‘Natural allies’: wrong term for China, Russia, Iran, North Korea

This article was originally published by Pacific Forum. It is republished with permission.

Support of Russia’s war efforts through military technology supply by China, Iran and North Korea has understandably exacerbated Western fears of an emerging bloc. Cooperation among what experts label as “natural allies”  to form a united front against the US-led international order has earned them the title “Axis of Upheaval.” And now China, Russia, Iran and North Korea even have an acronym: CRINK.

Russia has signed agreements dedicated to increased defense cooperation with Iran and North Korea and has continuously reaffirmed its “no-limits” partnership with China, notably through increased joint military and logistical developments in the Arctic. Beyond defense, the four countries are crucial to each other’s economies and work together in money-laundering schemes and cyberattacks.

Politicians and pundits have more often used the vague term “natural allies” to bolster a potential South Korean-Japan alliance. On the surface, this label makes sense: The two neighboring countries value human rights, rule of law, democracy and free and open trade.

However, both of these alliances are more superficial than natural, and liberally using the term “natural allies” is an oversimplification of the complexities of cooperation.

The Tokyo-Seoul case

Underneath South Korea and Japan’s celebration of 60 years of diplomatic normalization lies long-standing resentment regarding historical disputes. Promises of “future-oriented cooperation” between “inseparable” partners seem less credible, remembering

• Japanese prime ministers’ continued visits to the Yasukuni shrine, which honors class-A war criminals from the imperial period when Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula, and
• South Korea’s fickle attitude toward Japan, as shown by incidents ranging from striking down the supposedly irreversible 2015 comfort women agreement to President Lee Jae Myung’s backtracking from his previous anti-Japan posture.

Such historical issues have previously dampened economic relations, and what’s been done to resolve tensions only shows that the pair’s growing closeness is not a product of nature but a conscious choice of pragmatic diplomacy over reactionary impulse.

Seeds of distrust in CRINK

Past contentions have also sown seeds of distrust in CRINK. Iran’s suspicion of Russia stems from its painful historical memory of the Russian Empire’s capturing Persian territories in the 18th and 19th centuries and the Soviet invasion of Iran in World War II.

This legacy continues as the two engage in an espionage war, with Iran allegedly stealing military-technological information and spreading religious propaganda in Russian communities and Russia taking measures to suppress such efforts.

Like Iran, China is a victim of territorial losses at the hands of Russia, and the resulting historical resentment dating back to the Qing Dynasty fuels young, well-educated Chinese citizens’ cautious attitude toward Russia.

These deep insecurities are double-sided, with a recent leaked Russian memo labeling China as an enemy and raising flags about Chinese spies and reclamation of Vladivostok and other former Qing territories. Such worries are not unfounded, as the Chinese government has in fact launched a hacking campaign since the beginning of the war in Ukraine for Russian military secrets despite the two pledging not to hack each other.

North Korea has a history of switching alignment between Russia and China, depending on strategic need. Its relationship with China, in particular, is hot and cold, with Kim Jong Un once having described China’s attempt to reform the North Korean economy as a “filthy wind of bourgeois liberty.”

In recent history, Russia and China have both supported sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear programs, showing the limits to friendship when North Korea proves to be a strategic liability.

Diverging strategic interests

Beyond history, both of these so-called natural alliances have diverging strategic interests that hinder smooth cooperation. Japan and South Korea, for one, have different threat perceptions of China – Japan has had a more antagonistic approach since the 2010s due to the escalation of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute, while South Korea has fluctuating alignment with China based on Beijing’s approach to North Korea.

South Korea’s dependence on both China and the US for economic and security purposes and its bandwagoning tendencies between its two rival partners has created a recipe for disaster. The THAAD incident, in which South Korea’s deployment of a US missile defense system prompted economic retaliation from China, highlights South Korea’s vulnerable position in balancing its alliances with the US and China.

The fact that South Korea’s alliance with Japan has strengthened despite such varying interests is less natural and more proof of hard diplomatic work of maintaining multilateral partnerships and preventing the emergence of adversarial coalitions.

Strategic interests also often clash between Russia and the other members of CRINK. Russia competes with Iran for oil markets, maintains ties with Iran’s enemies Israel and Saudi Arabia and aims to contain Iran’s growing influence in the South Caucasus.

Contrary to popular belief, it is in China’s best interest for Russia not to come out as the winner of the Ukraine war, as Russia would become an immediate threat to China and prevent China from building influence in Europe. In fact, China is already preparing for a post-war Ukraine, signaling its interest in Ukrainian reconstruction efforts and signing agricultural cooperation agreements.

Russia and China also differ on North Korean nuclear capability, with China finding North Korea’s nuclear program a threat to stability on the Korean Peninsula while Russia aims to leverage North Korea’s nuclear program to distract the US.

Bandaid of convenience

Terming countries “natural allies” acts as a band-aid of convenience that covers up the possibility of interrogating the nuances and deep scars of such partnerships. The term also burdens Japan and Korea with more of the responsibility for fixing their relationship – rather than encouraging mutual partners, starting with the US, to mediate and help the pair navigate their relationship.

This label can hinder international progress by closing up opportunities to cooperate with unconventional allies. Alienating and grouping countries together, terming them the “Axis of Upheaval” and laying sanctions only strengthens external and internal perceptions that these countries are a bloc although evidence suggests otherwise. Thus, this grouping enables an oppositional framework for these countries to operate in instead of creating opportunities for engagement.

This misalignment in perceptions can, in turn, prompt other illiberal countries to side with the “Axis of Upheaval” in a fight against a liberal democratic order.

Lastly, this isolating term treats China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as lost causes, when the US could, instead, find ways to exercise its soft power to drive wedges into adversarial partnerships.

Lina Chang (lina@pacforum.org) is a Young Leaders program intern at Pacific Forum who studies public policy analysis and media at Pomona College. Her research interests include the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral, nonproliferation and Northeast Asia security dynamics.