Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Pyongyang on Monday for a two-day summit with Kim Jong Un, the first such visit since 2019, as both leaders seek to deepen their alliance against the Western-led international order.
Before Xi landed, he published a guest column on the front page of North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun calling for China and North Korea to strengthen their alliance to promote an “equitable and orderly multipolar world,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Chinese state media released video at midday Monday showing Xi’s plane arriving in Pyongyang, where Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, greeted him alongside an honor guard and two children with flowers, the Journal reported. Crowds waved bouquets and flags before Xi arrived at Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang, near giant portraits of the two leaders.
Xi and Kim last met at a military parade in Beijing last fall, the Journal reported.
The summit comes at a moment of shifting dynamics on the Korean Peninsula. Not long ago, a meeting between Xi and Kim would inevitably revolve around the topic of Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the Journal reported. Now, an emboldened Kim calls the program irreversible.
Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister who speaks for the regime, said ahead of Xi’s visit that North Korea’s status as a nuclear state is “a stark reality whether anyone recognizes it or not,” according to the Journal.
North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile programs, with long-range weapons that can target the U.S. mainland, make Pyongyang a wild card that could risk drawing a heavier military footprint on China’s doorstep, the Journal reported. Beijing will seek to manage a defiant Kim regime that has shunned diplomacy with Washington after North Korea openly asserted itself as a permanent nuclear state.
“Beijing wants to prevent any unexpected shifts in North Korea’s approach to Washington that counters Chinese interests,” Hong Min, a senior North Korea researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-affiliated think tank in Seoul, told the Journal.
Xi is less focused on disarming his neighbor than on leveraging the alliance as an alternative to American leadership, the Journal reported. China and North Korea share the goal of supplanting the Western-led international order, which they view as unfairly dominated by the U.S.
Beijing has rolled out global initiatives on topics including development and security that seek to put China at the center of a global system, the Journal reported. Xi has promoted this goal in statements and in meetings with partners such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Xi’s visit to strengthen this China-centric order comes as North Korea has aided Putin’s war in Ukraine, while Moscow provides Pyongyang with fresh economic support and military technology, the Journal reported. Kim wields more agency than before and is determined to assert more autonomy during policy discussions with his Chinese guest, according to the Journal.
Yet China remains North Korea’s primary benefactor. During the two-day summit, Kim is expected to turn Beijing’s vows for cooperation into tangible rewards such as expanding cross-border trade and tourism and further developing border economic zones, the Journal reported.
Xi is also seeking support in putting military pressure on Japan, a U.S. security partner, the Journal reported. His statement on Monday included an implicit criticism of Tokyo, which Beijing has sought to pressure and isolate in response to what China sees as a return to Japanese “militarism,” according to the Journal.