Russia-China-North Korea Relations: Obstacles to a Trilateral Axis
FPRI launches a new report by Elizabeth Wishnick examining the historical challenges, foreign policy considerations, and domestic factors that make a trilateral axis unlikely
This week, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) launched a new report, Russia-China-North Korea Relations: Obstacles to a Trilateral Axis, by Elizabeth Wishnick. You can watch the virtual report launch with the author in the link above.
This report examines how the historical experience of trilateralism, reputational concerns, foreign policy considerations, and domestic factors make a new China-Russia-North Korea axis unlikely. It is the third installment in a series of five reports examining Chinese and Russian influence and interests in the Indo-Pacific region.
Key Findings
Despite a shared anti-Western alignment among Russia, China, and North Korea, several factors work against the formation of a trilateral axis.
The fraught history of their collaboration during the Korean War is a key restraining factor. Although a communist bloc subsequently emerged in Northeast Asia, the legacy of the underlying tensions among the three sets limits to current and future trilateral projects.
China and Russia today claim that the US is responsible for creating a new Cold War—and in Asia, they point to the formation of US-centered blocs as a primary driver. North Korea, by contrast, finds advantage in a new Cold War environment, putting it at odds with China and Russia, who would incur reputational costs in the Global South by pursuing that line of thinking.
It is important to track the specific indicators of their development of a trilateral axis to understand the parameters of their joint interactions. We need to look for signs of greater institutionalization, policy coordination, and support by Russian and Chinese elites to determine whether a trilateral axis actually is in the making.