Kim Jong Un makes ‘unofficial’ visit to China
North Korean leader met with Chinese President Xi Jinping
BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a surprise trip to China this week, meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of planned summits with South Korean and U.S. leaders, Chinese and North Korean state media confirmed Wednesday.
The journey, which is believed to be Kim’s first foreign trip since he came to power in 2011, adds a new piece to a complex diplomatic puzzle over the future of North Korea’s nuclear program.
The announcement ends a mystery that started on Monday, when a mysterious train chugged into central Beijing, spurring reports of a high-profile visitor from North Korea.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed that the visitor was indeed Kim, along with his wife, Ri Sol Ju, arriving for an “unofficial” visit at the invitation of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. The confirmation came sometime after the North Korean group is believed to have departed China.
Kim traveled with all his top aides, KCNA said, including Choe Ryong Hae, often called the No. 2 leader of North Korea and the head of the powerful Organization and Guidance Department, and Ri Su Yong, the former ambassador to Switzerland and foreign minister, who is now a top official in the Politburo.
China and North Korea have had close ties for decades, but in recent years, the relationship has been stressed. Kim’s visit suggests an effort to repair relations ahead of Kim’s planned meetings with the South’s president, Moon Jae-in, and then U.S. President Donald Trump.
Chinese and North Korean accounts of the meeting struck a positive tone. “We speak highly of this visit,” Xi told Kim, according to Chinese state media.
Kim’s toast to Xi: “It is appropriate that my first trip abroad is in China’s capital, and my responsibility to consider continuing NK-China relations as valuable as life,” according to KCNA.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the news of Kim’s visit by saying that the Chinese government had briefed the Trump administration about the visit on Tuesday.
The Trump administration sees the development “as further evidence that our campaign of maximum pressure is creating the appropriate atmosphere for dialogue with North Korea,” Sanders said.
Chinese experts said a visit by a senior North Korean leader before the meetings with Moon and Trump made sense.
“At a possibly historic moment, before the start of a dramatic play on the Korean Peninsula, China was losing the spotlight,” said Cheng Xiaohe, a North Korea expert at Beijing’s Renmin University. A visit would restore Beijing’s leading role, he reasoned.
Experts also said secrecy was standard for North Korean visitors.