But now, he adds, Russia “is offering an alternative and the North Koreans are seeking to exploit that”…
“For a very long time, China has had a policy of three nos in Northeast Asia – one of those nos was a no nuclear North Korea. Obviously that has been a failure,” Mr Green says.
Now Beijing fears that the alliance with Russia could destabilise North Korea, he adds: “That could even benefit Vladimir Putin in a way it really would not benefit Xi Jinping.”
Experts say Beijing is just as worried as the West about what military technology Putin might sell to Kim in exchange for troops.
“Satellites, for sure,” Mr [Aidan] Foster-Carter says. “But Putin is bad – not mad. Russia knows just as China knows that North Korea is a loose cannon. Giving [Kim] more technology for nukes is not a good thing for anybody.”
That seems overly optimistic to me. Putin is desperate – he must be to rely so heavily on North Korea for arms and soldiers – and Kim is in a strong position to demand the latest Russian nuclear technology. Why else send 10,000 of his elite troops to Ukraine? And what does Putin care, anyway? He may not be clinically insane, but with the Ukraine invasion and his increasingly demented pseudo-historical fantasy justifications for the slaughter he's unleashed, he's clearly deranged.
But Kim too might have a decision to make.
Although Russia is paying for shells and troops, Mr Foster-Carter says, it is China that "has actually kept North Korea going all this time, often through gritted teeth. I just wonder at what point Beijing will turn on Pyongyang?”.
Yes – as I said, snubbing China in favour of Putin's Russia could well be a move Kim will come to regret.
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