China is North Korea’s biggest trade partner and has leverage over Kim Jong-un’s regime, yet its policies focus more on border stability than nuclear threat.

In North Korea, all authority flows from Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. He has reinstated the party as the central hub to consolidate his power and bring elites to heel.

Kim Jong-un has accelerated North Korea’s buildup of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, while also modernizing its large conventional force.

World powers continue to punish North Korea with economic sanctions, but the pressure has so far failed to push Pyongyang toward denuclearization.