China will not swerve from its commitment to safeguarding common interests with North Korea or waver in its support for Kim Jong-un, President Xi Jinping told Pyongyang’s leader yesterday during a rare summit.
The neighbours should strengthen strategic ties and firmly protect their sovereignty, security, and development interests, Xi told Kim, an official Chinese summary of the meeting showed, as Beijing looks to draw Pyongyang closer.
Xi’s two-day visit, his first in seven years to China’s reclusive neighbour, comes at a time when its economy, strengthened by growing trade and military ties to Russia, could boost Kim’s confidence in talks.
“I am deeply pleased and also feel a special sense of closeness,” Xi told Kim on his first international trip this year.
No matter how the international situation changed, he reaffirmed to Kim, China would continue to highly value its traditional friendship with North Korea, the summary showed.
“The firm support for Comrade General Secretary Kim Jong-un’s leadership of the DPRK socialist cause will not change, and the firm determination to safeguard common interests and good strategic environment... will not change,” Xi added.
He was referring to the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The Chinese leader arrived to a red-carpet welcome from Kim and wife Ri Sol Ju, alongside a guard of honour, while children presented bouquets of flowers, video from Chinese state media showed.
A 21-gun salute was fired at the capital’s Kim Il Sung Square, a site of military parades and state celebrations, as spectators dwarfed by huge portraits of the leaders chanted slogans and released balloons, the Xinhua news agency said.
Ties were at a “new historical starting point”, Xi said earlier, before urging stronger exchanges in areas from diplomacy, law enforcement and the military to agriculture, trade, technology and construction.
Xi had called on Kim to “oppose hegemony, authoritarianism and all attempts and conspiracies to revive militarism that endanger regional security and stability” in remarks published in the North’s state media yesterday.
“The Xi-Kim summit is a reminder that Beijing still sees Pyongyang as a strategic asset,” said Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.
The neighbours, along with Russia and Iran, share an interest in blunting US power and straining its alliances, he added.
Xi also pledged to work with North Korea to promote fair and orderly multilateralism and inclusive economic globalisation, with long-term regional peace and stability a common pursuit.
“His visit is about keeping the tradition alive in very different conditions than his last trip,” John Delury, a senior fellow of the Asia Society, said in a post on X.
Flags of both countries lined the main avenues of the North Korean capital in a video issued by Xinhua.
Xi is accompanied on the state visit by his wife Peng Liyuan, de facto chief of staff Cai Qi, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Defence Minister Dong Jun and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.
Both should capitalise on the restored links as “an opportunity to expand people-to-people exchanges,” Xi told Kim during their meeting.