Xi Jinping will visit North Korea on Monday and Tuesday, his first visit to this allied country since 2019, Chinese state media announced on Friday.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit North Korea on Monday and Tuesday, his first visit to the allied country since 2019, Chinese state media announced on Friday. “At the invitation of Kim Jong Un (…) Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and president of the People’s Republic of China, will pay a state visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on June 8 and 9.”announced the Chinese television channel CCTV.
Beijing is a key diplomatic and political support for North Korea, one of the most isolated countries in the world and subject to heavy international sanctions. China is also Pyongyang’s main trading partner and accounted for 20% of its foreign trade last year. But visits by Chinese leaders to North Korea are rare. Xi Jinping’s last trip to the country dates back to 2019. It was the first visit of this type since that of his predecessor Hu Jintao in 2005.
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Kim Jong-un, for his part, went to Beijing in September, invited alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin on the occasion of a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. North Korean state agency KCNA confirmed the visit, without giving further details.
