Xi Jinping's North-East Asian strategy suffered a complete failure.

September 7, 2026 Russia and North Korea officially joined.The first road bridge.Russian Prime Minister Mishushkin and North Korean Prime Minister Pak Tsing participated in the inauguration ceremony via a video link. The new bridge is about 1 km long and two-way, connecting Russia's Hassan to the Rakhine region of North Korea, the Russian side says it can pass up to about 300 cars a day.

Luther then commented on the September 7 program:The bridge is “Putin’s response to Xi Jinping’s request for a new bridge to leave the river” and says that the DPRK is further consolidating the real control of the river gates through infrastructure that can last for decades. It needs to be explained that this “response to Xi Jinping’s “strengthening the control of the river gates” is a geopolitical judgment of Luther’s agency, not an expression in the official public documents of the DPRK.

Focus on China believes that if the horizon is expanded from a bridge to Xi's more than a decade of policy towards Russia and the layout of Northeast Asia, this incident exposes not only a diplomatic failure, but its strategic judgment is experiencing a systematic failure.

A bridge will not determine the whole of Northeast Asia, but it will be enough to test whether political relations can truly translate into national interests.

First Failure: Misjudging Political Relationship as Strategic Interests

In recent years, the CPC has continuously described China-Russia relations as historically high, and Xi Jinping himself has also invested a lot of political resources in his relationship with Putin.In Beijing's official narrative, China-Russia relations have been packaged as an important strategic pillar for China to cope with U.S. and Western pressure, and the so-called high level of mutual trust between leaders has been repeatedly shaped as an important proof of Xi's diplomatic capabilities.

However, national interests will never automatically give in because of the close relationship between leaders.

The Talmud gave the clearest proof.

For the northeastern part of China, the entrance to the Sea of Japan through the Tohoku River has long-term strategic value.If Beijing can stable and practical maritime conditions, it is possible to improve the reality that Jilin and even parts of the northeastern region are long-term restricted by port distance and land transport patterns.

But the key to the problem hasn’t changed: China doesn’t control the outskirts of the river that ended up entering the sea.The real master of the geographical conditions and border arrangements is Russia and North Korea.

This means that as much as Beijing emphasizes its “strategic cooperation” with Moscow, it cannot bypass one of the most cruel facts: “As long as Russia is unwilling to rearrange the region according to China’s strategic needs, Xi’s political relations will not automatically become China’s gateway.”

The Russian new bridge therefore has a very strong symbolic significance.

Xi Jinping, who has been operating relations with Russia for many years, eventually appeared in the river, not in Russia opening a broader channel for China's strategic interests, but in Russia and North Korea building a permanent connection that belongs to the Russian government itself.

There is no China at both ends of the bridge.The new direct transportation links also first belong to Russia and North Korea.

This is one of the most difficult outcomes of Xi’s policy against Russia.

Second failure: Overestimating China’s strategic influence on Russia and North Korea

Beijing has long ruled that China will naturally greater regional dominance when Russia is subject to Western sanctions and the North Korean economy relies heavily on external support.

But the facts show that Moscow and Pyongyang are not moving in the direction Beijing hopes.

North Korea has steadily strengthened its political, military and economic ties in recent years, and the opening of the new highway bridge has further implemented this relationship to the long-term infrastructure level.Reported by Reuters and the United States.The bridge was completed during Putin’s 2024 visit to North Korea and started in April 2025 and will be officially opened in September 2026.

For Beijing, this change has a real significance.

North Korea has relied heavily on China in foreign trade and land transportation.United States Agency reports.Approximately 98% of North Korea’s foreign trade in 2025 comes from trade with China, but Pyongyang’s single dependence on China may decline when Russia is able to directly strengthen ties with North Korea through railways, roads and other logistics systems.

China’s encryption of North Korea will not disappear, but may be further diluted by Russia.

In areas that directly involve China's northeastern interests, the more Russian-Russian relations form their own independent structure, the smaller Beijing's spin-off space.

Xi Jinping hopes to shape a northeastern landscape centered on the Chinese Communist Party, with Russia and North Korea operating strategically in synergy with Beijing.

The reality is that Russia and North Korea can equally bypass China and establish closer and more direct bilateral relations in their own interests.

This is not a demonstration of Beijing’s expanding strategic influence, but rather a performance that is closer to the redistribution of influence.

Third failure: “Diplomatic narratives of the great powers disconnect from actual national interests”

After Xi Jinping came to power, China’s diplomatic propaganda paid particular attention to ceremonies, summits, joint statements and leaders’ diplomacy.

Russia is the main target of this propaganda.

How many times Xi Jinping and Putin have met, how the two people have called each other, and what new political definitions have been given to China-Russia relations, often regarded as a major achievement of CPC diplomacy.

But these things must eventually undergo one of the most basic tests:

• What exactly has China gained?
• Are energy conditions more favorable?
• Are border interests guaranteed?
• Are key passages safer?
• Are regional influences expanded?

The real diplomatic achievement is not a photograph of leaders, nor a phrase of "strategic collaboration", but whether political relations can be transformed into long-term interests of the country.

On the question, the answer is obviously not satisfactory.

Xi Jinping has been operating relations with Russia for many years, but has not changed the structural reality of China’s lack of decision-making power in the downstream.

From the outcome evaluation policy, the more Xi Jinping's diplomatic propaganda emphasizes China-Russia relations "without a precedent", the more the reality of Jiang Qing is apparent.

This is also the political meaning of Luther’s so-called “Putin responds to Xi Jinping with a bridge.”

Putin does not need to hold a press conference to announce the rejection of Xi Jinping.For a mature national strategy, the real point is never a diplomatic phrase, but a realistic layout.

What Russia does, what Russia controls, with whom Russia establishes long-term channels, these actions themselves are policy.

The actions show that Putin has never given up on Russia’s own interests in the Far East because Xi needed Russia.

Xi has long mistakenly regarded Russia’s hostility to the West as Russia’s strategic loyalty to China.

These are two completely different concepts.

There are contradictions between Russia and the United States, not the absence of a conflict of interest in Russia and China; Putin needs Beijing, not Putin will sacrifice Russia’s geographic space for Beijing; tensions between Russia and the United States and Europe do not mean that Moscow will accept a China with greater strategic autonomy in the Far East.

If even these most basic international political logic is not judged clearly, then the so-called “new era of China-Russia relations” can easily turn from a strategic asset to a political narrative of Xi’s self-consolation.

Tusk: China is testing the real gold content of Xi’s strategy towards Russia

Focus on China believes that this is what the new bridge in Russia deserves the most attention.

The issue of Xi’s diplomacy is not just a failure of a certain negotiation, but the mistake of strategic understanding itself.

Specifically, the judgment set contains at least four dangerous assumptions:

• To view the common anti-US interests as united;
• to view the private relations of the leaders as a national credit;
• to view diplomatic propaganda as a strategic achievement;
• to view Russia as temporarily in need of China, misjudging that Russia will long-term submit to China's regional interests.

These judgments will eventually be subject to real-life testing.

Tours is such a test site.

If the China-Russia relationship promoted by Xi Jinping really has the strategic gold content he described, then Beijing should have stronger negotiation capabilities and greater realistic outcomes on the issue of a key channel related to China’s long-term development.

However, what we see now is that the Russian Dynasty is promoting its own strategic connections, while Beijing still does not grasp the initiative of the river.

This can no longer simply be explained as “the impact of a bridge” which exposes the intrinsic failure of Xi’s entire Northeast Asian strategy.

Beijing hopes to use Russia to change China’s external strategic pressure, but is increasingly relying on Russia.

Beijing hopes to use North Korea as a geo-buffer, but sees Pyongyang accelerating its approach to Moscow.

Beijing hopes to expand its influence in Northeast Asia, while the Russian government is building stronger and stronger independent strategic ties in China.

Beijing hopes to open up the strategic space in the direction of the Japanese Sea, but it still has to face the reality that the Russian government has mastered the final exports.

The so-called strategy must ultimately see the outcome.

In this sense, the Jiangsu Bridge is a very ironic political monument.

Xi Jinping used China-Russia relations as his own diplomatic sign, but he did not make any genuine concessions on Russia’s key strategic interests in China.

He sees North Korea as part of China’s traditional sphere of influence, but is seeing Russian-Russian relations form an increasingly complete independent pillar.

He claimed that China has a growing influence in Northeast Asia, but in the most sensitive direction of China's northeast, Russia and North Korea still determine the reality pattern.

This is not a victory in the so-called “Great Change Without a Century.”

This is the strategic consequence of the Xi Jinping regime’s failure to approve Russia, North Korea and all of Northeast Asia’s power relations.

A bridge won’t determine the whole of Northeast Asia, but it’s enough to reveal a regime’s strategic colour.

Xi Jinping wants the narrative of the rise of great powers, Putin defends Russia’s own interests; Xi believes that political relations can be exchanged for strategic space, but Russia proves with practical actions that there is no private friendship in front of national interests.

In the end, Beijing still stood up the river, not far from the Sea of Japan, looking at a river that it could not decide.

This is the real score sheet left by Xi Jinping in the so-called "grand-power diplomacy" in the Jiangsu.