Chinese president Xi Jinping is reportedly set to visit North Korea as early as next week, part of a diplomatic whirlwind that has already seen the Chinese leader meet with US president Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in recent days.
The South Korean government said it expects Mr Xi’s visit to involve a push for renewed talks between Kim Jong Un and Mr Trump.
The visit, if confirmed, would be Mr Xi’s first to the neighbouring country in seven years and follow his back-to-back summits with Mr Trump and Mr Putin.
North Korea has improved its relations with China in recent years and deepened strategic ties with Russia. Pyongyang and Beijing have expanded cooperation beyond trade and diplomacy to military exchanges, leaving the US as well as its allies in Europe and East Asia concerned.
“There’s a high possibility of Xi Jinping visiting North Korea later this month or early next month,” South Korean state news agency Yonhap reported, citing an unnamed government source.
In preparation for the visit, Yonhap said, Chinese security service and protocol officials visited Pyongyang recently.
Mr Xi, who hosted Mr Trump earlier this month and discussed North Korea with him, was seeking to mediate between the US president and North Korea’s leader, the news agency quoted the official as saying.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said Seoul hoped any exchange between North Korea and China would contribute to peace and stability but declined to comment on the report about Mr Xi’s impending visit.
“There has been no announcement from China yet, so we will wait and see,” South Korean unification minister Chung Dong Young said, adding that if Mr Xi did visit Pyongyang, “naturally, North Korea-US dialogue will be discussed”.
Beijing’s top diplomat, foreign minister Wang Yi, visited Pyongyang last month for the first time since 2019 and met with Mr Kim.
At the meeting, Mr Wang said that Beijing and Pyongyang should work together to safeguard their security and development interests and deepen coordination on international issues amid growing global instability.
North Korea has sought to break out of international isolation and push a more assertive foreign policy by deepening ties with major world power like Russia and China.
Mr Kim has made Russia his top foreign policy priority in recent years, sending troops and weapons to aid the neighbour’s war in Ukraine, but has also sought to cozy up to China, his nation’s top traditional ally and economic lifeline.
Mr Kim joined Mr Putin at a World War II ceremony in Beijing in September and held his first summit with Mr Xi Jinping in six years, seeking to portray North Korea as part of a united front against the US.
North Korea and China last month resumed direct flight and passenger train services, which had been suspended since the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
If Mr Xi does visit Pyongyang, talks with the US are likely to feature high on the agenda.
Mr Xi and Mr Trump discussed North Korea at last week’s summit but few details about it emerged.
A White House factsheet released after the summit said the leaders “confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea”.
China hasn’t used the phrase “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” in official diplomatic readouts and policy documents since 2022.
Mr Kim suspended all meaningful dialogue with the US and South Korea after his diplomacy with Mr Trump collapsed in 2019.
The North Korean has since taken a hardline stance towards South Korea, describing it as his nation’s “most hostile” adversary, and has rejected US offers to resume talks, calling on Washington to drop its demand for denuclearisation as a precondition.
Mr Trump, who met Mr Kim three times during his first presidential term to negotiate on the nuclear programme, previously said he was open to meeting the North Korean leader again.
