China is the only country with which North Korea has a defence treaty that has lasted, and the source of nearly everything the North imports: oil, grain, machinery, consumer goods. China fought America to a standstill in Korea in the 1950s to keep a friendly state on its border, and that remains its first interest there. It does not like the North's nuclear weapons, voted for every sanction against them until 2017, and has since stopped enforcing them. Washington says Beijing could end the programme if it chose. Beijing says Washington overrates its influence and ignores its own part in the problem.
The wider conflict and each side's full account: The Korean peninsula.
Where it stands · September 2026
In September 2026 China and Russia sent anniversary messages to Kim stressing strategic ties. An analytics firm said a bridge between China and North Korea neared completion. China exported $290,000 in UN-banned goods to North Korea through August. North Korea completed two road bridges easing transport to Russia and China.
What the dispute is about
How much China can do. China could cut off the North's oil and food. It has never done so, because the collapse of the North would bring refugees, loose nuclear weapons and American troops to its border. The North knows this, which limits what Beijing can extract.
Sanctions. China helped write them. Ships now transfer oil at sea, North Korean workers are back in Chinese factories and trade has returned to the level before the measures. Beijing says the resolutions also call for dialogue and relief, which the West ignores.
Priorities. For Washington the issue is the bomb. For Beijing it is the American alliance system in north-east Asia, for which the bomb is the justification.
