Washington —

Analysts say Beijing is unlikely to help Washington undermine military cooperation between North Korea and Russia because it sees the move as undermining itself while supporting U.S. goals in Europe and Asia.

“Given U.S. Asia policy and Washington’s ongoing efforts to curb China’s influence in the region, Beijing has no reason to compromise on one of its most important foreign policy priorities – Russia’s failure in Ukraine -” to assist the United States, even indirectly.” , a fellow at the Defense Priorities Project.

“For China, North Korea is not a problem to be solved, but a card in its competition with Washington,” DePatrice continued in an email to VOA on Tuesday.

The United States has turned to China for help curbing North Korea’s threatening missile activities, which now extend from East Asia to Europe, where Russia’s war in Ukraine continues for a third consecutive year.

Ukrainian security services stated on February 22 that since December, North Korean missiles have caused civilian casualties in Ukrainian cities such as Zaporizhia, Kiev, Donetsk and Kharkiv.

The next day, the U.S. State Department announced that Park Chung-woo, a senior official on North Korea, held talks with Liu Xiaoming, China’s special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs.

A U.S. statement said the two discussed North Korea’s “increasingly destabilizing and escalating behavior and its deepening military cooperation with Russia” via video conference on February 21.

The United States says North Korea has shipped more than 10,000 containers of weapons to Russia since September and announced sanctions against Moscow on February 23.

Prior to Park’s talks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed North Korea with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 16.

In response to last week’s talks, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA via email on Wednesday that “China has no intention to interfere” in cooperation between the two sovereign states of North Korea and Russia. He called the two countries “friendly neighbors of China.”

Peng Yu also expressed the hope that the United States will play a positive and constructive role in maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Russia in September and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea appears to have been accelerating arms transfers to replenish the weapons Russia needs to fight Ukraine. In return, Kim Jong Un is seeking Russian technology to enhance his weapons.

Susan Thornton, a senior fellow at the Tsai Ing-wen China Center at Yale University, served as acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the Trump administration. She said Beijing might be willing to persuade Moscow to sever ties with Pyongyang if war breaks out in Ukraine. Exceed.

But even so, “China will not be eager to help” if “relations with the United States continue to deteriorate,” she said by email on Tuesday.

China views North Korea, which straddles its border, as a buffer zone against the United States and its military bases in South Korea that station 28,500 troops. Beijing wants Pyongyang to remain stable so it can continue to play this role.

Since the 1990s, China has been providing economic aid to maintain North Korea, which is under severe sanctions and isolated.

Robert Manning, senior fellow at Reimagining at the Stimson Center, said that while Beijing is “very uncomfortable” with losing influence over Pyongyang because Moscow now provides alternative sources of food and fuel, this apparent loss is offset by the offset by the benefits gained from economic dependence on China. American Grand Strategy Project.

Russia has faced severe sanctions since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“China has been an economic life raft for Russia, strengthening its energy ties and filling the Russian market with its cars and consumer goods,” Manning said. He said by email on Wednesday that Beijing would not change its stance on Pyongyang’s relations with Moscow, Because it will generally continue to “coordinate much of its foreign policy with Russia where it opposes U.S. policy.”

However, Michael Swain, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said, “Working vigorously with Moscow and Pyongyang against the United States creates certain risks for Beijing.”

“Currently, China wants to maintain a viable relationship with Washington rather than deteriorate it. Beijing faces serious domestic problems and needs a relatively stable external environment,” Swain said via email on Wednesday.