The US is asking for help from China as North Korean troops approach Ukraine

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Beijing to “use the leverage they have” as North Korean troops don Russian uniforms to fight in Ukraine.

With 8,000 North Korean troops about to join Russia’s battle in Ukraine, the US is reaching out to China to leverage its relationships with Moscow and Pyongyang to ‘curb’ the arrival of North Korean forces .

The US has had a “robust conversation” with China this week about deploying North Korean troops to Russia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday after a joint news conference with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts.

“I think they know well the concerns that we have and the expectations that they will use, both in word and deed, the influence they have to curb these activities,” he said.

What North Korea might receive from Russia in exchange for the troops “should be a real concern for China,” Blinken added.

The New York Times reported that Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, Daniel J. Kritenbrink and James O’Brien, the top State Department officials in Asia and Europe, met with Chinese officials on Tuesday.

Blinken said 8,000 North Korean troops are now in Kursk, the region just across the border from Russia where Ukrainian forces staged an incursion in August. The Russian military trained them in artillery, drones and trench clearance, he said.

Austin said the troops were given Russian military uniforms and equipment.

The Pentagon said Monday that 10,000 troops were on the ground in Russia training at military bases in the country’s far east.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called the measure a “dangerous expansion” of the war in Ukraine, a “dangerous escalation” of North Korean involvement and a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

“The deepening of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” he said.

China is challenging the US in close relations with Russia and North Korea

China has rejected US calls to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has increasingly relied on China for trade as the country has been cut off from the global economy by US and other sanctions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged in May to deepen ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, giving the US a cold shoulder after Blinken flew to Beijing in a diplomatic gesture. And he attended the recent BRICS summit in Russia last week.

China has also maintained warm ties with North Korea amid its gradual isolation over the years.

Yet North Korea’s regular missile tests sometimes put its northern neighbor on edge. China condemned the launch of a North Korean missile test in 2017 and voted in favor of several UN Security Council resolutions that increased economic pressure on North Korea that same year, raising tensions between the two countries, according to a Brookings report Institution.

But the countries have warmed their relationship in the years since. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a secret visit to Beijing in 2018, and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to North Korea in 2019 marked the first time a Chinese leader had visited the country in fourteen years.

Now China accounts for more than 90% of North Korea’s trade, and two countries have renewed an alliance treaty first signed in 1961.

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Reach her via email at [email protected]. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.