[Global NK Commentary] The Iran War and CRINK: Structural Change and the Korean Peninsula Issue

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The Iran War and CRINK: Why Should They Be Viewed Together?

The Iran War, which began with surprise airstrikes by the United States and Israel (Operation Epic Fury) on February 28, 2026, appears superficially confined to the Middle East. However, its strategic implications extend beyond the region. The Iran War has the character of 'multi-regional strategic interconnectedness,' amplifying the strategic competition between the US and China, shaking the threat perceptions and postures of allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, and prompting a readjustment of responses from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK).

Although CRINK is not an exclusive bloc or alliance, they share a common dissatisfaction that the principles, rules, and institutions of the existing order undermine their interests.[1] The Iran War acts as a catalyst that strengthens strategic solidarity among CRINK. In particular, given the significant 'functional wartime alignment' where cohesion is triggered and reinforced under the condition of war,[2] the claims for a multipolar order by revisionist states in response to the Iran War are becoming even more visible as a change in the international structure. On the foundation of structural change, CRINK states are developing their loose strategic alignment into strategic solidarity through multipolarism and anti-hegemony discourse centered on China, and North Korea is strategically utilizing these changes to justify and strengthen its 'nuclear-weapon state status' and 'doctrine of two states in hostility.'

Therefore, North Korea-Russia military cooperation, Iran-Russia drone cooperation, and North Korea-China new strategic cooperation should not be viewed as separate individual collaborations, but rather as a single flow developing into strategic solidarity under the common norm of anti-hegemony. Furthermore, since North Korea is embedding the de facto acceptance of two hostile states and nuclear possession within anti-US, anti-hegemony, and anti-militarism discourse, the issue of North Korean denuclearization and stability on the Korean Peninsula can be seen as operating in conjunction with the changes in the international structure by CRINK.

Structural Change and the Iran War

The driving force behind CRINK's cohesion is 'structure.' The transition from unipolarity to multipolarity satisfies the respective interests of all four countries.

For China, multipolarization signifies the weakening of the US-led unipolar order, which justifies its discourse of 'great changes unseen in a century' and its vision of a 'community of shared future for mankind.' China utilizes CRINK as an 'agency' to implement its own world order, guiding North Korea's parallel pursuit of nuclear and conventional capabilities and military modernization to impose costs on the US on the 'eastern front.' For Russia, multipolarization is the strategic environment that enables the prolongation of the war in Ukraine and endurance against Western sanctions. International sanctions have become ineffective due to North Korea's ammunition and troop support and Iran's drone provision, while the discourse of multipolarity has provided both justification for the invasion and a rationale for anti-Western alignment. For Iran, multipolarization is a pathway to regime survival and evasion of sanctions. By securing diplomatic and economic avenues within the multipolar system through membership in the SCO and BRICS, it has also dispersed US military and diplomatic resources by exercising asymmetric denial capabilities in the Strait of Hormuz, thereby reducing the burden on CRINK states. For North Korea, multipolarization provides a discourse that solidifies its status as a nuclear-weapon state, transforms the 'doctrine of two states in hostility' into an 'international and regional issue,' and expands its diplomatic space for hedging against China and Russia through 'asymmetric equidistance.'

Although the interests pursued by these four countries differ, their objectives converge in that they all desire the 'weakening of the US-led unipolar order,' a structural change. The scene at the 2025 September Victory Day parade in Beijing, where Xi Jinping stood alongside Putin and Kim Jong Un, with the Iranian president behind them, can be seen as a visual signal of this convergence.

Furthermore, the very outcome of the Iran War is creating a favorable structure for CRINK. Regarding the conclusion of the Iran War, many experts consider a 'Strategic Freeze'—a frozen conflict without a decisive victory—as the most realistic outcome, with Russia and China as the primary beneficiaries. The fact that the US is depleting ammunition needed for the Indo-Pacific in the Middle East and is tied down in the Middle East benefits both China and Russia. Additionally, if Iran effectively acquires nuclear weapons through technology and arms transfers from Russia and North Korea—a 'Wild Card' scenario—the military-technological nexus of CRINK could pose a threat that fundamentally alters the regional balance,[3]making it a destabilizing factor not only in the Middle East but also in the Indo-Pacific and the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, the Iran War is bringing about changes in the international structure in at least the following three aspects.

First, the amplification of the US-China strategic competition structure. The Iran War has shifted US strategic attention and resources from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East. Despite the Trump administration's second National Security Strategy (NSS) prioritizing the Indo-Pacific and explicitly stating a reduction in Middle East engagement, the outbreak of the Iran conflict directly contradicted that strategy,[4] and the consumption of approximately 50% of key munitions, such as THAAD and Patriot missiles, signaled a gap in preparations for high-intensity conflict with China.[5] In contrast, China avoided direct intervention with a 'measured observation,' leading to a 'constructive strategic stability' between the US and China.[6] Paradoxically, the more the US intensified its confrontation with Iran, the more pressure on Russia eased, leading to an acceleration of the Sino-Russian alignment that the US had sought to prevent.[7]

Second, the demonstration of 'asymmetric leverage' and the re-evaluation of North Korea's strategic value. Iran's greatest leverage was not its nuclear or missile capabilities, but its ability to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, and it was assessed that only one or two drones were sufficient to disrupt navigation.[8] Moreover, by selectively allowing passage only to ships associated with friendly nations, Iran set a precedent where access to strategic locations depends on 'political relations' rather than 'open norms.'[9] This re-evaluates the strategic value of North Korea's geopolitical location (Tumen River corridor, Rajin logistics axis, access to the East Sea). At the same time, the fact that Iran became a target of decapitation and preemptive strikes is interpreted by North Korea as a lesson in 'vulnerability in the absence of nuclear deterrence,' serving as a benchmark for accelerating the pace of parallel development of nuclear and conventional capabilities.

Third, AI-driven warfare and the drone nexus. The Iran War demonstrated a 'revolutionary shortening of decision time' through targeting combined with large language models in Maven Smart Systems, while Iran countered with a volume of drones and missiles. Within this asymmetric structure, North Korea will likely seek to develop deterrence and response strategies based on increased production of drones and missiles in the future. Furthermore, North Korea's dispatch of over 10,000 technical personnel to Russia suggests that the cohesion of CRINK states could expand into the military domain, developing into a 'drone-cyber-missile complex nexus.'

China's Strategic Calculations and Spillover to the Korean Peninsula

1) China's Sequential Summit Diplomacy and the Evaporation of 'Denuclearization'

The repercussions of the Iran War became visible in diplomatic outcomes through a series of summit meetings centered around China in May-June 2026—US-China (May) → China-Russia (May) → North Korea-China (June). The US-China summit adopted the guise of 'managed competition,' but China announced that the US had agreed to establish a 'constructive strategic stability relationship,' which would provide 'strategic guidance' for US-China relations for the next three years or more.[10] Four days later, the joint statement from the China-Russia summit strongly criticized the US-Israel attack on Iran as a violation of international law, deliberately highlighting the 'temperature difference' from the preceding US-China meeting. It also explicitly stated positions on joint responses to US missile defense systems (Golden Dome) and US-Japan missile deployments targeting China, vigilance against Japanese remilitarization, and opposition to sanctions and pressure on North Korea.[11]

Subsequently, at the North Korea-China summit (June 8-9), which marked President Xi Jinping's first foreign visit of the year and his first visit to Pyongyang in seven years, China's view of the multipolar order became even clearer. In an article for the visit, President Xi Jinping excluded 'Korean Peninsula issues,' 'denuclearization,' and 'peaceful dialogue,' repeatedly emphasizing 'strategic cooperation,' 'opposition to hegemony and power politics,' and 'multipolarization of the world' instead.[12] Kim Jong Un also pledged to uphold 'North Korea-China friendship as the primary strategic task' and expressed support for China's 'community of shared future for mankind' and 'four global initiatives.'[13] The issue is that China's existing three principles for the Korean Peninsula (denuclearization, peace and stability, dialogue and negotiation), as shown in <Table 1>, were gradually phased out after peaking in the May 2025 white paper, and in their place, 'multipolar order,' 'strategic cooperation,' and 'anti-hegemony' have emerged, effectively dismantling them.[14] This should be viewed not as a change in rhetoric, but as a restructuring of China's policy toward the Korean Peninsula itself, and as a structural change that has already entered the consolidation phase.

It is particularly noteworthy that China applied 'community of shared future for mankind' and the 'four global initiatives (GDI, GSI, GCI, GGI)' to the North Korea-China summit. This is because it is intertwined with the trend of establishing a full-fledged multipolar order by combining the China-centered world order with the SCO, BRICS, and the Belt and Road Initiative.[15] The discourse of multipolarism and anti-hegemony serves as an ideological adhesive that binds the loose alignment of CRINK and is evolving into strategic language through which China incorporates North Korea, Russia, and Iran into its own-led order.

<Table 1> Gradual Elimination of 'Denuclearization' and 'Korean Peninsula Issues' in China's Official Documents

Fuente: Compilado por el autor basándose en documentos oficiales chinos y comunicados de cumbres.

2) Transmisión a la península de Corea: La teoría de los dos estados hostiles y la transformación estructural de las relaciones entre Corea del Norte y China.

La guerra en Irán y la búsqueda de multipolarización por parte de CRINK se ven reforzadas por su conexión con la “teoría de los dos estados hostiles” de Corea del Norte. Un día antes de la cumbre entre Corea del Norte y China, Corea del Norte, a través de una declaración de Kim Yo Jong, exigió el reconocimiento de su estatus como potencia nuclear y la eliminación del discurso de desnuclearización, y a través de un comunicado del viceministro del Departamento General de Equipos de Defensa, enfatizó medidas militares simétricas y asimétricas, utilizando como pretexto la venta de armas estadounidenses a Corea del Sur, Taiwán y Japón.[16]Es decir, Corea del Norte está transformando la cuestión nuclear y la teoría de los dos estados hostiles en un “asunto internacional y regional entre Corea del Norte y China” al alinear la posición de su país con el marco chino de “oposición al hegemonismo y al militarismo japonés”.

Como resultado, en relación con el problema de la península de Corea, se observan los siguientes tres cambios. Primero, el colapso de la separación funcional. Al eliminar China los tres principios y la desnuclearización de la península de Corea de las relaciones entre Corea del Norte y China, la teoría de Corea del Norte sobre dos estados hostiles y nucleares se ha transformado de un 'costo' de cooperación a un 'activo'. Segundo, equidistancia asimétrica. Kim Jong-un amplía el espacio diplomático entre China y Rusia, y China busca readmitir a Corea del Norte, inclinada hacia Rusia, a su propia órbita. Tercero, asimetría dual. Esto se refiere a un estado en el que dos asimetrías de direcciones opuestas operan simultáneamente en la península de Corea. Una es la 'equidistancia asimétrica' de Corea del Norte, una estrategia de cobertura que amplía el espacio diplomático de Corea del Norte sin depender completamente de China o Rusia, ajustando la distancia entre las dos grandes potencias de manera favorable a sí misma. La otra es el 'apalancamiento asimétrico' de China, que transforma el valor geopolítico de Corea del Norte (como los puntos nodales de las armas nucleares y convencionales, los corredores del río Tumen y el acceso marítimo al Mar del Este) en un 'medio para imponer costos a Estados Unidos', asumiendo casi ningún costo directo. Es una estructura en la que Corea del Norte soporta la carga y China obtiene los dividendos estratégicos, en la medida en que la existencia y las provocaciones de Corea del Norte atan la atención y los recursos de Estados Unidos al 'frente oriental' del Indo-Pacífico.

Es decir, a medida que Corea del Norte aumenta su valor estratégico entre China y Rusia, y China busca utilizar a Corea del Norte como una carta de presión contra Estados Unidos, Corea del Norte y China se convierten mutuamente en importantes cartas estratégicas. Además, cuanto más tiempo la guerra en Irán mantenga a Estados Unidos en Oriente Medio, mayor será el efecto de imposición de costos de la carta norcoreana en el frente oriental, por lo que la guerra en Irán puede convertirse en una variable que acelere la dinámica de la “asimetría dual”. Además, la teoría de los dos estados hostiles de Corea del Norte también actúa favorablemente en el desarrollo de una nueva relación de “cooperación estratégica” entre Corea del Norte y China. La política de Corea del Norte de “nacionalización de la línea de demarcación militar” y de reemplazar la “postura de fuego en la frontera sur” con armas nuevas y renovadas, enfatizando la “construcción de la fuerza de artillería más poderosa”,[17]apunta a las principales bases militares, aeródromos, puertos e instalaciones de energía de Corea del Sur, así como a las bases militares estadounidenses en Corea.

Evaluación e implicaciones

La guerra en Irán no es un conflicto localizado en Oriente Medio, sino un ejemplo de “interconexión estratégica multirregional” vinculada al Indo-Pacífico y a la península de Corea, y sus repercusiones han culminado en la aquiescencia al problema nuclear de Corea del Norte y la cohesión de CRINK a través de la diplomacia multipolar de China. En particular, la eliminación de la norma de “desnuclearización” exige una revisión fundamental de los supuestos de la política exterior y de seguridad de Corea del Sur.

Primero, es necesario revisar y rediseñar la utilidad de la teoría del rol de China. La teoría del rol de China se basaba en la premisa de que China compartiría el objetivo de la desnuclearización de Corea del Norte y cooperaría en la presión y mediación contra Corea del Norte. Sin embargo, si esta premisa ya no es válida, es necesario restablecer los principios de aproximación a China y rediseñar la política hacia China.

Segundo, también es necesario modificar la dirección, estrategia y enfoque de la política hacia Corea del Norte. Dado que Corea del Norte y China están intentando un cambio estructural hacia el multipolarismo sustituyendo la “amenaza nuclear de Corea del Norte” por el marco de “oposición a Japón y al hegemonismo” y “estabilidad regional”, debemos defender el lenguaje de la norma de desnuclearización en el escenario internacional y bloquear la normalización del estatus de Corea del Norte como potencia nuclear. En particular, debemos gestionar de forma proactiva el marco del “resurgimiento del militarismo japonés” para que no se utilice como punto de relajación de la cooperación en seguridad entre Corea del Sur, Estados Unidos y Japón, y al mismo tiempo, debemos mostrar “empatía estratégica” ante las crisis multirregionales de Estados Unidos para posicionarnos como un “aliado indispensable” y reforzar la confianza en la disuasión extendida.

Tercero, la sofisticación de la respuesta a CRINK. Debemos controlar al máximo los factores de cohesión de CRINK sin sobreestimarla como un bloque único. Debemos identificar y abordar de forma diferenciada los “puntos de fisura”, como la cautela de Corea del Norte hacia China, la incertidumbre de su alineación con Rusia y las discrepancias de intereses entre China y Rusia, al tiempo que nos centramos en los nexos concretos de cooperación militar entre Corea del Norte y Rusia, la nueva cooperación estratégica entre Corea del Norte y China, y el nexo combinado de drones, ciberataques y misiles. En particular, la cuestión de la salida de Corea del Norte, China y Rusia al mar del Este a través del río Tumen está directamente relacionada con nuestros intereses marítimos y de seguridad, por lo que debemos gestionarla con atención. ■

[1] Andrea Kendall-Taylor y Richard Fontaine, “The Axis of Upheaval: How America’s Adversaries Are Uniting to Overturn the Global Order,” Foreign Affairs, 23 de abril de 2024.

[2] Victoria Leukavets, “Cracking the CRINK: Belarus’s Relations with Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea,” Policy Brief, 2026.3.31, tsikhanouskaya.org. Definición de CRINK como 'alineación funcional en tiempos de guerra'.

[3] Chase Metcalf & Michael Posey, “From Bargain to Breakdown: Five Strategic Futures for the Iran War,” Small Wars Journal, 6 de abril de 2026.

[4] Jeffrey Taliaferro, “4 ways the war in Iran has weakened the US in the great power game,” Defense One, 13 de abril de 2026.

[5] Mark F. Cancian & Chris H. Park, “Last Rounds? Status of Key Munitions at the Iran War Ceasefire,” CSIS, 21 de abril de 2026; Seth G. Jones, “Is the United States Prepared for a War with China?” CSIS, 12 de mayo de 2026.

[6] Patricia M. Kim et al., “Beijing’s approach to the conflict in Iran and its implications for China,” Brookings, mayo de 2026.

[7] Jordan Ryan, “Iran War Unravels U.S. Strategy and Strengthens Russia–China Axis,” Toda Peace Institute, 24 de marzo de 2026.

[8] Daniel Byman, “Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Gambit and the Limits of U.S. Military Power,” CSIS, 20 de abril de 2026.

[9] Kari Heerman y David Wessel, “Chokepoints and coercion: Iran’s challenge to maritime openness,” Brookings, 8 de junio de 2026.

[10] 《习近平同美国总统特朗普会谈》, 14 de mayo de 2026. (www.mfa.gov.cn) Comunicado de la cumbre EE. UU.-China por la parte china.

[11] “Declaración Conjunta sobre el Fortalecimiento de la Asociación Estratégica Integral y la Profundización de la Amistad y Cooperación de Buena Vecindad entre la República Popular China y la Federación de Rusia”, 21 de mayo de 2026. (www.gov.cn).

[12] 《继往开来、砧砺同行 续写中朝传统友谊崭新篇章》, Xinhua/Rodong Sinmun, 8 de junio de 2026. (Artículo de opinión de Xi Jinping con motivo de su visita a Pyongyang).

[13] Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de la República Popular China, “Xi Jinping se reúne con Kim Jong-un, Secretario General del Partido de los Trabajadores de Corea y Presidente de la Comisión de Asuntos de Estado”, 8 de junio de 2026; KCNA, 9 de junio de 2026.

[14] Lee Ho-ryeong, “Implicaciones Estratégicas de la Cumbre Corea del Norte-China de 2026: La Evaporación de la 'Desnuclearización' y la Transformación Estructural de las Relaciones entre Corea del Norte y China”, KIDA Security Strategy FOCUS No. 26-41, 25 de junio de 2026.

[15]Jeong Jae-heung, “2026 Global Geopolitical Crisis and the Emergence of a New International Order: Focusing on Sino-Russian Strategic Cooperation,” Sejong Focus, March 4, 2026.

[16]KCNA, Statement by Kim Yo-jong and Announcement by the Vice Director of the General Equipment Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense, June 7, 2026.

[17]KCNA, June 26, 2026.

■ Lee Ho-ryeong_Senior Researcher, Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA).

■ Editor: Lee Sang-jun_EAI Researcher; Oh In-hwan_EAI Senior Researcher

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