Weeks after US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin undertook official visits to Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a two-day visit to North Korea on Tuesday (June 8).

At a time when China is being viewed as a key player in world politics, albeit at times a measured or reluctant one, and with several major conflicts raging globally, a trip to the hermit kingdom may seem surprising. It comes seven years after Xi’s last visit to Pyongyang, while North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un last went to Beijing in 2025 for a World War 2 anniversary parade.

What may be prompting China’s outreach to North Korea at this moment, and what are some hurdles in their ties?

Ties rooted in history, strategy

On the face of it, an industrial behemoth such as China might seem to have little to gain from aligning with one of the poorest and least integrated nations in the world.

Manoj Kewalramani, Chairperson of the Geostrategy Programme at the think tank Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru, said this being Xi’s first foreign visit this year should not be “overstated”. “Frankly, Beijing derives little tangible benefit from its relationship with North Korea today… What it primarily gains is an ideological ally and a buffer state between China and the US-allied South Korea,” he told The Indian Express.

Since the founding of both nations in 1949 and 1948, respectively, geopolitical circumstances have strongly defined the ties.

After the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945, emerging superpowers sought to take control of the region’s fate. Under the policy of “Containment” and the possibility of the spread of Communism, the United States sought to prevent the USSR and China from having another ally in the region.

According to the Wilson Quarterly, a journal published by the Washington DC-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, China’s involvement in the war and support for North Korea stemmed from its reading of US military actions. Shortly after Japan’s surrender in World War 2, forces of the USSR and the US took control of the northern and southern regions of Korea, and over time, those divisions hardened.

The journal noted, “After the successful amphibious landings at Inchon (near Seoul) by UN forces in September 1950, Mao’s fears of advancing American forces intensified. The prospect of a two-front war in Northeast China and Taiwan risked the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) losing control entirely.” This prompted the entry of Chinese forces and a war, culminating in an armistice in 1953.

The same year, Mao Zedong said in a speech, “We fought US imperialism, an enemy wielding weapons many times superior to ours, and yet we were able to win and compelled it to agree to a truce.” This framing has endured — of foreign nations seeking to subdue China as a modern-day form of colonialism, led by the US, and the Communist Party defending the nation against it. And, with US allies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines in the neighbourhood, China has continued to see value in ties with North Korea.

Kewalramani said that Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes also keep the US “concerned, occupied, and interested in working with Beijing” to constrain North Korea’s aggression.

Over the decades, China has become the biggest benefactor of North Korea, providing it an economic lifeline when most of the world’s major economies have imposed sanctions on it. A vast majority of tourists visiting North Korea before the Covid-19 pandemic were from China.

North Korea is also the only nation with which China has a mutual defence treaty, where an attack on either requires the other to join its defence. This year marks the 65th anniversary of the signing of the China-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.

Not all smooth-sailing

Both countries, however, are also aware of the pitfalls of overreliance on the other. China has supported calls for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula — a goal that Kim Yo-Jung, the sister of the Supreme Leader, recently called an “anachronistic dream”.

Notably, China has earlier opposed Iran, its ally in West Asia, becoming a nuclear-armed state. More recent statements from China did not have the word “denuclearisation” in the context of North Korea.

Sydney Seiler, a senior adviser (non-resident) with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, wrote that “At a macro level, President Xi is likely hoping to demonstrate a dynamic leading role on the international stage—particularly within the China, Russia, Iran, North Korea (CRINK) grouping of revisionist autocracies—while portraying U.S. influence globally as in decline.”

“Though observers hope that Xi might increase pressure on North Korean denuclearization or even draw a red line seeking to discourage Kim from moving even closer to Russia, these outcomes are unlikely,” he added.

For its part, North Korea has looked towards Russia in times of crisis and as a counter to China. It has even lent troops to Russia in its war with Ukraine, and according to the South China Morning Post, “Moscow has reportedly transferred advanced weapons technology to Pyongyang, blocked UN sanctions and effectively recognised it as a nuclear state” in return.

Kewalramani said that the relationship with China also works only to the extent that Pyongyang cannot effectively diversify its network of patrons. “Recently, North Korea has pursued deeper ties with Russia to invest in such diversification. This has evidently concerned Beijing, which worries that the mutual defense agreement (which North Korea signed with Russia in 2024) would lead to greater autonomy for Pyongyang and potentially provide a pathway for NATO to expand into East Asia.”

During this trip, Kim and his sister signalled their stance on the country’s nuclear weapons programme before Xi arrived. That there was no mention of the nuclear issue in Xi’s reported remarks or Chinese readouts was noteworthy, he added. 

There has been some warming in China-North Korea ties more recently, and the trip could be a part of that trajectory. Xi invited Kim (alongside Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other leaders) to a military parade in Beijing last year, which added to that analysis. That invite led to a Truth Social post from Trump, who asked Xi to “please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America”.