Xi’s visit to North Korea.. The battle for influence over Kim between Beijing and Moscow | news

Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to visit North Korea next week, his first visit in nearly seven years and comes at a time when Beijing is looking to strengthen ties with Pyongyang.

“At the invitation of Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and President of the People’s Republic of China, will pay a state visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from June 8 to 9,” Chinese state television channel CCTV said. North Korea’s official news agency also confirmed the visit, without providing further details.

The visit comes after two separate summits hosted by Xi in Beijing last month for US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump, who met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times during his first term, had previously stated that he was open to meeting the North Korean leader again.

Beijing is seeking to return Pyongyang to its orbit after freezing exchanges between them during the (Covid-19) pandemic and the North Korean leader strengthening relations with Moscow by sending troops and weapons to support the Russian war on Ukraine.

Beijing is a vital source of support for Pyongyang, which is subject to harsh sanctions that have made it one of the most isolated countries in the world. Despite the close relations between the two countries, visits by Chinese presidents to North Korea are rare.

Xi last visited Pyongyang in 2019, the first visit of its kind by a Chinese leader since Hu Jintao’s visit in 2005.

Accounts and messages

Last September, the Chinese President warmly received his counterpart Kim in Beijing, after inviting him and President Putin as guests of honor to attend a military parade on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japan in World War II.

During the last visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to North Korea, its leader Kim Jong Un was suffering from the repercussions of sanctions and the failure of nuclear negotiations with the United States.

Now, nearly 7 years later, with Xi Jinping’s return to North Korea next Monday, he will meet a leader who has grown bolder thanks to his alliance with Russia, which has contributed to lifting his country’s economy out of its isolation.

Xi is expected to use the two-day summit with Kim Jong Un to show a united front among allies against the West. But analysts believe that China is also keen to strengthen its influence over its neighbor, which has leaned towards Russia.

As for Kim Jong Un, he wants to be treated more as a secondary partner to China, and will likely exploit his new rapprochement with Russia to pressure Beijing for economic concessions.

Achieve balance

If North Korea succeeds in achieving a balance between its two giant neighbors, Kim Jong Un may feel freer to develop his nuclear program. This would destabilize a region where US allies are already concerned about China’s military expansion and Washington’s ability to fulfill its defense agreements as its war with Iran exhausts its resources.

Xi Jinping is likely to use this rare meeting with Kim Jong Un to remind the world that North Korea depends on China, and that Beijing cannot be marginalized.

This message is consistent with Xi’s approach to projecting China as a great power on par with the United States, while China is keen to show that while Washington is spreading chaos – through its war with Iran or by imposing tariffs on allies and adversaries alike – Beijing represents a stabilizing force in the world.

This point was reinforced during the recent summits held by President Xi Jinping with President Trump, and then with President Putin, in Beijing.

“Xi Jinping is trying to show that his relations with members of his inner circle are better than President Trump’s relations with his democratic partners,” said Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of state under President Joe Biden and head of the Asia Group. But Xi Jinping’s decision to make a rare foreign trip also underscores his need to win over Kim Jong Un.

Pyongyang has eased its reliance on Beijing by reviving a Cold War-era joint defense pledge with Moscow in 2024.

For its part, Russia provided North Korea with much-needed oil, food, and weapons technology, in exchange for supplying North Korean forces and ammunition for its war in Ukraine. This has presented a dilemma for China, which seeks to maintain its influence over North Korea to rein in its volatile behavior and ensure stability on its borders.

In 2024, Pyongyang renewed a Cold War-era mutual defense pledge with Moscow.

“There is no doubt that the Chinese are concerned about the closeness of relations between North Korea and Russia,” said John Delury, a historian of Northeast Asia and a senior fellow at the Asia Society in Seoul. “This visit helps ease that concern and is a way for Xi Jinping to put himself back in the spotlight.”

Kim’s victories

Things were looking bleak for Kim just a few years ago, after Trump withdrew from nuclear negotiations with him in 2019, dashing hopes that the United States would lift sanctions.

The following year, Kim imposed isolation on his country in response to the (Covid-19) pandemic by closing its borders, which led to a freeze in trade with China, North Korea’s main source of goods and foreign currency.

Kim’s fortunes changed not only as the pandemic subsided, but also after he took advantage of Russia’s difficulties in the Ukrainian war to strengthen relations with Moscow and reorient North Korea’s foreign policy, which had been leaning heavily toward China, as Kim supplied Moscow with weapons and troops, and Russia responded in kind with an injection of billions of dollars.