Xi Jinping to visit North Korea for summit with Kim Jong-un, signaling closer China-DPRK alignment

North Korea shut its borders in response to COVID-19, freezing trade with China for years. In March, Beijing and Pyongyang began restoring train services and flights between the capitals, a first step in rebuilding commercial and diplomatic links that had withered during the pandemic.

The diplomatic backdrop is crowded. Xi has held recent summits with both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Beijing. Trump walked away from nuclear talks with Kim Jong-un in 2019, and Kim has insisted he will reject any dialogue with Washington that places North Korea's nuclear program on the negotiating table. The White House announced last month that Trump and Xi confirmed their shared goal to denuclearize North Korea, but the Chinese government's readout of the call said only that they exchanged views on the Korean Peninsula.

China's concerns about the Russia-DPRK axis

Kurt Campbell, chair of the Asia Group and a former deputy secretary of state under President Joe Biden, said the visit was aimed at projecting strength among authoritarian partners. Xi is attempting to demonstrate that he is on better terms with members of his authoritarian clique than President Trump is with his democratic partners, Campbell said.

Analysts say China is also concerned about how far the North Korean-Russian relationship has progressed. John Delury, a historian of Northeast Asia and senior fellow at the Asia Society in Seoul, said: 'There is no question that the Chinese are worried about how close the North Korean-Russian relationship is getting.' He added: 'This trip helps head that off a bit and it's a way for Xi to insert himself back into the equation.'

The Russia-DPRK relationship has expanded rapidly. In 2024, North Korea and Russia signed a mutual defense pledge rooted in the Cold War era. Russia has since provided North Korea with oil, food, and weapons technology in exchange for North Korean troops and munitions supporting the war in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin has publicly defended Pyongyang's military buildup, saying 'Pyongyang has the right to take reasonable measures to strengthen its own defense capability.'

Denuclearization off the table

For Beijing, the calculus is complicated. China officially opposes a nuclear-armed North Korea, yet North Korea is estimated to possess 50 nuclear warheads and continues to seek advanced technology to build intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering them. When Xi and Kim met in Beijing last September, official statements from both governments omitted any mention of removing nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.

Lee Byong-chul, an analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said the new dynamic has changed the leverage Beijing can bring to bear. 'North Korea is no longer a pathetic nation clinging to a single patron,' he said. 'It has found a new strategic wing in Russia, in addition to China, which has long been its lifeline.'

Beyond security, the visit is also part of an effort to revive economic ties. Kim Jong-un has invested in seafront resorts and mountain hot springs to attract Chinese tourists, and tourism is one of the few sectors not restricted by UN sanctions on North Korea. China and Russia voted with the United States at the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on North Korea in 2016 and 2017, but enforcement has varied.

North Korea remains dissatisfied with what it sees as insufficient Chinese support for denuclearization, while Beijing has reservations about Pyongyang's growing military cooperation with Moscow. Against that backdrop, Xi's two-day visit is being read as an effort to remind Pyongyang — and Washington — that China intends to remain the dominant outside power on the peninsula.