President Xi Jinping’s two-day trip to Pyongyang in early June, his first foreign journey of the year, signalled that the Chinese leadership now views the Korean peninsula as a priority theatre in its contest with Washington. What captured the attention of regional capitals was less the choreographed embrace with Kim Jong Un than the presence of China’s defence minister, the first such accompaniment in almost two decades. In public remarks, Xi spoke of a need to “strengthen military cooperation”, a formulation that, while deliberately vague, represented a notable shift in rhetoric for a relationship that Beijing had long kept carefully compartmentalised.

Viewed from Moscow, the timing was impeccable. Only days later, on Russia Day, Kim sent a message to Vladimir Putin pledging that the two nations would “always stand together” and describing their partnership as one of “comradely trust and alliance” that was opening a new chapter of history. This language mirrors the obligations codified in the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, which has transformed what was once a largely transactional exchange — Russian grain and energy for North Korean munitions — into something closer to a mutual defence understanding. European analysts note that Kim’s effusive language went beyond mere ceremony, deliberately designed to reassure the Kremlin that Pyongyang’s deepening embrace of Beijing would not dilute its commitment to Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

For Xi, the journey to Pyongyang also closed a long chapter of ambivalence. Between 2011 and 2018, relations had been frigid, with Beijing irritated over nuclear tests that threatened the stability it sought to project. The turning point arrived in 2018, when Kim’s summits with Seoul and Washington risked sidelining Chinese influence; Xi responded by inviting Kim to Beijing, inaugurating a flurry of face-to-face meetings that revived a bond both leaders now describe in Maoist terms as “as close as lips and teeth”. Today, analysts in Seoul see the military cooperation language as primarily political, designed to strengthen China’s strategic flank as tensions over Taiwan intensify. Beijing calculates that a Pyongyang able to act as a pressure point against the United States and its allies usefully complicates American force posture in Northeast Asia.

What emerges is not yet a fully integrated tripartite bloc, but a set of overlapping strategic interests that are beginning to cohere. North Korea, long isolated, now finds itself courted by two permanent members of the UN Security Council, each with its own reasons for elevating ties. Defence officials in Washington warn that even largely symbolic military coordination between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang could embolden Kim to raise the tempo of weapons testing and to harden his negotiating posture. The key uncertainty, as seen from London, is whether Xi can maintain primacy in Pyongyang’s internal calculus or whether the material benefits of cooperation with Russia — which shares a short border and is willing to transfer sensitive technology — will increasingly pull the centre of gravity northward. The coming months will test how far this axis is prepared to go, and how the democracies of the region and beyond choose to answer it.