Obviously, it would have been easier to kill two birds with one stone: From Beijing, where he was in mid-May, Vladimir Putin could have flown directly to Pyongyang, less than a two-hour flight from the Chinese capital. The Russian president ultimately decided to wait a month, and will visit North Korea on Tuesday, June 18 and Wednesday, June 19, after which he will fly to Vietnam.

China has certainly felt more comfortable with this separation of activities that avoids the appearance of a triangle of collusion among three of the West's enemies. In fact, Beijing has been having mixed feelings about the rapprochement between Russia and North Korea brought about by the invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian president and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, have come together out of mutual interest. The former needed supplies of North Korean artillery shells to continue waging his war; the latter was, by providing them, thereby able to lessen his isolation and obtain food aid to help stabilize the economic situation in his country following difficult years caused by the Covid-19 pandemic − in addition, perhaps, to acquiring specific know-how in the fields of ballistics and satellite technology. Another benefit to the North Korean dictator has been the diversification of his alliances at a time when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea − with its preoccupation with autonomy reflected in the doctrine of independence and self-sufficiency known as "Juche" − has long been worried about being too dependent on China.

This has been a double-edged sword for Beijing. It has eased the pressure of having to provide international cover for turbulent North Korea, and the burden of having to deliver enough goods and food to ensure its survival. China has considered it incumbent upon its interests to maintain the buffer zone that North Korea offers, as the large American bases in South Korea are only 400 kilometers from its territory. But for China, this has come at the cost of having to play the role of North Korea's international protector, in spite of all its bluster and its nuclear tests and missile launches. By following solely its own guidance, without undertaking the kinds of reforms − or, at least, not at the pace suggested by Beijing − that enabled China to grow, the North Korean regime has been a source of endless aggravation to its large neighbor.

The acceleration in the number of launches in the 2010s convinced many of those involved in setting China's strategic policy that North Korea, the only country with which China has maintained a mutual defense agreement, had become a liability. In 2021, the two countries renewed this treaty, that was adopted after the Korean War (1950-1953). Nonetheless, in 2017, an editorial in the official daily Global Times was careful to clarify that Beijing would come to Pyongyang's aid only if it were the party under attack and not the aggressor.

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