Why China Won't Stop Ally North Korea From Fighting Ukraine

China has remained mum about the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to Russia in recent weeks.

The U.S. and its allies view the development, which followed the signing in June of the first Russia-North Korea military agreement since the Cold War, as a dangerous escalation of Vladimir Putin 's 33-month war against Ukraine and tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Yet China is likely unsettled by this new phase of Moscow's fast-growing alliance with Pyongyang, which since last September has shipped thousands of containers believed to contain munitions and other matériel to help replenish Russian forces' stocks.

The Pentagon estimates there are now 11,000 to 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia, with 10,000 already stationed in the border region of Kursk. Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive there in August and now hold some 250 square miles of territory.

Some of the North Koreans have already seen combat, The New York Times cited a Ukrainian official as saying, while a U.S. official told the newspaper a "significant" number had been killed.

"The DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] and Russia are two independent sovereign states, and how to develop bilateral relations is a matter for themselves," Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., told Newsweek.

China's position remains unchanged, Liu said. "We hope that parties will work to ease tensions and remain committed to the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis." He added, "China will continue to play a constructive role to this end."

Newsweek reached out by email to the Russian Foreign Ministry and the North Korean Embassy in China for comment.

Beijing has presented itself as a neutral party regarding the war while at the same time censoring anti-war comments on Chinese social media and providing dual-use goods to Russia, its heavily sanctioned partner. China is also a critical economic lifeline because of discounted sales of Russian natural gas and oil.

China also wields considerable influence over Kim Jong Un's regime, having for decades propped up its state-controlled economy to prevent a regime collapse that could drive millions of North Korean refugees across the Chinese border.

At the same time, China has used its seat on the U.N. Security Council to vote for sanctions after Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, detonated North Korea's first nuclear bomb in 2006.

The entry of North Korea into the Ukraine war poses a quandary for the Asian superpower.

"On the one hand, it knows that it has long been a more important partner for North Korea than Russia, particularly economically, and will wish to maintain its influence, said Edward Howell, an Oxford University lecturer and Korea Foundation fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House.

"On the other hand, however, it will be dissatisfied at North Korea's growing nuclearization and, too, at the strengthening bilateralism and trilateralism between the United States, South Korea and Japan," he told Newsweek.

China remains opposed to the U.S.-led world order, Howell pointed out. But at the same time, "Beijing has enough domestic problems on its plate such that it does not want to get drawn into another conflict."

Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, agreed that China is concerned its leverage over North Korea is being diluted by Kim's increasing ties with Russia.

Another likely concern is that in exchange for the fresh troops, Russia is furnishing North Korea with more advanced technologies for its missile and nuclear weapons program.

That "could serve Chinese interests if it helps prevent a Russian defeat and brings an end to the war that favors Moscow, but the presence of North Korean troops in Europe could fuel deeper European involvement in East Asian security, which Beijing opposes," Glaser told Newsweek.

"For now, however, although the Chinese have concerns, they are not alarmed enough to take actions to restrain North Korea, and Xi is not likely to caution Putin because he highly values that relationship," she said.