Xi heads to Pyongyang as Kim leans further toward Russia

Xi Jinping will visit North Korea from June 8 to 9, his first trip there since June 2019 and his first publicly confirmed overseas trip of 2026. The timing turns the trip into a test of power, not just protocol: China is North Korea’s only formal treaty ally, yet Kim Jong Un has spent the past year deepening military ties with Russia and reducing his reliance on Beijing.

The visit comes after Xi hosted separate summits in Beijing with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin last month, underscoring how much of China’s diplomacy now runs through great-power competition. Beijing has worked to pull Pyongyang back into its orbit after the pandemic froze exchanges and after Kim sent troops and weapons to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. Xi’s first trip to North Korea in seven years is meant to show that China still has a role in shaping the Korean Peninsula, even as North Korea becomes less isolated through Moscow.

The symbolism is sharp. The China-North Korea Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was signed on July 11, 1961, and 2026 marks its 65th anniversary. South Korean diplomatic authorities had been watching for a June 11 visit tied to that milestone, but the trip is now set for June 8-9. Xi’s last visit in June 2019 was the first by a Chinese leader in 14 years, and Kim’s own appearance at a military parade in Beijing in September 2025, alongside Xi and Putin, showed how the regional alignment has shifted. After that parade, Xi said China attached great importance to the traditional friendship between the two countries and that the position would remain unchanged despite changes in the international landscape.

The days before the announcement added another layer of urgency. North Korea unveiled a new facility to produce ingredients for nuclear bombs on June 4, and South Korea’s military assessed it as a uranium enrichment plant. Kim said he wanted to strengthen North Korea’s nuclear forces “at an exponential rate.” Against that backdrop, analysts say Xi’s trip is an effort to reassert Chinese influence and remind Pyongyang that Moscow cannot replace Beijing.

That matters for Washington, Seoul and Tokyo. The triangle between China, Russia and North Korea is still fluid, but it already complicates U.S. security strategy in East Asia. Beijing wants to keep North Korea from becoming dependent on Russia alone, while also signaling that any future security order around the Korean Peninsula will still have to account for China’s leverage over Kim.