For China, Northeast Asia remains the weak spot in its attempt to secure its immediate borders. Tensions between North Korea and South Korea are mounting, which raises the possibility of conflict that could spill beyond the Korean Peninsula. Security coordination among Japan, South Korea, and the United States is also becoming stronger, putting pressure on China, and North Korea’s entrenched nuclear status has made Japan and South Korea anxious about their own security and could even motivate them to eventually pursue nuclear weapons themselves.

China is increasingly worried about North Korea’s role in creating and intensifying these risks—and about the need to adjust its North Korea strategy to manage them without inflaming tensions and further destabilizing the region. Pyongyang has grown more unpredictable as it has become emboldened by its nuclear program. Decades of international sanctions, condemnations, and isolation have not forced Pyongyang to denuclearize. Instead, they have made North Korea even more determined to hold on to its nuclear weapons program. And although North Korea still depends on China for economic support, Pyongyang’s expanding security relationship with Russia has made it less exclusively dependent on Beijing than in the past. If a crisis involving North Korea were to break out, China fears that it could be marginalized as conflict spirals out of control.

For nearly eight decades, Beijing’s relationship with Pyongyang has leaned on historical ties, symbolic friendship, and informal coordination. But Pyongyang’s unpredictability has made such an approach inadequate. China’s new strategy, symbolized by Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea in June, aims to draw Pyongyang back into its orbit and make the bilateral relationship more stable and manageable. Beijing does not want North Korea—one of the world’s few remaining communist states and a potential showcase for how China can effectively manage its relationships with allies—to fail. Nor does Beijing want to abandon its push for long-term denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. But it realizes that it needs better ways to avoid surprises from Pyongyang, which could be destabilizing for China or trigger expanded military deployments by Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

Beijing is working to establish structured high-level communication channels so it can receive earlier warnings about potential North Korean provocations, have greater opportunities to intervene before a crisis escalates, and improve its ability to predict North Korean behavior. It is also shifting its approach from treating denuclearization as a precondition for engagement with Pyongyang to reducing risks that might lead to conflicts. With global uncertainty on the rise, China hopes that closer contact and clearer communication with North Korea can serve its most important goal—keeping its immediate neighborhood calm.

Although China and North Korea share a border and are both communist states, their relationship has fluctuated over the nearly eight decades since the two countries were founded. China’s connection with North Korea has traditionally relied on diplomatic friendship, shared revolutionary memories, and the personal networks of elder leaders. During the Korean War, for example, the two countries........

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