China Uses North Korea as ‘Buffer State’ to Distract US in Region: Mike Pompeo

This combination of file pictures shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (L) being broadcast on a large video screen in Tokyo; Chinese leader Xi Jinping (C), and U.S. President Donald Trump Fred Dufour, Brendan Smialowski, Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 13 that China deters North Korea from participating in denuclearization efforts pursued by the U.S. government because Beijing “benefits from Chairman Kim [Jong Un] continuing to hold his nuclear weapons.”

During a video interview at the Asian Leadership Conference (ALC) in Seoul, South Korea, a summit hosted by South Korean media Chosun Ilbo, Pompeo said that the Chinese regime uses Pyongyang as “an important buffer state,” because Washington then has to spend energies to defend East Asia against North Korea’s nuclear weapons systems.

Kim is a puppet of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Pompeo believes. He said that Kim has limited degrees of freedom.

Historic Trump-Kim Summit

Pompeo is one of the key persons that made the historical Trump-Kim summits. Then U.S. President Donald Trump met with Kim three times in Singapore, Hanoi, and South Korea in 2018 and 2019. At the last summit, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to step foot in North Korea.

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk together south of the Military Demarcation Line that divides North and South Korea on June 30, 2019. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The United States and North Korea couldn’t reach an agreement on Pyongyang’s denuclearization at any of the three summits. Pompeo said on Wednesday that the obstacle was the Chinese regime.

“Not a single one of the meetings that I had with Chairman Kim, nor any meeting that President Trump had with Chairman Kim was not preceded by [Kim] meeting with Xi Jinping,” Pompeo said. “There were times I had serious conversations with Chairman Kim only to find that right after my departure, a call from Xi Jinping came in and said: ‘Don’t you dare head down that path with that Secretary of State,’” reported United Press International (UPI) on July 13.

Pompeo said that Kim was “savvy” and wanted to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for greater economic engagement from the United States. However, the Chinese regime didn’t allow him to take that direction.

The former Secretary of State, CIA director, and congressman didn’t give details about the source of the intelligence about the phone calls between Kim and Xi.

From public records, Kim visited China before or after each of these three summits, and had met with Xi in person on each of these trips. On June 20, 2019, Xi made his first and only North Korea trip as Chinese leader, in which he discussed with Kim the third Trump-Kim summit that was to be held in 10 days.

A Beijing newspaper featuring a front-page photo of Chinese leader Xi Jinping (L) riding in a limousine with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) during Xi's visit to North Korea in Pyongyang, on June 21, 2019. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Possible Solution

In 2022, Kim’s regime again became active in weapons development. On June 5, it fired at least one ballistic missile off its east coast. A South Korean study estimated that Pyongyang had conducted 18 missile launches involving 33 ballistic missiles in the first five and a half months this year, at a cost of $400 million to $650 million.

Pompeo said that Kim might want to take the path that the United States requests of him, but Xi is the person who controls Kim’s actions.

“In some ways, you can look at the North Korean nuclear weapons as simply an extension of the Chinese nuclear weapons program,” Pompeo added.

The former Secretary of State said that the solution to forcing North Korea to stop its provocative use of weapons is increased enforcement of sanctions against Pyongyang, an approach tthat was verified by the Trump administration.

In this undated file photo that was provided by the White House, CIA director Mike Pompeo (L) shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, North Korea. The White House via Getty Images

China-North Korea Relations

The Chinese regime and North Korean regime are autarchic communist regimes. In 2021, only five countries in the world were ruled by communist regimes: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam.

The Beijing and Pyongyang administrations have supported each other even before they controlled their respective countries in the late 1940s, according to former Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen. In the 1950s, Beijing fought for Pyongyang during the Korean War.

Today, China is North Korea’s most important trading partner. According to South Korean’s Aju Business Daily, over 97 percent of North Korean imports and exports were traded with China in 2019.

“[The Beijing regime] has helped sustain Kim Jong-un’s regime, and has opposed harsh international sanctions on North Korea in the hope of avoiding regime collapse and a refugee influx across their 870-mile border,” the U.S. think-tank Council on Foreign Relations said in June 2019.