The dust has now settled on the high-profile June summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. But perhaps the biggest takeaway was what was left unsaid.
Chinese readings from the summit is clearly excluded any mention of denuclearization in North Korea (meaning North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons). This signals a shift from a decades-long political goal of Beijing.
It is the latest in a long list of obstacles to international efforts to denuclearize North Korea, and my soon-to-be-published research shows that experts are widely concerned about the depth of the challenge.
In early 2026 I conducted a survey and focus groups involving over 70 international experts on nuclear weapons. I asked them to predict the probability of six hypothetical nuclear scenarios occurring by 2035:
- China achieves a nuclear second strike capability against the United States.
- North Korea achieves the same.
- Japan gains nuclear weapons.
- South Korea acquires nuclear weapons.
- North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons.
- The United States or China use a nuclear weapon.
North Korea’s denuclearization came last, with experts estimating only a 3% probability by 2035.
After more than 30 years, it appears that the international mission to denuclearize North Korea has failed.
Why? And what does this mean for the region?
How did we get here?
North Korea began to pursue nuclear weapons in earnest in the 1990s. This was fueled by uncertainty from the fall of its patron superpower (the Soviet Union). Another factor was the still unresolved status of the Korean War, which ended without a peace treaty.
International efforts to denuclearize North Korea initially focused on diplomatic negotiations. However, efforts were halted due to North Korea’s cheating on the interim agreements and North Korea’s major provocations. This included the country’s withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and a series of nuclear and missile tests.
International denuclearization efforts then switched from carrots to sticks, primarily economic sanctions. The goal was to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
By the 2000s, even North Korea’s erstwhile backers — Russia and China — got in on the act. They supported one oppressive regime United Nations sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
These efforts ultimately failed. Pyongyang now owns one diverse arsenal of missiles theoretically capable of reaching the continental United States, as well as an estimated 60 nuclear warheads with one scalable production capability.
What went wrong?
The full coercive potential of economic sanctions was never realized.
By the late 2010s, Russia and China had withdrew support for sanctionsusing their veto in the Security Council to block new sanctions resolutions.
They also provided economic routes for North Korea through weak enforcement of sanctions in the border region.
Russia and China also used their positions on the UN sanctions monitoring committee hinder investigations in sanctions violations involving Chinese and Russian entities.
Russia even turned to him violations of state-sponsored sanctions to buy North Korean weapons and soldiers to strengthen its position in Ukraine.
When UN sanctions lost their teeth, the US relied on autonomous sanctions to maintain economic pressure against North Korea. US autonomous sanctions cut off access to the US market and financial system for foreign entities doing business with or providing financial services to North Korea. But even these measures were sterilized.
The US dodged challenging political and economic sanctions against Chinese targets. And that dwindle new sanctions designations to ease the first Trump administration wretched diplomatic contact with Kim Jong Un.
These loopholes were ruthlessly exploited by a sophisticated network of North Korean sanctions evaders. They were able to withdraw their merchant fleet, diplomatic corps, overseas workers and state-sponsored hackers. This was how they moved sanctioned money, crypto and commodities despite the sanctions.
The result was a compromised regime of international economic sanctions. North Korea was never pushed to the brink of economic collapse. It was never forced to seriously consider whether the prospect of foreign military intervention (without nuclear weapons to deter it) seemed preferable to the certainty of economic collapse.
What’s next?
Based on past performance, economic sanctions will never be strong enough to denuclearize North Korea.
Unconditional commitment is also not applicable. The Kim regime has put it into play much of its legitimacy on the nuclear enterprise.
And the international interventions that ousted the leaders of Libya and Iran (two states that have decided against nuclear weapons) are likely to only reinforce perceptions in Pyongyang that nuclear deterrence is crucial.
Now, the only realistic path is through radical political reform. This means regime change and/or reunification with the south.
An expert told me:
The only scenario I can imagine in which there are no North Korean nukes is a world in which there is no North Korea.
International stakeholders have few good options to promote this; such demand must come from within.
Rather than outright denuclearization of North Korea, our focus now should be on buying time while the regime’s weaknesses (in continuity, elite cohesion, and ideology) fester. This could generate domestic demand for radical political reforms.
Regional states should continue to support economic sanctions to slow North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development.
This would include multilateral enforcement activities that prevent North Korea from engaging ship to ship transfers of sanctioned goods and remote IT jobs.
The states of the region must publicly maintain a policy of denuclearization. It is important to deny Pyongyang the propaganda punch of being able to say that the international community tolerates its nuclear weapons.
And regional states should pursue counterforce options. In particular, ballistic missile defense would help reduce exposure to North Korea’s nuclear threats.
Christopher J. Watterson is a foreign policy and defense fellow at the Center for US Studies, University of Sydney.
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