China’s President Xi Jinping to visit North Korea next week

Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to travel to North Korea next week, according to state media. The visit, announced on Friday, will be his first trip abroad this year after hosting a series of foreign leaders as Beijing seeks to assert itself as a global diplomatic power.

CCTV, the state broadcaster, said Xi will be in Pyongyang from June 8 to 9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It will be Xi’s first visit to the country in seven years.

China provides critical political and economic backing to North Korea, which remains one of the most isolated states worldwide and is subject to extensive international sanctions.

The trip marks Xi’s first official overseas visit of 2026 and follows back‑to‑back summits he held with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin last month.

“China is meeting leaders from around the world, coordinating positions and playing a mediating role,” said Lim Eul‑chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University in South Korea, to AFP.

“As China’s international standing rises, Beijing is likely seeking to draw Pyongyang more actively into its diplomatic orbit as a partner in advancing a more multilateral order.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a press briefing on Friday that the two leaders will “exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern.”

She added that the visit is “an opportunity to promote the development” of bilateral ties and “make greater contributions to regional and even world peace.”

According to 2022 statistics from the National Committee on North Korea, a Washington‑based think tank, Pyongyang relies on China for up to 95 percent of its total trade and 85 percent of its exports.

Since Moscow’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, North Korea has grown closer to Russia, sending thousands of troops and weapons to support the war effort. In return, analysts say the country receives financial aid, military technology, food and energy, helping it circumvent sanctions over its banned nuclear programmes.

Seong‑Hyon Lee of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.–China Relations said Xi’s choice of Pyongyang for his first overseas trip of 2026 is “a deliberate visual rebuttal to the prevailing read in Western capitals that Pyongyang had quietly migrated into Moscow’s orbit.”

– Managing the relationship –

Xi last met Kim in September, when he invited the North Korean leader and Putin as guests of honour to a military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over imperial Japan in World War II.

In 2019, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan were welcomed to North Korea with great pomp and fanfare to celebrate the two countries’ “unbreakable friendship.”

During a visit to Pyongyang in April, Beijing’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China and Korea should “enhance coordination” on international and regional issues.

China’s interests include monitoring North Korea’s nuclear programme, which is advancing “extremely rapidly,” said Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) to AFP.

“This aspect needs to be managed. If North Korea acts in a provocative and belligerent manner, it could trigger regional conflict, which could run counter to China’s interests,” Hong said.

Kim announced an “exponential” increase in nuclear military capabilities on Wednesday as he visited a new atomic facility, Pyongyang’s state‑run Korean Central News Agency reported.

South Korea’s foreign ministry has said it hopes exchanges between North Korea and China contribute to peace and stability, and that China can play a constructive role.

Pyongyang has repeatedly rejected efforts by the South Korean government to improve relations, calling Seoul its most “hostile” adversary.

Analysts view Xi’s recent diplomatic activity as part of an effort to position China as a stable, strategic alternative to an unpredictable United States.

Traditional U.S. allies, including Britain’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron, have also visited Beijing.

However, Hong of KINU judged the chances that Xi might help broker a meeting between Trump and Kim as “very low.”

AFP

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