BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea next week, state media said Friday, the latest in a series of high-level summits as Beijing asserts its position as a diplomatic superpower on the world stage. State broadcaster CCTV said that Xi would visit from June 8 to 9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his first trip to Pyongyang in seven years. Beijing is a vital source of political and economic support to North Korea, which is one of the most diplomatically isolated countries in the world and under heavy international sanctions. The upcoming meeting will be Xi&#39;s first official trip abroad this year, and comes after he hosted back-to-back summits with US President Donald Trump and Russia&#39;s Vladimir Putin last month. &quot;China is meeting leaders from around the world, coordinating positions and playing a mediating role,&quot; Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea&#39;s Kyungnam University, told AFP. &quot;As China&#39;s international standing rises, Beijing is likely seeking to draw Pyongyang more actively into its diplomatic orbit as a partner in advancing a more multilateral order.&quot; Pyongyang depends on China for up to 95% of total trade and 85% of its exports, according to 2022 statistics from the National Committee on North Korea, a Washington-based think tank. But North Korea has drawn closer to Russia in recent years, particularly since Moscow&#39;s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Pyongyang sending thousands of troops and weapons to support the war effort. In return, analysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology, food, and energy, helping it circumvent sanctions over its banned nuclear programmes. Xi&#39;s choice of Pyongyang for his first overseas trip of 2026 is &quot;a deliberate visual rebuttal to the prevailing read in Western capitals that Pyongyang had quietly migrated into Moscow&#39;s orbit&quot;, said Seong-Hyon Lee from the George H. W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations. Managing the relationshipXi last met Kim in September, when he invited the North Korean leader and Russia&#39;s Vladimir Putin as guests of honor to a military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over imperial Japan in World War II. In 2019, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan were welcomed to North Korea with great pomp and fanfare to celebrate the two countries&#39; &quot;unbreakable friendship&quot;. Prior to that trip, no Chinese leader had visited the North since Hu Jintao in 2005. Beijing&#39;s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a visit to Pyongyang in April that China and Korea should &quot;enhance coordination&quot; on international and regional issues and &quot;maintain close communication and interaction&quot;. China&#39;s interests include keeping an eye on North Korea&#39;s nuclear programme, the advancement of which is &quot;extremely rapid&quot;, Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) told AFP. &quot;This aspect needs to be managed. If North Korea acts in a provocative and belligerent manner, it could trigger regional conflict, which could run counter to China&#39;s interests,&quot; Hong said. Kim vowed an &quot;exponential&quot; increase in nuclear military capabilities on Wednesday as he visited a new atomic facility, Pyongyang&#39;s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. South Korea&#39;s foreign ministry has said it hopes exchanges between North Korea and China contribute to peace and stability, and that China can play a constructive role. Pyongyang has repeatedly shunned efforts by the South Korean government to improve relations, calling Seoul its most &quot;hostile&quot; adversary. Traditional US allies, including Britain&#39;s Keir Starmer and France&#39;s Emmanuel Macron, have also come to Beijing. However, Hong, of KINU, judged the chances that Xi might help broker a meeting between Trump and Kim as &quot;very low&quot;.

This June 21, 2019 picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 22, 2019 shows China's President Xi Jinping (centre R) speaking with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (front L) upon his departure at the airport in P

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State broadcaster CCTV said that Xi would visit from June 8 to 9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his first trip to Pyongyang in seven years.



China's Xi to visit North Korea next week

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ISLAMABAD: Donald Trump is set to become the first US president to visit China in nearly a decade, with tensions over Iran, rare earths, and trade expected to dominate his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week.&nbsp; The long-anticipated May 14-15 summit comes amid heightened geopolitical tensions, with the Middle East conflict rattling global energy markets. Despite the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran, AFP reported that Trump&rsquo;s visit is expected to happen, with an advance US team already in Beijing.&nbsp; &quot;What we are not looking for is massive confrontation or anything like that&quot; with China, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said last month, adding that &quot;the United States economic and trade relationship with China is stable and US President Donald Trump will aim to keep it that way in the meeting.&quot; Pressure on Iran&nbsp;CNBC reported that the Iran war is likely to take centre stage at the summit, leaving less scope to resolve issues like tariffs and rare earth supplies. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already said that Iran will be a topic in the meetings. AFP says Christopher Padilla of advisory firm Brunswick expects Trump &quot;would like China to continue pushing Iran to make a deal.&quot; Both sides will likely discuss China&#39;s oil purchases from Iran, Greer told Bloomberg Television this week. &quot;The topic of Iran will be hard to avoid in the Trump-Xi meeting,&quot; experts said, although they added this was &quot;not a domain China is eager to engage deeply on&quot;, AFP reported. &quot;The reality is that right now, Iran is critical for the US, and the Chinese know that,&quot; said Edgard Kagan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Lizzi Lee at the Asia Society Policy Institute said Washington was already &quot;raising pre-summit pressure on China by targeting its economic ties with Tehran&quot;.&nbsp; However, analysts said China was unlikely to accept pressure from Washington over Iran or Russia. &quot;China may have some influence but not decisive control,&quot; AFP quoted Yue Su from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), adding Beijing would seek to avoid &quot;additional complications&quot; such as fresh tariffs linked to its trade with Iran. Rare earths&nbsp;China dominates the global rare earths industry and remains one of Beijing&rsquo;s strongest bargaining tools. Washington has a strong interest in encouraging China to keep rare earth exports open, Wuttke said, especially as it needs supplies for the development and replenishment of weapons. &quot;Trump appears focused on preserving this truce and using the time to build insulation against dependence on China for key inputs,&quot; Ryan Hass of the Brookings Institution said. Trump has shown that he &quot;cares a lot about&quot; rare earths, said Joe Mazur, a geopolitics analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China. &#39;Board of Trade&#39; and tariff truceUS officials are also expected to push Chinese purchases in sectors such as agriculture, aircraft, and energy.&nbsp; Padilla said Washington was looking to establish a &ldquo;Board of Trade&rdquo; mechanism that could formalize future purchasing agreements in non-sensitive sectors such as consumer electronics. Trump warned last month he would impose a 50% tariff on Chinese goods if Beijing provided military assistance to Iran.&nbsp; China is meanwhile expected to seek an extension of the one-year trade truce agreed by Trump and Xi during their October meeting in South Korea after a tariff war that saw US duties on some Chinese goods rise to 145%.&nbsp; Conditions have shifted since. While some tariffs linked to fentanyl supply chains remain in place, the Trump administration has also launched new investigations that could lead to new duties. What does China want?&nbsp;Beyond diplomatic niceties and behind closed doors, Beijing will be looking for small, concrete achievements, analysts said, but will stay &quot;realistically pragmatic&quot; given Trump&#39;s unpredictable nature. China wants a broad reset in ties but knows this would be unlikely, said Benjamin Ho from Singapore&#39;s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. &quot;What China needs is for Trump to follow through on his promise to engage, with at least a few concrete outcomes discussed at the highest level,&quot; said Yue Su. Beijing will be satisfied with &quot;targeted&quot; results such as limited tariff reductions that would justify a measured rollback of its own tariffs or export restrictions, she said.

This combination of pictures created on March 16, 2026, shows (L) China's President Xi Jinping, and (R) US President Donald Trump (AFP).

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The summit comes amid rising geopolitical tensions, with both sides aiming to navigate disputes over Tehran, rare earths, and tariffs; US officials are also expected to push Chinese purchases in sectors such as agriculture, aircraft, and energy. 

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China's Xi to visit North Korea next week

Trump-Xi summit to focus on Iran, tariffs and rare earths