Kim Jong Un, Xi reaffirm North Korea-China ties on military parade visit

Hong Kong-The North Korean leader Kim Jong One told Chinese President Xi Jinping that “the friendship of their country will never change” while the international situation moves around them, the North Korean state media reported on Friday.

The two leaders gathered for the first time in six years Thursday in Beijing, where Kim had traveled to attend a massive military parade in a rare gap by his isolated and armed nuclear state.

The “Victory Day” parade, which commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, was the first time that XI, Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin were seen together in public.

Their joint appearance symbolized the growing challenge of their country to American power on the world scene, while Putin repels the push of President Donald Trump to end his invasion of Ukraine and North Korea rejects Trump’s interest in relaunching denuclearization talks.

But the relations between North Korea and China, its neighbor and the largest trading partner, were tense by Kim’s support for the Putin war against Ukraine.

The South Korea intelligence agency said this week that around 2,000 of the approximately 15,000 North Korean troops sent to fight alongside Russia had been killed, and Putin thanked Kim for the sacrifice of her country during their own bilateral summit on Wednesday.

Experts say that Kim, who has an urgent need for economic assistance, could try to repair links with Beijing as a coverage against the end of the war in Ukraine and the lever effect he acquired with Russia.

The Xi-Kim summit “suggests more than a simple restoration of links,” said Lim Eul-Chul, professor at the Institute for Extreme Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea. “This indicates the possibility of a new leap forward.”

It was an opportunity for North Korea to reaffirm China’s support in the midst of international sanctions and isolation, and an opportunity for China to show its intention to maintain the influence on the Korean peninsula by Pyongyang, he said.

The Chinese state media also confirmed the Xi-Kim summit.

Like Kim, XI said that China and North Korea’s commitment to develop bilateral relations “will not change, whatever the way the international situation evolves”, according to a reading published by Xinhua, the Chinese news agency managed by the State.

XI told Kim that China and North Korea, which are both states managed by the Communists, are “good neighbors, good friends and good comrades who share a common destiny”.

Kim, who had not been to China since 2019, said that the military parade and related events were “large and magnificent” and “underlined the status and significant international influence of China”, according to the Chinese state diffuser CCTV CCTV.

“No matter how the world changes, this friendship will never change,” he said.

Kim said that North Korea “would support and invariably encourage” Chinese government’s efforts to defend “its sovereignty, its territorial interest and its development interests”, according to the North Korean news agency KCNA.

During their meeting in the Greater People’s Hall, the two leaders also discussed the strengthening of strategic cooperation, the defense of common interests in international and regional affairs and the conduct of more high-level visits, the Chinese and North Korean state media reported. The meeting was followed by a meeting and a tea banquet in small groups.

KCNA confirmed on Friday that Kim had arrived at the Beijing house on his private train, saying that he had been seen at Beijing station by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other senior Chinese officials.

The agency said that the visit of the North Korean leader in China was “a historic opportunity that has further strengthened political trust and strategic cooperation” between the two countries and “showed invariability and invincibility” of their relations, which have overcome “all kinds of tests and challenges”.

By emphasizing the immutable nature of their relationship despite international changes, “the summit also gave North Korea to justify the conservation of its nuclear weapons,” said Lim. “China expressing its support for the” fundamental interests “of Pyongyang, Beijing can be considered to tacitly recognize the status of North Korea as a nuclear arm.”

But China, which prefers the stability of the Korean peninsula, could still play a positive role as a mediator, he said.

“China may well use economic cooperation as a lever to press Pyongyang to facilitate tensions in the interest of regional stability,” said LIM.

Although XI and Kim did not mention a possible American-Kored Summit, their references to the strengthening of cooperation, high-level exchanges and strategic communication “suggest that close consultations between Beijing and Pyongyang are expected before such a summit is prosecuted,” said Yang Moo-Jin, South Korea, distinguished president at the University of North Korea, South Korea, in South Korea.

He said that an American-Korean summit was unlikely in the near future.

North Korea will first try to win a lever effect by obtaining “a support base from countries that are recognized by nuclear powers, China as supported,” said Yang.

Jennifer Jett reported Hong Kong and Stella Kim de Los Angeles.