world order<\/a> no longer dominated by the US and its allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the very least, China\u2019s indulgence of Pyongyang and the nuclear threat it poses to Asia-Pacific security suggest that such disruption is considered to serve China\u2019s strategic interests. So long as the undermining of the existing order aligns with its goals, Beijing may be willing to shield it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That marks a stark contrast to less than a decade ago, when China and Russia voted with the US at the UN Security Council to tighten sanctions against North Korea in 2016 and 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, in 2015 it was South Korea\u2019s then President Park Geun-hye \u2013 not Kim Jong Un \u2013 who stood beside Xi and Putin on the Tiananmen rostrum to review the military parade marking 70 years since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some experts have cautioned that the public omission of denuclearization by Xi and Kim might not amount to a shift in China\u2019s official stance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shuxian Luo, an assistant professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii, M\u0101noa, said although the usual call for denuclearization was dropped at the summit, Beijing is unlikely to have abandoned this position in private discussions with North Korean officials, given its longstanding concern about a \u201cnuclear domino effect\u201d in East Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beijing has long viewed Pyongyang as both a strategic asset and a destabilizing liability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While North Korea has served as a geopolitical buffer against the US and its allies in East Asia, its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles has undermined regional security and handed Washington a justification to expand its military presence on China\u2019s doorstep. It also risks triggering a chain reaction, provoking other regional powers like South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear arsenals \u2013 especially amid doubts over the reliability of the US nuclear umbrella under Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already, South Korea is facing growing calls at home for a long-term security solution \u2013 potentially including an indigenous nuclear deterrent, Zhao said. \u201cWhile unlikely under the current progressive government, the overall likelihood of such a development has increased,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s tacit acceptance of North Korea\u2019s nuclear status may also have been influenced by signals from senior officials in the Trump administration expressing tolerance for allied nuclear proliferation, as well as Beijing\u2019s concerns about AUKUS \u2013 a program through which the US and UK will assist Australia in building nuclear-powered submarines, Zhao said. China has portrayed AUKUS as a step toward transferring nuclear weapons materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy interpreting these actions as evidence that Washington is drifting away from a principled nonproliferation stance, Beijing may thus feel justified in prioritizing its geopolitical interests over global nonproliferation norms,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cThis sends a troubling signal that could embolden other would-be nuclear states to exploit great-power rivalry for their own proliferation ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the more than two dozen foreign leaders invited to Xi Jinping\u2019s massive military parade in Beijing last week, no one reaped a bigger diplomatic windfall than Kim Jong Un. The reclusive North Korean leader seized the global spotlight with a high-profile debut in multilateral diplomacy, standing shoulder to shoulder with Xi and Russia\u2019s Vladimir […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Xi-and-Kim.png?fit=660%2C446&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18351,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18349\/revisions\/18351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}