A pair of U.S. adversaries — China and North Korea — appear to be strengthening relations, with Chinese President Xi Jinping's arrival in Pyongyang on Monday for a rare state visit.
This is Xi's first trip to North Korea in seven years, and experts say the visit is likely aimed at reasserting China’s unique influence over North Korea in exchange for providing economic and political benefits.
Xi is scheduled to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in what will be their first summit since September, when they met in Beijing after viewing a military parade alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and other foreign leaders.
No specific agenda has been mentioned, but foreign experts predict the meeting to have a significant impact on bilateral ties and more, as both sides seek to fully restore their traditional alliance amid separate disputes with the U.S. government.
Xi’s trip comes after his back-to-back summits with U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin in Beijing last month. Xi plans to meet Trump again for a U.S. visit in September.
China has, for years, been North Korea's economic lifeline and primary diplomatic backer. China has refrained from fully enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea and sent clandestine aid to support its impoverished neighbor.
This year marks 65 years since the two nations signed a mutual defense treaty.
Despite this, there have been questions about their ties in recent years, as North Korea has prioritized cooperation with Russia by supplying troops and weapons to support its war against Ukraine and received economic and military assistance from Moscow in return.
Experts warn that restoring China's exclusive influence over North Korea would give Xi leverage with Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his wish to restart diplomacy with Kim.
Analysts said Xi would likely offer Kim economic aid packages such as shipments of rice and fertilizers, a resumption of Chinese group tourism to North Korea and joint economic projects.
Xi may also avoid the issue of denuclearization of North Korea, which wants to achieve international recognition as a nuclear weapons state, as a way to call for lifting of U.N. sanctions on North Korea, according to experts.
After last month’s summit between Trump and Xi, the U.S. government said the two leaders affirmed their shared goal to denuclearize North Korea.
But China only said the leaders spoke about the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. Kim’s sister and senior official Kim Yo Jong dismissed the readout of the meeting as "false information."
Last week, Kim unveiled a new plant to produce nuclear ingredients and pledged to bolster the country’s nuclear forces "at an exponential rate." He also said he is seeking to speed up efforts to build a nuclear-armed navy.
On Sunday, Kim Yo Jong described a U.S. plan for the denuclearization of North Korea as an "escapist and anachronistic dream."
Kim Jong Un has dismissed U.S. and South Korean offers for talks as he focuses on enlarging and modernizing his nuclear arsenal. The North Korean leader in September urged the U.S. to withdraw its demand for North Korea to denuclearize as a precondition for resuming diplomacy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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