OAN Staff Jenna Lee
9:06 AM – Saturday, June 6, 2026
China has announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea next week for the first time since 2019, in a clear bid to shore up Beijing’s ties with its neighbor after Pyongyang grew closer to Russia.
Xi is scheduled to meet with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un during his two-day state visit starting next Monday, according to state media agency Xinhua on Friday.
“The visit will be an opportunity for the two sides to work together to further advance bilateral ties in keeping with the times, promote the welfare of the two peoples, and contribute more to peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and beyond,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.
“This year marks the 65th anniversary of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK,” she added.
Dating back to 1961, China’s only formal defense treaty was signed less than a decade after Chinese troops fought alongside North Korea in the Korean War.
While the treaty was on the verge of lapsing in 2021 due to pandemic-era border closures, Xi and Kim ultimately renewed the pact for an additional 20 years to signal their “unswerving support” for each other against “hostile forces.”
The announcement of the trip comes just one day after North Korea revealed a new facility suspected to be a uranium enrichment plant for nuclear weapons. Kim announced plans to increase the country’s nuclear forces “at an exponential rate” during a visit to the plant.
Experts believe the sudden disclosure is timed to cement Kim’s leverage and status as a nuclear-armed state ahead of Xi’s arrival.
Ultimately, the visit gives Xi a chance to rebalance China’s relationships and signal Beijing’s dominance at a moment of global uncertainty.
“As North Korea builds closer ties with Russia, China seeks to use Xi’s trip to reassert its influence over Pyongyang and safeguard its strategic interests in northeast Asia,” noted William Yang, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have been noticeably cooler in recent years, accelerated by North Korea’s strict COVID-19 isolation and its subsequent pivot toward Moscow—which recently included deploying thousands of North Korean troops to aid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
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