As North Korean casualties mount, China’s alarm intensifies

Mark O'Neill January 06, 2025 21:59

As North Korean casualties in Russia mount, so does the alarm of China. It increasingly fears the uncontrollable behaviour of a Kim Jong-un emboldened by Russian missile and nuclear technology and can do little to stop him.

Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that more than 3,000 North Koreans had been killed or wounded in intense fighting in the Kursk region of western Russia. Last October, Pyongyang sent 12,000 troops to help the Russian army.

Images on Youtube show rows of North Korean corpses lying in snow-covered fields. Those captured by Ukraine said that they had been sent on foot in waves to storm heavily fortified positions. “This is not what we were told. President Putin has deceived the Sun Leader Kim Jong-un,” said one prisoner speaking from a hospital bed. “For what are we fighting?”

In his backpack was an official notice from his commanders saying that death was more glorious than surrender and brought glory to him, his family and the nation. This high level of casualties means that, under his military agreement with Putin, Kim will send more soldiers to the front.
“North Korea is widely viewed in China as an agent of chaos,” said Dr Zhang Feng, a visiting scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre. “It has rising concerns about North Korean foreign policy and growing North Korea-Russia ties. But it struggles to use its economic and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.

“China sees itself as a great power on the Korean Peninsula, striving for regional stability to ensure its own stability,” said Dr Zhang. “It does not want to be seen as a member or leader in the ‘axis of upheaval’ with North Korea, Iran and Russia.” North Korea would not exist but for the intervention of the Chinese army in the Korean Civil War in the autumn of 1950 on the Northern side.

Beijing’s objectives for the Korean peninsula are the removal of nuclear weapons: peaceful and stable relations between North and South: improved living standards for people in the North: and the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Kim’s intervention in Russia’s war with Ukraine run against all these objectives. In exchange for the deaths of Kim’s soldiers, Putin is paying him with money, oil and gas, food and technology to improve his missile and nuclear programmes.

Beijing fiercely opposes Kim’s nuclear weapons programme and supports United Nations sanctions against it. One nightmare is that, fearing the loss or weakening of U.S. support under President Donald Trump, South Korea and possibly Japan develop nuclear weapons of their own. Both countries have the technical expertise and financial resources to do this.

Another nightmare is that, with his new weapons and South Korea locked in a deep political crisis, Kim might start a war. In a speech in January 2024 to the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim said that unification was no longer possible.

“The constitution should be amended to educate North Koreans that South Korea is a ‘primary foe and invariable principal enemy’,” he said. “If a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, the country's constitution should reflect the issue of occupying, recapturing and incorporating the South into our territory.”

A third nightmare is the collapse of the North Korean regime and a flood of refugees into northeast China. Unofficial estimates put the current number of North Koreans living illegally in China at between 50,000 and 200,000. Some use China as a way to escape to South Korea.

The irony is that North Korea is economically dependent on China. In 2023, China accounted for more than 95 per cent of the country’s imports and exports. It provides food, fuel, fertiliser and other vital commodities to Pyongyang. But it seems unable to translate this dependency into influence on major policies.

Meanwhile, the treatment of North Korean soldiers in Kursk is shocking, if not surprising. The Russian army uses them, together with Russian conscripts, ex-prisoners and other non-professional soldiers, for front-line assaults on Ukrainian positions. The aim is to exhaust the defenders and make them reveal their locations. For the second and third waves, the Russians used more valuable and more professional troops.

According to Ukrainian figures, the Russian army lost an average of 1,200 killed or wounded each day during 2024.

The North Koreans find themselves facing live fire, mortars, artillery and drones, the like of which they have never experienced before. In the confusion of battle, they are unable to communicate directly with their Russian colleagues. Some have killed Russian soldiers by mistake, unable to distinguish them from Ukrainians.

It seems that the North Korean commanders set no limits on the battle conditions under which their men are sent to fight. To further his military and political ambitions, the Great Leader, it seems, is happy to send thousands of his people to die.

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.