Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pyongyang this week to meet Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s supreme leader. The trip, Xi’s first to North Korea in seven years and his first time abroad in 2026, signaled a new reality in relations between the neighbors and long-time partners. While the two men promised to guide the relationship “to new heights,” this will occur as the two countries navigate circumstances that fundamentally change their respective views of each other.
China and North Korea have long celebrated ties “as close as lips and teeth” in one famous formulation. In recent years, tensions have entered the relationship as North Korea built and then expanded a nuclear arsenal in defiance of most of the world while Kim Jong Un consolidated his grip on power, indifferent to Chinese apprehensions about the way it was done.
Irritation triggered by Kim’s seeming indifference to Chinese equities — Beijing expects some deference — was compounded by the relationship he has forged with Moscow. North Korea has provided what are estimated to be thousands of troops for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in return Pyongyang has received money, energy and technology. Important as those items are, equally significant is the larger geopolitical outcome: A closer relationship with Moscow allows Kim to resume the triangular diplomacy practiced by his father and grandfather when they tried to play one patron off the other to maximize Pyongyang’s room for maneuver.
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