Xi visits Pyongyang, vows support for Kim as ties deepen

Xi Jinping’s two-day visit to Pyongyang ended with a public pledge that Beijing would not waver in its support for Kim Jong Un, a signal that goes well beyond ceremony. The trip, Xi’s first official visit to North Korea since 2019 and his first overseas trip of 2026, underscored China’s effort to reassert influence over its only formal treaty ally as North Korea deepens ties with Russia.

Xi told Kim that China would safeguard common interests with North Korea and carry their “great traditional friendship” forward from generation to generation. The meeting came after Xi had recently hosted Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Beijing, placing the Pyongyang stop squarely in the middle of a broader diplomatic sequence in which Beijing is signaling that it remains a central player in Asian security, even as Washington tries to manage pressure on the Korean Peninsula.

The optics were carefully chosen. On Tuesday, Xi and Kim visited the China-DPRK Friendship Tower in Pyongyang, a monument to Chinese soldiers who fought in the Korean War. They later went to the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Cadres Training School, where they planted a fir tree, a gesture meant to symbolize enduring and ever-renewing friendship. North Korean state media said Kim viewed Xi’s choice of Pyongyang for his first state visit of the year as proof of the importance China places on bilateral ties.

Yet the summit also exposed the practical stakes behind the choreography. Analysts said North Korea may have used the meeting to seek economic concessions or at least tacit recognition of its nuclear status, but no concrete deals were announced. That leaves the visit as a strategic signal rather than a policy breakthrough, one that could matter for sanctions enforcement, regional deterrence and the balance of leverage the United States can bring to Asia. If Beijing is willing to deepen support for Kim while Pyongyang draws closer to Moscow, pressure on North Korea may become harder to sustain and more easily absorbed by a hardened alliance network.