Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in North Korea on Monday, describing the relationship between the two countries as an “invincible friendship” during his first overseas visit of the year.
The trip comes after Xi hosted separate summits in Beijing with US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and as efforts to revive nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang remain stalled.
Footage released by China’s state news agency Xinhua showed military officers lining a red carpet as an Air China aircraft carrying Xi landed in North Korea. A banner at the airport welcomed the Chinese leader and praised the two countries’ “unbreakable friendship”, displayed beneath Chinese and North Korean flags.
China has long been North Korea’s largest trading partner and a crucial source of economic and diplomatic support for the heavily sanctioned state.
The visit also follows a White House statement last month saying Xi and Trump had “confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea” during talks in Beijing.
However, Kim Jong Un’s sister reaffirmed Pyongyang’s position on the eve of Xi’s arrival, saying the country’s nuclear weapons programme was “the line of no retreat”.
Minseon Ku, a diplomacy professor at DePaul University, told AFP that Beijing had likely accepted North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. However, she said Xi was expected to emphasise stability during his talks with Kim.
“Beijing probably has accepted North Korea as a nuclear state,” she said, adding that Xi “will probably tell Kim that China wants stability more than anything”.
China has “always prioritised stability and is currently having to manage its relations and differences with the US”, she added.
Seong-Hyon Lee, a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Asia Center, said Beijing’s policy appeared to be shifting from seeking denuclearisation towards ensuring the durability of the North Korean regime.
“China’s broader regional strategy benefits from a stable, heavily armed, and aligned buffer state that absorbs US and allied military bandwidth,” he told AFP.
North Korea has repeatedly described itself as an “irreversible” nuclear state since the collapse of talks between Kim and Trump in 2019 over sanctions relief and denuclearisation measures.
Kim’s position has also been strengthened by closer ties with Russia during the war in Ukraine. North Korea has provided troops to support Russian forces and, in return, has received backing from Moscow.
Some analysts believe Xi’s visit may also be intended to counter Russia’s growing influence in Pyongyang. However, Ku argued that China’s position remains dominant.
“Overall, Moscow is not a major power like China,” she said.
“Moscow-Pyongyang power relations are more equal than Beijing-Pyongyang; Moscow needs Kim for their war in Ukraine as much as Kim needs technology sharing and food from Russia.”
In an article published on the front page of North Korea’s ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, Xi pledged to deepen cooperation with Pyongyang.
“No matter how the times change or how the international situation evolves, the traditional friendship between China and North Korea is always invincible,” he wrote.
Xi last met Kim in September, when he invited both the North Korean leader and Putin to attend a military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
Despite Trump’s previous high-profile meetings with Kim, little progress has been made towards curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme.
North Korea also remains China’s only treaty ally under a formal military alliance.
Vladimir Tikhonov, a Korean Studies professor at the University of Oslo, said broader geopolitical concerns were likely influencing Beijing’s approach.
“America is currently engaged in offensive warfare potentially harmful to China’s key interests, such as energy supplies,” he told AFP.
“It appears Xi is trying to consolidate the alliance with North Korea partly for that reason," he added.
Analysts also noted that North Korea could serve as a strategic counterweight to key US allies in East Asia, including South Korea and Japan.
Relations between China and Japan have worsened since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested last year that Tokyo could intervene militarily if China attempted to take control of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory.
Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea specialist at Kyungnam University, said China may be seeking a closer political alignment with Pyongyang as its global influence expands.
“As China’s international standing rises, Beijing is likely seeking to draw Pyongyang more actively into its diplomatic orbit,” he said.
