China's Xi visits North Korea after Trump, Putin meetings

China's President Xi Jinping hailed an "invincible friendship" with Pyongyang as he headed to North Korea for a visit, his first trip abroad this year after hosting back-to-back summits in Beijing.

China, Washington's chief geopolitical rival, has been North Korea's main trading partner by far for decades and a key source of diplomatic and economic support for the sanction-hit country of around 26 million people.

Mr Xi's trip to North Korea is his first since 2019, and comes after he received US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks separately in China's capital.

It also came as North Korea's nuclear talks with Washington remain deadlocked.

The White House said last month that Mr Xi and Mr Trump "confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea" during their summit in Beijing.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday the two leaders would "exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern", and "make greater contributions to regional and even world peace".

However, leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister said just a day before Mr Xi's arrival that North Korea's nuclear weapons programme was "the line of no retreat".

China has "always prioritised stability and is currently having to manage its relations and differences with the US", Minseon Ku, a diplomacy professor at DePaul University, told AFP.

"Beijing probably has accepted North Korea as a nuclear state," but Xi "will probably tell Kim that China wants stability more than anything".

Elevated status

North Korea has repeatedly declared itself an "irreversible" nuclear state since Mr Kim and Mr Trump's 2019 summit collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.

Mr Trump met Mr Kim three times in his first term, but his comment in October that he was "100%" open to another meeting went unanswered.

Mr Kim has also been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Moscow after sending thousands of troops to fight alongside Russian forces.

In an article published on the front page of North Korea's Rodong Sinmun, Mr Xi pledged closer cooperation.

"No matter how the times change or how the international situation evolves, the traditional friendship between China and North Korea is always invincible," Mr Xi wrote.

Mr Xi last met Mr Kim in September, when he invited the North Korean leader and Mr Putin as guests of honour to a military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over imperial Japan in World War II.

Taiwan counterweight

A series of world leaders have come calling on Mr Xi as an increasingly unpredictable United States under Mr Trump has pushed many to shore up alliances with Beijing.

Conflicts in the Middle East have also consumed more of Washington's attention, and Mr Trump has made little progress on North Korea, especially on the nuclear front, despite his earlier high-profile summits with Kim.

North Korea is also the only country with an official, binding military alliance with China.

Beijing claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, and North Korea could also serve as a useful counterweight to US partners in the region, including South Korea and Japan, analysts said.

Long-frosty China-Japan ties have deteriorated since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a security hawk, suggested last year that Tokyo might intervene militarily in any Chinese attempt to take Taiwan.