China's Xi Jinping Urges "Patience" on North Korea Nuclear Issue
Jan 9
2 min read
Xi Jinping’s call for “patience” on North Korea’s nuclear issue is not about a peace effort but about buying time for North Korea to strengthen itself while serving China’s strategic interests.
News Summary
On January 7, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged “patience” on North Korea’s nuclear issue when South Korean President Lee Jae Myung asked China to act as a mediator for peace on the Korean Peninsula.
However, China’s official statement following the summit made no reference to the North Korean issue.
Commentary
China has long advocated “patience” on the North Korean nuclear issue—not because it seeks resolution, but because it has no interest in genuinely solving the problem.
From China’s perspective, a reckless, nuclear-armed North Korea may be inconvenient at times, but it ultimately serves Beijing’s strategic interests. Pyongyang functions as a buffer state and a source of instability that creates leverage, distracts the United States, and weakens South Korea’s security environment.
Despite its constant rhetoric about “peace on the Korean Peninsula,” China’s true intention is not peace at all. It is to enable the Kim regime to survive, expand its power, and eventually dominate the region.
In this context, Xi Jinping’s so-called “patience” is, in fact, a strategy of delay—buying time for North Korea to advance its nuclear weapons, achieve military superiority over the South, and create conditions under which U.S. forces can be pushed out of the region.
History shows that communist regimes speak of peace on the surface only to buy time to strengthen themselves and overtake naïve adversaries.
If South Korea naively believes that China will act as an honest mediator on North Korea’s nuclear issue, it is not engaging in diplomacy—it is engaging in self-deception.
