By now, the stature of ‘K’ is so evident that saying more feels almost tiresome. Recently, at the World Cup opening ceremony, the Korean artist Ijae took the stage and performed a song that included Korean lyrics.

We cannot really compare with ourselves, but these days North Korea is also said to be on a real ‘limit-up’. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a leading U.S. business daily, even recently described North Korea as “the most surprising economic success story in the world.” What is happening in North Korea? Where are inter-Korean relations headed?

There is a famous image that shows the gap in economic power between South Korea and North Korea. In satellite photos divided by the Military Demarcation Line, the South is bright at night while the North shows almost no lights. They say the nightscape in North Korea today is completely different. Brightness has tripled in four years, and North Korea recorded its biggest real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in eight years. Taxis hailed via smartphone apps now ply the streets of Pyongyang.

Until just a few years ago, during COVID-19, North Korea suffered severe economic hardship. Things changed when Russia invaded Ukraine. North Korea drew close to Russia by sending wartime weapons and troops. Most recently, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to North Korea for the first time in seven years. The problem is that, as North Korea has moved closer to Russia and China, the channels through which South Korea can communicate with the North have steadily withered.

The latest visit to Pyongyang by President Xi Jinping underscores a shift in the status of North Korea. First, the meaning of the visit. After their state summit in North Korea on the 8th and 9th, Xi and Kim Jong Un redefined bilateral ties, moving beyond friendship to a relationship of ‘strategic partners’. It was a declaration that, as partners sharing the same interests, the two countries would operate in even closer concert than before.

Analysis suggests that the North Korea China honeymoon reflects the impact of North Korea dispatching forces to the Russia Ukraine war. In 2024, North Korea sent more than 15,000 personnel to Russia, which is at war with Ukraine, and supplied large quantities of weapons such as artillery shells and missiles. In return, it received hefty arms payments along with military technology, strategic assets, and energy. The relationship between North Korea and Russia has advanced to a comprehensive strategic partnership. China, which would not welcome a North Korea aligned only with Russia, can be seen as moving to shore up ties with Pyongyang through the visit by Xi. The bet by North Korea on dispatching troops has paid off.

In the end, North Korea can be seen as maximizing gains by tightrope walking between the two countries under a ‘security with Russia, economy with China’ line. Regardless of how well it fits with the international order, this has been a successful diplomatic strategy for Pyongyang. For the time being, that line is likely to hold. Economic development in North Korea also benefits China. If public order stabilizes in the SinoNorth Korean border region, that is no bad thing for Beijing.

Do you remember the ‘driver of the Korean Peninsula’ concept? In 2017, the Moon Jae-in administration advanced the idea that South Korea would play an active role in denuclearization of the peninsula and regional peace.

Nine years on, the situation has completely changed. As North Korea cooperates with Russia on security and with China on the economy, South Korea’s room to maneuver has shrunk markedly. In 2023, North Korea declared the two Koreas to be ‘hostile states’. The incentives have only increased for the North to look at the South with indifference. North Korea is becoming a ‘perfect stranger’ filled only with differences.

The problem is that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remains our task. It is a task that must be solved for the well-being and peace of the entire peninsula, and to resolve the chronic ‘Korea discount’ stemming from the North Korean nuclear issue. Yet the conditions are only getting worse. North Korea is unwilling to deal with South Korea, and the Donald Trump administration in the United States is not attending to the North Korean nuclear issue. To make matters worse, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula did not even make it onto the table during the visit by Xi Jinping to North Korea.

Working to hold talks with a North Korea that is ‘passing’ South Korea, persuading the United States to join the denuclearization agenda, inducing North KoreaUnited States dialogue, maintaining friendly relations with China, and at the same time not losing the initiative so that the peninsula issue is not settled solely to the tastes of great powers this is the knotty equation before us. Will pragmatic diplomacy under the Lee Jae Myun administration find an answer? At least it is fortunate that the person who tried to provoke North Korea in order to declare martial law is not the current president.

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