Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korean Kim Jong Ann have pledged to deepen strategic coordination at their first formal summit in six years, after holding an unprecedented show of unity over the West alongside Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a massive military parade.
According to Chinese national media, Xi dispatched troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine to support Russia’s war against Ukraine, and then hosted him for tea and dinner.
The two leaders who last met during XI’s first state visit to North Korea in 2019 reaffirmed that their commitment to bilateral friendship would not waver “no matter how the international situation changes.”
According to Chinese national media, Xi said China and North Korea should “enhance strategic coordination of international and regional issues” as “good neighbors, good friends, and good comrades bound by shared fate.”
Kim told XI that North Korea “always support” China in defending China’s sovereignty, territorial and development interests, the state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
The summit could suggest a recovery in relations between the two communist countries after North Korea has become farther away in recent years as it approaches Russia, analysts say.
In a major break with the precedents of the four previous summits of the two leaders held between 2018 and 2019, “Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” was not mentioned for the first time in Chinese readings.
Kim’s illegal nuclear weapons program has transformed North Korea into the world’s most strongly approved nation. However, Russia has become less openly critical of its program in recent years, and, to a lesser extent, with the West, as tensions have risen with the West.
In 2022, China and Russia for the first time rejected a US-led resolution at the UN Security Council and called for additional sanctions on North Korea over the launch of new ballistic missiles.
Wu Qian, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said Kim’s summit with XI represents a diplomatic victory over the open embrace of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons.
“Beijing and Pyongyang spoke warmly about their friendship, but effectively acquiesced against the issue of denuclearization, not wording, to the nuclear state of North Korea,” he said.
Korean experts are also paying attention. Lim Uruchul, a professor at Kyongnam University’s Far East Research Institute in Seoul, said the summit reading implies that North Korea has been given justification to continue to maintain nuclear power.
“China’s support for North Korea’s central interests could be interpreted as an implicit acceptance of the country’s nuclear power position in reality,” added Lim.
Xi Jin, Putin and Kim took the centre stage at the Chinese military parade, which marks the 80 years of the end of World War II on Wednesday.
The trio had never appeared together in public before – formed the rebellious face of a new bloc of new, fierce leaders who opposed Western rules and decided to balance global power in their favor.
Parade – The parade, attended by leaders from 26 countries, including Iran, Pakistan and Belarus, gave the unusual opportunity to stand with political heavyweights at the global stage.
Of the 26 foreign leaders, only Putin and Kim held tea, tea and banquets for Xi, followed by a formal sit-in at the convention.
China’s state media did not specify where the tea chats and banquets were held, but Russian national media said Putin was invited to Xi’s residence in Zhongnanhai, the secret leadership compound of the Communist Party.
Photos published by North Korean state media showed Kim and XI sharing a laugh about a light refreshment against the same background in a photo of Russian state media showing Putin and Xi’s tea chat in Zhongnanhai.
Shuxian Luo, assistant professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, said: “This meeting looks like a Chinese bid to reassert itself as North Korea’s top patron.
Wednesday’s incredible Chinese military show may close out XI’s diplomacy and pageantry days to promote his country as the US alternative global leader as President Donald Trump overturns American alliances and engages in a trade war.
After the parade, Kim and Putin met for two and a half hours on the sidelines, but according to North Korean state media, they discussed a “long-term” cooperation plan. President Putin praised the North Korean troops fighting alongside the Russian troops with Ukraine, invited Kim to visit Russia and saw him in a hug.
During a meeting with XI on Thursday, Kim said she was “deeply moved” by China’s commemoration of World War II.
“The commemoration not only highlighted the historical contributions of the Chinese Communist Party and the courageous struggles of the Chinese people for peace and stability in the world, but also strongly demonstrated China’s growing international status and influence,” Kim said. “Because of this, I feel happy as if it was my own problem.”
For decades, China has been North Korea’s leading political and economic sponsor, accounting for more than 95% of total trade, providing a critical lifeline for its critically licensed economy. North Korea is China’s only formal ally, and in 1961 the Treaty of Mutual Defense was signed.
However, Pyongyang has expanded its missile and nuclear programmes significantly since the early 2000s, making it more of a responsibility among some Beijing foreign policy analysts to see North Korea as more responsibility than a strategic alliance.
In recent years, North Korea has approached Russia as Putin turned his weapons and troops to Kim to maintain his war with Ukraine. Last year, the two leaders signed a groundbreaking mutual defense agreement in Pyongyang, pledging to provide immediate military aid to each other if they are under attack.
Officially, China has rejected the agreement as “bilateral material” between Russia and North Korea. However, analysts say it’s likely that Xi is looking carefully as Putin and Kim have complicated the fragile security balance in East Asia, forged a new alliance that could cover Beijing’s efforts to complicate the fragile security balance in East Asia, bringing more of our focus to the region and overturn Beijing’s efforts to manage stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Beijing is worried that Moscow’s support for Pyongyang in return for its weapons and military forces, especially its military technology, will further enable and unlock the unstable Kim regime, which dramatically accelerated the accumulation of nuclear weapons and missile programs, analysts said.
Edward Howell, a political lecturer at Oxford University, said China was “impressive, nauseous and uneasy” rather than “angry” about the reconciliation between North Korea and Russia.
“After all, before the Treaty of Northern Russia (Mutual Defense) … North Korea was the only country where China had a mutual defense agreement and vice versa,” he said.
If China was really upset about deepening cooperation, Howell pointed out, it could end it by helping North Korea avoid sanctions or not allowing Russia’s war through trade on double-use items.
“China hasn’t done these things either and will refrain from engaging in South Korea’s dynamics in northern Russia, but will only continue to help North Korea avoid sanctions,” he said. “China wants to ensure that North Korea knows Beijing’s desire to maintain its influence over the peninsula, but on Pyongyang’s side we will continue to try and extract profits from both Moscow and Beijing.”
