Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s dictator, rarely travels abroad. So his surprise visit on October 24th to Dandong, a Chinese city that borders North Korea , deserves attention. Mr Kim is rebuilding ties with China after four years of cosying up to Russia (by sending it troops and supplies for the war in Ukraine). He may also be preparing for new diplomacy with America, and possibly a meeting with President Donald Trump in November.
The official purpose of Mr Kim’s latest visit was to commemorate China’s entry into the Korean War in 1950 to support the Communist North. That followed a summit between them in Beijing in 2025. China accounts for more than 90% of the country’s global trade. The two countries signed a mutual-defence treaty in 2024. In the first nine months of the year, official bilateral trade reached $2.3 bn, up from $1.9 bn during the same period last year.
This year is the 65th anniversary of their “friendship” treaty, a mutual-defence pact. He was also strikingly effusive about the relationship, hailing bilateral ties “forged in blood”. Mr Wang said the new bridge would help to “expand personnel exchanges and trade co-operation”. Mr Trump has said that he would like to meet Mr Kim again, possibly during a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in mid-November.
China and North Korea are playing up their wartime solidarity. Still, it is rare for Mr Kim to acknowledge China’s war effort so prominently on Chinese soil. It was unusual, too, for Mr Kim to show up in China without seeing its leader, Xi Jinping. The pair met in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in June when Mr Xi visited for the first time in seven years. This time, however, Mr Xi was busy preparing for a long-scheduled meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee in Beijing, which started on October 26th. He sent Wang Huning, who ranks fourth in China’s leadership, instead. On each of Mr Kim’s five previous visits to China since taking power, he met Mr Xi in person. Mr Kim’s visit and the bridge’s opening both seem to be designed to ease Chinese concerns about Russia’s growing influence over North Korea. But Mr Kim and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader, have drawn closer of late. In exchange for troops and weapons, Russia has supplied Mr Kim with fuel, food and military technology. They have expanded their own cross-border infrastructure, including a road bridge which opened in September. In response, Mr Xi has publicly played down his concerns about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. At the same time, China has been upgrading transport links with North Korea and relaxing restrictions on cross-border trade. Most intriguingly, Mr Kim’s visit may have been intended to co-ordinate his diplomacy with America. America’s president met Mr Kim three times in his first term, hoping to strike a deal to end North Korea’s nuclear programme. Before two of those meetings, Mr Kim travelled to China a few weeks in advance, to talk to Mr Xi. American officials have since sought to squash the idea, saying a meeting is unlikely. But some Chinese government advisers say Mr Xi is keen to facilitate one, hoping to reassert his influence and ensure China has a say in any potential deal. By pitting rival powers against each other, Mr Kim is once again playing a weak hand well.
