Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Kremlin fears excessive support for Pyongyang may backfire
This photo taken on Oct. 19 shows North Korea's national flags being waved as plane carrying Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov prepares to take off from the airport in Pyongyang, North Korea. Experts said on Wednesday that Russia's support toward North Korea's development of weapons or its economy will be limited because of risk to its own national interests. AFP-Yonhap
By Jung Min-ho
Russia knows technology given to North Korea will likely be resold: Lankov
Pyongyang’s partnership with the Kremlin is painted as having no limits these days. North Korea’s media constantly talks about their relations expanding in almost all areas from diplomacy to sports, sending worrying signals that the regime may gain access to advanced Russian weapons.
North Korean leaders would certainly want it, but the hope is unlikely to materialize because their Russian counterparts know all too well about the grave risks attached to such a scenario, according to Andrei Lankov, a Russian scholar specializing in Korean studies, Wednesday.
At a forum held in Seoul on North Korea’s security threats and economy, Lankov and several other experts said the Kremlin has little interest in helping North Korea develop its weapons or economy, adding that Russian support will be limited despite all the hype and bravado coming from Pyongyang.
“If some technologies are provided to North Korea, the North Koreans are likely to resell them to third parties, which is not necessarily friendly to Russia’s interests,” he said. “At any rate, sending technologies to North Korea means creating a competitor in the international market.”
Russia’s war in Ukraine has brought the Kremlin and Pyongyang closer. But for North Korea, experts said the renewed partnership did not come without a cost. China, whose economy is deeply connected to the global trade and financial systems, has been keeping a distance from the two countries that are under heavy international sanctions.
“As long as the U.S. sanctions remain in place, the size of China’s trade with North Korea will be difficult to recover to the levels before its fourth nuclear test because companies in China fear the sanctions’ impact on them,” said Kim Byung-yeon, professor of economics at Seoul National University.
All things considered, however, North Korea today is in a better geopolitical position than it was three years ago, which means a bigger challenge for Seoul and Washington’s joint effort to curb its nuclear ambitions, said Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economic Institute of America, a U.S. think tank. He thinks North Korea’s cooperation with Russia will continue to improve and may well outlast the war.
Yet, Russia is unlikely to ever approach China when it comes to the scale of its help to North Korea, Lankov said.
“The effect due to North Korea’s partnership with Russia appears to be exaggerated. But China still is the dominant factor when it comes to influencing the future of its economy,” he said. “Compared with China, Russia has much fewer resources; its GDP is roughly one-tenth of China’s.”
Also, North Korea has far less strategic significance for the leaders in Moscow than for their peers in Beijing, given its intensifying, long-term hegemonic rivalry with Washington, he said.
All experts agree that neither Russia nor China has any intention of subsidizing North Korean economic development, saying they would want a stable North Korea rather than an ascending one that might pose additional diplomatic complications for them.
They also said that there are no reasons for North Korea to change its course of developing nuclear and other advanced weapons and, as a result, international sanctions will remain in place.
All that means no significant economic improvement for North Korea in the near future and its nuclear threats will continue to grow, which could leave South Korea with few options to change its behavior.
Lankov said the idea of denuclearizing North Korea at this point is “pure fantasy.” However, he added that Seoul and Washington may be able to slow the process by signing a deal to get rid of North Korea’s nuclear facilities in return for the lifting of some sanctions.
But currently, “a U.S. president has no incentive whatsoever to pursue the option,” he said.