North Korea’s Kim in China again to seek Beijing’s help in ties with the US

As with the North Korean leader’s three visits in 2018, this visit wasn’t announced ahead by either China or North Korea. Kim Jong-un is expected to have long interactions with President Xi Jinping on whose invitation he has officially come to China.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took the train to Beijing for an unannounced three-day visit to China on Monday, his fourth since last March, amid speculation that he is seeking better ties with the US and Beijing’s advice and assurance to take forward talks on denuclearisation.

In this Monday, Jan. 7, 2019, photo provided on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks with his wife Ri Sol Ju at Pyongyang Station in Pyongyang, North Korea, before leaving for China. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) (AP)

Kim is visiting China from Monday to Thursday, said a spokesperson of the International Department of the Communist Party of China central committee in Beijing.

He is accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-ju; Tuesday, incidentally, is said to be Kim’s birthday.

As with the three visits in 2018, this visit wasn’t announced ahead by either China or North Korea.

Kim is expected to have long interactions with President Xi Jinping on whose invitation he has officially come to China.

Besides meeting Xi three times last year, Kim met US President Donald Trump for a high-profile summit in Singapore last year.

Trump had said earlier this week that the venue for a second meeting with the North Korean leader would be announced soon.

A BBC report pointed out that in his annual New Year’s speech last week, Kim said he was committed to denuclearisation but warned that he would change course if US sanctions remained.

In fact, the details about denuclearisation weren’t really spelt out by either side at the June summit between Kim and Trump.

In such a scenario, Beijing as North Korea’s key ally and main economic benefactor would be crucial to talks with Washington.

Kim met President Xi last March in Beijing, the first time that he had travelled abroad after assuming powers in 2011.

Next, he came to the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian in May when he again met Xi to discuss ties, providing the photo-op of the two leaders taking a stroll on the beach.

And in June, he again met Xi, a week after the summit with Trump in Singapore.

“Kim is likely seeking advice and assistance from China,” Wang Junsheng, a research fellow on East Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the tabloid Global Times.

“The reason North Korea can take the daring step toward denuclearisation and engagement with the US is mainly because of its trust in China,” Wang Sheng, a professor of international relations and expert on the Korean peninsula issue at Jilin University said.

China – besides sharing a border with the country -- has enough strategic reasons to remain close to developing ties between the US and North Korea.

“China will want the US and North Korea to find a peaceful way to resolve tensions and avoid conflict, and they also share the goal of denuclearisation, but their primary interest is maintaining leverage and influence in and over North Korea,” Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, had told HT after Kim’s visit to China in June.

“Ideally for China, a US-North Korea long-term deal would undermine the political rationale in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo for continued US military presence, radars, and troops on the (Korean) Peninsula and in Japan,” he had said.