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People watch a TV screen showing a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ahn Young-joon \/ AP Photo\/Ahn Young-joon<\/p>\n
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea next week, both countries announced Friday, in what will be his first visit in nearly seven years.<\/p>\n
His trip will be the latest in a series of steps by China to reinforce its close ties with its nuclear-armed neighbor. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reached out to Russia in recent years, notably by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n
But in the past year, Kim has likewise been trying to improve ties with China, the North\u2019s biggest trading partner and provider of aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs North Korea builds closer ties with Russia, China seeks to use Xi\u2019s trip to reassert its influence over Pyongyang and safeguard its strategic interests in northeast Asia,\u201d said William Yang, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n
Xi will make a state visit from Monday to Tuesday, Chinese and North Korean state media said in brief dispatches. His last visit was in June 2019.<\/p>\n
The trip will serve to advance ties and strengthen regional peace and stability, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe traditional friendly and cooperative relations between China and the DPRK have continued to develop in a sound and stable manner, bringing tangible benefits to both countries and their peoples,\u201d spokeswoman Mao Ning said, using the abbreviation for North Korea\u2019s full name.<\/p>\n
The trip is coming just a few weeks after Xi hosted U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in quick succession in Beijing.<\/p>\n
North Korea\u2019s nuclear weapons program has long been a major concern for the United States, which opposes it. The U.N. has imposed economic sanctions on North Korea because of its nuclear and missile development.<\/p>\n
The announcement of the trip came a day after North Korea unveiled a new facility to produce the material for nuclear bombs. It is believed to be a uranium enrichment plant, though North Korea has not confirmed that.<\/p>\n
During a visit to the plant, Kim announced plans to bolster the country\u2019s nuclear forces \u201cat an exponential rate.\u201d Experts say the plant\u2019s disclosure implies that Kim was eager to cement his country\u2019s status as a nuclear weapons state ahead of Xi\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n
The experts say Kim wants international recognition as a nuclear state so he can demand the lifting of the sanctions. They say Kim would ultimately push for arms reductions talks with the U.S. to win concessions in return for a partial surrender of his country\u2019s nuclear capability.<\/p>\n
Kim has been focusing on expanding his nuclear arsenal since his high-stakes diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to restore diplomacy with Kim, but the North Korean leader has said the U.S. must first drop its demand for North Korea to denuclearize as a precondition for talks.<\/p>\n
Analysts will be watching to see what if anything China says during Xi\u2019s visit about calls for North Korea\u2019s denuclearization.<\/p>\n
Xi and Kim met in Beijing in September and pledged mutual support and enhanced cooperation. Kim was in the Chinese capital to attend a Chinese military parade alongside other foreign leaders including Putin.<\/p>\n
Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, have previously frustrated efforts by the U.S. and others to toughen international sanctions on North Korea, despite its banned weapons tests.<\/p>\n
At their meeting in Beijing last month, Putin and Xi expressed their opposition to \u201cforeign policy isolation, economic sanctions, military pressure and other methods of creating threats to the security\u201d of North Korea, according to a statement from the Kremlin.<\/p>\n
Embracing the ideas of a \u201cnew Cold War\u201d and a multipolar world, Kim has pushed for a more assertive foreign policy by expanding ties with countries locked in confrontation with the United States.<\/p>\n
The trip abroad is a relatively rare one for Xi, who has curtailed his international travel sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic. His last overseas visit was to South Korea last fall for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he met Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People watch a TV screen showing a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,298405,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-686808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-asia-news-world","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}