Xi Jinping arrives in Pyongyang for first North Korea visit in seven years

Ceremonial welcome in Pyongyang

Kim Jong Un personally greeted Xi and Peng Liyuan at the airport in Pyongyang, according to photos from the Chinese news agency Xinhua. Thousands of people attended a lavish welcome ceremony, after which the Chinese motorcade drove through the triumphal arch of the capital. The guests were received with a salute of guns and a cheering crowd.

The trip is Xi's first foreign visit of the year and his first to North Korea since 2019, according to Chinese sources. It takes place at the invitation of Kim Jong Un. Xi last met Kim in September, when the North Korean leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin were guests of honor at a military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of Japan's capitulation at the end of World War II.

Xi's message: friendship and 'new development opportunities'

In a guest article published on Monday in the North Korean party newspaper Rodong Sinmun, Xi wrote of an "unbreakable and lasting friendship" between the two countries. He also said the traditional friendship would remain "unshakable, regardless of changing times and the international situation," according to Xinhua. Chinese sources said Xi held talks with Kim in Pyongyang, at which he pledged Beijing's continued support for Kim's leadership of the socialist course in North Korea.

Xi said, according to Xinhua, that both sides should "maintain high-level exchange as a guiding principle and build on the foundation of mutual political trust." He also spoke of "new development opportunities" for the two neighboring states and of closer cooperation in areas such as economics, trade, and science. At the same time, Xi positioned himself against "hegemonism and power politics" — formulations with which Beijing frequently targets the United States, without naming Washington explicitly in this context.

Kim, in turn, described the relationship between the two countries as "unbreakable," according to Xinhua, and said that strengthening bilateral relations is a strategic top priority. The reciprocal language signals a renewed effort by both governments to project unity at a moment of intensifying international pressure on Pyongyang.

Counterweight to Moscow's growing influence

The visit is widely read as a signal that Beijing wants to consolidate its traditional position as North Korea's most important partner at a time when Pyongyang has drawn closer to Moscow. Experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the United States expect Xi to focus on reinforcing that relationship. Victor Cha, head of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at CSIS, has said he expects China to position itself more clearly on North Korea's side than before.

Some observers view the trip as an attempt to counter Russia's growing influence in Pyongyang. North Korea has significantly expanded its relations with Russia in recent years and has supported Moscow in the war in Ukraine by sending thousands of soldiers. Bilateral trade between China and North Korea rose by 25 percent to 2.7 billion US dollars last year, reaching pre-pandemic levels, while North Korea has a new military pact with Russia that includes arms deliveries and the deployment of soldiers.

Minseon Ku of DePaul University in Chicago noted that the power relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang is more balanced than that between Beijing and Pyongyang, and that Moscow needs Kim for its war in Ukraine just as Kim needs technology and food from Russia. Seong-Hyon Lee, a visiting scholar at the Asia Center of Harvard University, argued that China's broader strategy benefits from a stable, heavily armed, and allied buffer state that absorbs the military forces of the US and its allies.

Beijing's nuclear dilemma

Behind the pageantry lies a difficult balance for Beijing. China officially continues to uphold the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — a position it reiterated, according to the White House, during US President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing a few weeks before Xi's trip. At the same time, experts believe that Beijing has effectively accepted North Korea as a nuclear power and will not force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program, but will instead insist on stability in the region.

Kim Yo Jong draws a red line

North Korea enshrined its status as a nuclear power in its constitution in 2023 and continues to expand its nuclear arsenal despite United Nations sanctions. Kim recently visited a new production facility for weapons-grade nuclear material. The visit comes against a backdrop of widespread malnutrition in the impoverished country, where a large portion of the population does not have adequate access to food.

The visit also carries weight beyond the peninsula. South Korean expert Mitch Shin, a researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, stated that Kim's decisions have "direct implications for Euro-Atlantic security." South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi have both expressed willingness to meet with North Korea's leader, underscoring the diplomatic stakes in Northeast Asia.

Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of Kim Jong Un, used the run-up to the visit to underline Pyongyang's red line. On Sunday she stated that North Korea's status as a nuclear power is absolutely not negotiable. In a separate statement she described that status as an "irreversible reality — regardless of whether others recognize it or not." Her intervention was a pointed reminder to Beijing and Washington that the question of North Korea's nuclear weapons is no longer on the negotiating table from Pyongyang's side.

Broader diplomatic stakes

Gabriela Bernal, a Korea observer, wrote in her newsletter "Peninsula Dispatch" that "Nordkorea bestimmt zunehmend die Bedingungen für den Umgang mit den Grossmächten der Welt" — that North Korea is increasingly setting the terms for engagement with the world's great powers. The visit, in that reading, is less a Chinese initiative than an acknowledgment that Pyongyang now negotiates from a position of strength backed by its own arsenal and by ties to Moscow.

The visit is the highest-level bilateral contact between China and North Korea since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and reflects the two countries' shared history as allies in the Korean War of 1950–1953. In March of this year, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko also visited Pyongyang to expand cooperation with what he called Putin's East Asian partner, underlining the broader pattern of diplomatic engagement with Kim's government.

The two leaders are expected to discuss economic cooperation, regional security, and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. China is North Korea's most important trading partner and supports the largely internationally isolated neighboring country diplomatically, economically, and politically — a role Xi appeared intent on reaffirming in person during his two days in Pyongyang.