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Gabriela Bernal

For over a decade, the name Kim Jong-un has been synonymous with an isolated, economically struggling pariah state. Despite possessing nuclear weapons, North Korea has long been dismissed by the international community as a minor player on the world stage. That perception has now fundamentally changed.
As Kim stood alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at China’s Victory Day parade last Wednesday and then had one-on-one summits with both, it signalled far more than diplomatic theatre. It marked a seismic shift in North Korea’s global positioning.
The parade was the first time in 66 years that the heads of these three nations were assembling, and it was the first event Kim attended with multiple world leaders. North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency highlighted how the leader was photographed with “heads of state and government of different countries and leaders of international organisations invited to the event”.
Kim’s transformation from international pariah to influential global player represents a huge diplomatic achievement for North Korea. Just a decade ago, in 2015, it was South Korea’s president, not North Korea’s leader, watching the military parade with Xi. At that time, Seoul had cultivated deep ties with Beijing under president Park Geun-hye, while Pyongyang struggled under international sanctions.
Despite having inherited absolute authority over his nation in 2011, Kim initially found himself unable to elevate North Korea’s international standing or break free from diplomatic constraints. His nuclear provocations and bellicose rhetoric received global condemnation instead of translating into meaningful engagement with the world.


Kim’s first breakthrough came in 2018, largely as a result of then South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s efforts. With Moon as broker, Kim achieved what no North Korean leader had managed: face-to-face negotiations with an American president.
Through a string of unprecedented summits with President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, Kim fundamentally altered his international profile, looking less like a rogue dictator and more like a recognised statesman.
Yet Kim’s most significant opportunity would come from an unexpected source: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The timing proved fortuitous for North Korea, whose borders remained sealed due to Covid-19 restrictions and whose diplomatic channels with Washington and Seoul had frozen under the Joe Biden and Yoon Suk-yeol administrations. Putin’s war created a strategic opening for Kim.
Under Western sanctions, Russia found itself increasingly isolated and needed allies willing to provide material support. North Korea, already experienced in operating in international isolation, became an invaluable partner. The two nations expanded cooperation in sectors including trade, tourism and most critically, military affairs.


Although this yielded economic benefits for Pyongyang, Kim achieved a much bigger win in June 2024, when Moscow and Pyongyang reestablished a mutual defence treaty. The weight of the commitment Russia made to North Korea served to emphasise the growing importance of Kim and his country. The message was unmistakable: Kim now enjoys the backing of not one but two major powers.
Where many observers saw mere pageantry, Kim showed a serious commitment to the new alliance. In a move that would have been unthinkable years earlier, North Korea deployed troops to fight alongside Russian forces against Ukraine. In other words, North Korean soldiers had landed in Europe. Not only were they fighting in support of Russia, but in effect they were engaged in battle against Nato.
The significance of this decision cannot be overstated. Previous North Korean provocations had relied on threatening rhetoric and weapons tests, prompting the familiar cycle of condemnation and sanctions. This time, Kim dispensed with threats entirely and took action. This perfectly illustrates the extent to which the North Korean leader felt emboldened and confident to make a move that would directly threaten national security interests across an entire continent.
Kim has also managed to maintain a strong image at home. Remarkably, he has handled the controversial deployment of North Korean soldiers with unusual transparency, even publicly meeting the families of fallen troops. These carefully orchestrated displays serve dual purposes: maintaining his image as a caring leader domestically while projecting strength and resolve internationally.

Despite Western insistence on denuclearisation, Kim doesn’t seem about to back down any time soon. During his summit with Putin in Beijing last Wednesday, Kim said Pyongyang would remain faithful in the implementation of the treaty between North Korea and Russia and continue to regard it as a fraternal duty in the future. Such rhetoric shows just how much Kim has grown in confidence on the international stage.
The appearance in Beijing with Xi and Putin represents the culmination of Kim’s strategic manoeuvring. No longer can the international community dismiss him as the leader of an insignificant rogue state.
The mutual defence treaties binding Moscow and Beijing to Pyongyang mean that any military conflict involving North Korea could rapidly escalate into a global confrontation involving two major powers. Given America’s own defence commitments to South Korea, such a scenario has become alarmingly plausible.
The global order is rapidly transforming, as last week’s events in China have starkly demonstrated. A growing Pyongyang-Moscow-Beijing partnership presents a direct challenge to Western influence in Asia and beyond. If the United States and its allies hope to maintain stability on the Korean peninsula and prevent a global conflict, Trump must prioritise renewed engagement with Kim Jong-un. The alternative – allowing Kim to grow ever more powerful – risks triggering a domino effect of instability that could affect not just regional but global security.


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North Korea

How Kim Jong-un notched up a big diplomatic win in Beijing

Illustration: Craig Stephens

In Pyongyang on August 29, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hands over a portrait wrapped in the North Korean flag to the family of a soldier who took part in overseas military operations. Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS

How Xi-Kim talks marked China’s ‘full-throated endorsement’ of North Korea on world stage

Chinese President Xi Jinping is flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un (right), in a multilateral debut for the North Korean leader in Beijing on Wednesday. Photo: AP

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is flanked by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) and Cai Qi, the Communist Party’s fifth-ranking official, shortly after his arrival in Beijing by train on September 2. Photo: AFP

China stands firm on strategic ties with North Korea, Xi Jinping tells Kim Jong-un in Beijing

Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un meet for talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. Photo: China Daily via Reuters

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un signals nuclear clout to US before China visit

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un inspecting an unnamed location in North Korea. Kim visited a research institute behind the development of ICBMs on Sunday, KCNA reported. Photo: KCNA/KNS/dpa

Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un talk during Xi’s visit to Pyongyang in 2019. Kim will be attending China’s World War II Victory Day military parade in Beijing on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

How the United Nations, at 80, can still make itself useful

Results of a vote on a Palestine resolution are displayed during a UN General Assembly meeting on December 3 at the UN headquarters in New York. Photo: AFP


During a special session of the UN General Assembly in New York on March 2, 2022, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the UN then, holds up a copy of the UN Charter as he speaks. Photo: AFP

Pope Leo receives Philemon Yang, the current UN General Assembly president, in Vatican City on August 11. Photo: EPA / Vatican Media

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Time was when a South Korean president was Xi’s guest at the Beijing parade. Now, North Korea’s Kim has grown confident on the world stage


Time was when a South Korean president was Xi’s guest at the Beijing parade. Now, North Korea’s Kim has grown confident on the world stage.


Kim Jong-un

South Korea

Russia

Xi Jinping

Vladimir Putin

United States

Donald Trump

Diplomacy

Korean peninsula

Ukraine

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


How Kim Jong-un notched up a big diplomatic win in Beijing

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Time was when a South Korean president was Xi’s guest at the Beijing parade. Now, North Korea’s Kim has grown confident on the world stage

Time was when a South Korean president was Xi’s guest at the Beijing parade. Now, North Korea’s Kim has grown confident on the world stage