Xi Jinping to visit North Korea as Beijing seeks deeper ties with Pyongyang
The two-day visit starting Jun 8 will be Chinese President Xi Jinping's first overseas trip of the year.
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BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea from Jun 8 to 9, state news agency Xinhua said on Friday (Jun 5), his first trip in nearly seven years as Beijing looks to reassert ties with Pyongyang.
"At the invitation of Kim Jong Un ... Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and President of the People's Republic of China, will pay a state visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from June 8 to 9," Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.
This will be Xi's first overseas trip of the year, and follows his recent meetings in Beijing with both United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May.
Confirmation of his trip comes after the prospect had surfaced in recent weeks, following media reports and sightings of a Chinese delegation in Pyongyang.
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Xi last visited North Korea in 2019, where he met with North Korean leader Kim and received full military honours.
Meanwhile, Kim visited China last September to attend a military parade that marked the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. He met with Xi during the visit.
Beijing has worked to draw Pyongyang - its only formal treaty ally - back into its fold, after the COVID-19 pandemic froze exchanges and the North Korean leader deepened relations with Moscow by sending troops and weapons to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"The message implicit from the Chinese side is ... we are still the principal actor when it comes to North Korea," said John Delury, a senior fellow of the Asia Society.
"One of the audiences is Russia," he said.
Passenger train services between Beijing and Pyongyang resumed in March, after a six-year suspension that began with the pandemic, with Air China later restarting flights between the capitals.
Bookings, however, have been limited to some business travellers and exchange students, with Chinese tourists still excluded.
FIRST OVERSEAS TRIP THIS YEAR
Xi, whose trips abroad are becoming less and less frequent, last travelled internationally in late October when he went to South Korea, where he also met Trump.
"At the symbolic level it is important for Xi to keep tabs on what's going on in Pyongyang," said Delury, who said Xi visiting both Koreas within a year would be a "big win" for the peninsula.
"There's a kind of symmetry that the Chinese like to keep up" regarding the two Koreas, he said.
Since becoming China's top leader in 2012, Xi has so far visited North Korea once, and South Korea twice.
He also travelled to Pyongyang in 2008 when he was vice president and Kim's father - Kim Jong Il - was the North's leader.
This week, North Korean state media reported on Kim's visit to a newly operational nuclear material production factory at which he called for an "exponential" expansion of Pyongyang's atomic arsenal.
Experts have linked Kim's site visit to the impending meeting with Xi. Before travelling to Beijing in September, Kim inspected plans for a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the "Hwasong-20."
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