Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit North Korea next week, aiming to court the pariah state’s dictator Kim Jong-un, who has been strengthening ties with Moscow while tightening his own grip on power.
In the seven years since Xi’s last trip, Pyongyang has sent troops and weapons to Russia for the Ukraine war, sought to further expand its nuclear weapons program, and officially abandoned the prospect of reunification with the south; at home, meanwhile, Kim has consolidated power further and elevated his daughter as his potential successor. Still, Pyongyang needs Beijing as its protector on the world stage, a Chinese scholar wrote in Foreign Policy, while China sees North Korea as a “bargaining chip” in a region replete with rivals.