Kim mends ties with China, sends Trump hawks a message

Kim Jong Un just sent a powerful message to US President Donald Trump ahead of planned talks: China is back on North Korea’s side.

The North Korean leader and his wife received a warm welcome in his first trip abroad since taking power in 2011, holding talks with President Xi Jinping and meeting a host of dignitaries. Xi told Kim that China has made a “strategic choice” to have friendly ties with North Korea, and they would “remain unchanged under any circumstances.” The surprise, highly secretive four-day trip ends a period of frosty ties between the longtime allies as China backed increasingly tough economic sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes. Xi avoided meeting Kim during his first five years in power, and the countries traded barbs at each other through state-run media.

The shift ensures that China’s interests are protected during Kim’s planned summit with Trump, and also gives North Korea an insurance policy if talks collapse. While the White House said the Kim-Xi summit showed that its pressure campaign was working, closer China ties would help North Korea undermine sanctions and raise the cost of any U.S. military action even further.

“If you are the Trump White House right now, you’ve got to be very concerned,” said John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at Harvard Kennedy School. “As much as the official White House line says that maximum pressure is what brought about yet another diplomatic summit, the reality is you move away from the primary focus on maximum pressure to one huge massive pressure release valve.”

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