While attention rightly centers on China’s vital role in Vladimir Putin’s “Turn to the East,” now in its 12th year, little notice has been taken of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK or North Korea) importance for the “Turn.” After China, North Korea is one of two states—along with India—of greatest significance for Putin’s initiative for no less than four reasons. They reflect the security and identity aims of the “Turn.” They also are testimony to the complexity of Sino-Russian relations—close but often distrustful.[1]
First, the “Turn” revives the “Grand Strategic Triangle” of the Cold War era, demonstrating to the United States and China that Russia is a powerful force with which they must reckon. It is steeped in the logic of Soviet foreign policy, for which North Korea was a vital element. Second, after initial wavering in Stage One of the “Turn to the East” from 2012 to early 2014, it increasingly targeted the US alliances with South Korea and Japan, treated reminiscent of the Cold War, as is North Korea. If some initially pointed to economics as the priority, rightly recognizing a focus on exports of energy, investments and modernization of the Russian Far East were secondary aims.
Third, no state is more welcoming to the Russian agenda than North Korea and more eager to covet its assets: arms technology, energy, and foodstuffs. Further, Pyongyang wholeheartedly endorses Putin’s aggressive behavior. Finally, the national identity component of the “Turn” necessitates a partner other than China to vindicate such claims as Eurasianism, multipolarity, equality of great powers, and unique civilization. Too much one-sided dependence on China strips Russia of the identity justifications it keeps making, vital to claims Putin insists are key.
To understand the evolution of the “Turn to the East,” we need look no further than articles by Russians over the past twelve years.[2] Cozying up to North Korea in 2023-2024 is a continuation of the fourth stage. Below, I outline the stages with new focus on North Korea’s role and the four reasons for pursuing the North.[3]
Embracing North Korea fits into a broader Russian strategy than simply gaining support for the Ukraine war. Along with forging a close but at times contentious relationship with China, it harks back to aspirations of the 1950s and targets a world where US might and alliances are put under siege. In the absence of a regional security framework aimed at undermining these alliances and giving Russia veto power, the desired outcome is a polarized Northeast Asia in which Moscow and Beijing each cultivate ties with Pyongyang without succumbing to a Sinocentric agenda. Fearful of security threats, Seoul and Tokyo find themselves obliged to accommodate Russia’s interests to a substantial degree. The closer Moscow’s ties to Pyongyang, the more leverage it expects over US allies as well as China.
North Korea and the Four Stages of the “Turn to the East”
We need to look back to the Six Party Talks for early signs of Russian thinking about North Korea’s significance. Russians saw an opportunity to be “very helpful” to the North in adjusting to “new economic, political, and social realities” in a “long, slow period of mutual accommodation of North and South.”[4] Russia would modernize factories built by the Soviets, absorb the North’s workforce, provide its energy, upgrade its armed forces, and be the ideal partner in its complex dealings with China and Japan (as well as the United States).[5] “At stake…is not only the security of Russia’s eastern flank but also its prospects…in the geopolitical and economic upsurge of the world’s most dynamic region.”[6] Anticipating a new structure in which Moscow had a critical voice—reinforced by organizing the Six Party Talks fifth working group on peace and security in Northeast Asia—Russians saw its reemergence as a major player in regional affairs, “holding the forces of globalization at a distance.”[7] Failure of the talks necessitated a new agenda in Asia.
Stage One of Putin’s “Turn to the East” in 2012-2014 focused less on North Korea but recognized the fact that Abe Shinzo in wooing Putin, and Park Geun-hye in advancing her “Eurasian Initiative,” saw Russia as a partner in managing North Korea as well as in limiting China’s ambitions.[8] Its emphasis on both multipolarity, including US allies, and modernization of the Russian Far East, attracting investments from diverse sources, held promise for Russian-DPRK ties, even if diplomacy was stalled in the transition to Kim Jong Un. Seeking a place for Russia in a booming region, Putin aimed less to transform than to adjust regional dynamics, centering first on China.
After annexing Crimea and advancing in eastern Ukraine, Putin, in Stage Two, 2014-2017, chose a more aggressive approach to Northeast Asia, seeking to reshape it through “docking” with China in infrastructure and bonding with North Korea. Troubled Sino-DPRK ties left an opening, pursued along with lingering diplomacy with Japan and South Korea, despite lower expectations. Frustration was mounting, however, as Beijing outmaneuvered Moscow in joint plans and Kim Jong Un, as he built up his nuclear and missile capabilities, saw little benefit in prioritizing a breakthrough with Putin. The “turn to North Korea” seemed to be at an impasse after Putin acquiesced to Xi Jinping’s decision in late 2017 to toughen up UN sanctions on it.
Stage Three, 2018-2021, started slowly for Russia as it was marginalized in the diplomacy between Kim Jong Un and both Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in. Putin pressed China to agree to his plan for a “Greater Eurasian Partnership,” but Xi did not coordinate on India and ASEAN, his Central Asia moves were suspect, and claims of coordination over North Korea were of uncertain value. As Xi regained his footing through repeated summits with Kim Jong Un, Putin was finally able to host Kim. “Delighted” with the failure of the Hanoi summit and with signs Sino-US relations were in a new Cold War, Putin, however, found there was no room left to play the “North Korea” card when North Korea in early 2020 shut its borders to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak.
While diplomacy with Pyongyang drew little outside attention, the urgency of a breakthrough was growing. Putin was set on stirring up Cold War divisions; he was intent on demonstrating he had options other than China and was determined to put security at the forefront. With further deterioration in Sino-US relations in the pandemic year 2020 and with the start of the Biden administration’s pushback against China, US minilateralism at last promised to give Putin the opening he sought. Camp David trilateralism defied China, Russia, and North Korea demands.
The language in Russian publications in 2019-2021 both appealed to China to join in a new Cold War and searched for a way to affirm Russia’s standing in a world not exclusively dominated by two great powers.[9] Although the Russian ambassador remained in Pyongyang during the period it closed its borders, there was scant diplomacy to vindicate high hopes. Yet commentaries on what went wrong at the Hanoi summit and on North Korea’s case for security made sympathies clear. With no renewed US diplomacy toward the North and China keeping up pressure despite relaxing some enforcement of sanctions, Russia would have to take matters into its own hands.
Stage Four from 2022 saw Putin unleash full-scale war in Ukraine as he revved up the “Turn to the East” through China with the intent to add North Korea to the mix. His war of attrition made the case for tightening ties to North Korea stronger. Aggression in the West did not come at the expense of ambitions in the East; it complemented them. Four reasons justified a breakthrough with the North: reviving the Grand Strategic Triangle, targeting US alliances in East Asia, welcoming North Korea’s agenda as in Russia’s interest, and reconceptualizing national identity.
Reviving the Grand Strategic Triangle
After 45 years of grandiose claims of being one of two superpowers, Moscow acclimated to the post-Cold War. It rejected any junior status to the United States and, encouraged by Beijing, from the mid-1990s, grasped for a strategic triangle with the two. A sharp break with the West was required, given Russia’s diminished standing. In the East, the challenge was to draw close to China, proving Russia’s value against the United States, while seeking some balance elsewhere in Asia. Japan and South Korea failed the test, being too close to Washington and opposed by China. India looked promising, but the Indian backlash against China after their 2020 skirmish and growing security ties to the United States reduced its value. North Korea fit the bill well, given its ambivalent but essential ties to China and its security obsession, raising the variable most critical for strategic triangle maneuvering. Putin recognized its value in his surprise visit to Pyongyang in 2000; his attempted diplomatic intervention in January 2003, when he sent a deputy foreign minister to Pyongyang in an attempt to put Russia at the center of resolving the nuclear crisis; his hopes in the Six Party Talks for the fifth working group chaired by Moscow; his response in 2010 to the Cheonan sinking; and his overtures to Kim Jong Un in 2014 to 2017 (e.g., showcasing him at the 70th anniversary victory day parade on May 9, 2015, before Kim changed his mind about attending, and blaming Seoul, not Pyongyang, when plans for large-scale coal trade from Khasan through Rajin collapsed). Failure of the 2019 Hanoi summit renewed hope.
Instead of a blitzkrieg success in Ukraine affirming the revival of the Grand Strategic Triangle to be taken seriously by Washington and Beijing, a war of attrition left Russia as a wobbly leg of the triangle in an even more asymmetrical relationship with China.[10] Isolated in Europe, it needed autonomous standing in Asia. North Korea boosted the Grand Strategic Triangle image: 1) raising the salience of nuclear weapons; 2) adding an arms trade partner affecting the war balance; and 3) making Beijing and Washington take its impact on regional security seriously.
The legacy of communist thinking, i.e., the Soviet worldview, endures in grandiose claims to be on the top step of the global ladder.[11] Apart from Belarus, there is no country more welcoming to the reassertion of this old identity than North Korea. The more Moscow defines itself as a peer to Washington and Beijing, the more room for maneuvering Pyongyang expects to enjoy.
Targeting US Alliances in East Asia
Too little attention has been paid to the increasingly negative thinking in Moscow from 2014 toward both Japan and South Korea, whose leaders were too bent on wooing Putin to register the degree of disdain manifest on the other side. It was not until 2022 when both US allies were designated “non-friendly countries,” that waning hopes faded.[12] Commentaries on the end of World War II and the Korean War had long since hardened.[13] Russians may have dangled hope before Park Geun-hye, Moon Jae-in, and Abe Shinzo, but narratives pointed to an unbridgeable gap.
History had become an obsession for Putin, was repeatedly cited by Foreign Minister Lavrov, and became intertwined in assessments of bilateral relations. Recognizing the justice of the seizure of four islands never before under Russian control suddenly became a prerequisite for reaching a peace agreement with Japan, complicating talks beyond rigidity on the territorial issue in Moscow. By not accepting that it was a defeated state, restricted in its security agenda, Japan was deemed a revisionist, militarist country trying to disrupt the regional order.[14] Unsaid was that part of that order was a divided Korea, brought about by the same Red Army that had “defeated” Japan. Japan’s aspirations for influence on the Korean Peninsula or reunification at odds with the wishes of the North Korean regime likewise did not jibe with its required status.
No less unacceptable were South Korean challenges to the “natural order” left from the Soviet Union’s glorious victories, in cahoots with US ambitions to arouse a “color revolution” in North Korea. As the cult of victory in World War II became Putin’s fixation, the Korean War narrative of helping North Korea fend off US imperialism emerged as a useful addendum. The internal workings of North Korea, including human rights, faded from view in the narrative about a regional order established through blood and sacrifice and serving national interests. In the background loomed the ally of South Korea, moving it as a pawn as it also did with another country supposedly lacking full sovereignty, Japan. Removal of US bases came to be seen as the starting point for an independent foreign policy, which would open the door to problem-solving.
Welcoming North Korea’s Agenda as in Russia’s Interest
Moscow needed a partner hostile to the status quo, wary of China but unwilling to antagonize its neighbor, and helpful in meeting arms or perhaps labor needs. It did not need to replace the many benefits its quasi-alliance with China provides. China long seemed too dependent on ties to the West to join Russia openly or fully in challenging the existing order. It also had aspirations of drawing Russia into excessive dependency through the Belt and Road Initiative and turning Central Asia from Russia’s sphere of influence inimical to Putin’s ambitions. A troika with India would have been ideal, but India grew too wary of China and too intent on boosting ties with the United States, Japan, and other targets of Russian hostility. North Korea served different goals.
In 2024, the economic dimension of cooperation with North Korea has changed, if not as much as the security dimension. Interest in navigation on the Tumen River has reemerged, something China covets but requires North Korean buy-in. The Northern Sea Route, passing along North Korea en route to the Arctic Ocean, is moving ahead. Vladivostok, near the border with North Korea, is opening to transit trade from China. Russians are talking earnestly about bringing large numbers of North Korean workers into their country after complying with sanctions by returning some workers. Much depends on China, now applying pressure on the North to clarify its path.
Reconceptualizing Russian National Identity
North Korea symbolizes the extension of Moscow’s power into East Asia. In the 1960s-1980s, it was the lone outpost of what Soviets considered their sphere of influence in the neighboring states of Northeast Asia. Complete loss of clout in the 1990s, as diplomacy around the North unfolded, became the foremost sign of regional irrelevance. No wonder, in 2000, Putin stopped in Pyongyang on the way to a G8 summit in Japan as his first demonstration that Russia was making a comeback.
The collapse of communism and the Soviet Union left a void in Russian national identity, which Putin is filling with Eurasianism at the forefront. Much as the Sino-Soviet split was treated as a secondary identity theme to the clash with the West and leadership in the communist bloc, the notion of Eurasianism does not rest primarily on Sino-Russian camaraderie. It is an assertion of Russian power and civilization in an Asian context. Ignoring the reality of North Korea, a vision has emerged of it as a valued partner, which reinforces Russia’s identity as an Asian power.
Conclusion
It is difficult to predict the timing and degree of Putin’s overtures to Kim Jong Un had Putin not launched his full-scale war in Ukraine. Without an urgent need for arms imports, Putin would presumably have taken smaller steps. Yet the logic of pursuing a breakthrough with Kim would have remained. Putin needed to move to a more assertive “Turn to the East” by 2022, given the reasons cited above. In Stage One, he tried a multi-pronged approach that proved contradictory and inadequate to reach his goals. In Stage Two, his outreach to Kim Jong Un fell short, and he had become so reliant on Xi Jinping that he saw no alternative to alienating Kim by agreeing to tough United Nations Security Council sanctions. Marginalized in the diplomacy of 2018, Putin prepared for a new stage in his “Turn to the East” together with a newly aggressive Xi Jinping but seeking more. Attacking Ukraine poked the West in the eye; allying with North Korea delivered a new punch. It also served as a reminder to China that asymmetric dependency is not a license to act at will.
Sergey Radchenko, “The Sino-Russian Relationship: It’s Complicated,” The Asan Forum, November 29, 2023, https://theasanforum.org/the-sino-russian-relationship-its-complicated/; and Gilbert Rozman, “Current Russia-China Partnership Dynamics,” in Alliances and Partnerships in a Complex and Challenging Security Environment, eds. Regina Karp and Richard W. Mass (NATO Allied Command Transformation, Old Dominion University, 2024), 75-85.
“Country Report: Russia (May 2024),” The Asan Forum, https://theasanforum.org/country-report-russia-may-2024/. See also Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christofferson, eds., Putin’s “Turn to the East” in the Xi Jinping Era (London: Routledge, 2023).
Gilbert Rozman, “Russian Thinking about the Korean Peninsula and the US Role There over a Decade,” in Rozman and Christofferson, eds., Putin’s “Turn to the East” in the Xi Jinping Era; and Gilbert Rozman, “Why Russia Has Botched Diplomacy with Japan: Comparisons of 2013-23 and the Late 1980s,” The Pacific Review 37, no. 6 (2024): 1-27.