A train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un passed into China early Tuesday, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, which cited the North’s state-run radio service. This is a rare trip outside North Korea for Kim, who is one of 26 heads of state scheduled to attend a military parade in Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
If the diplomatic visit proceeds as planned, it will be the first time that Kim, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and China’s Xi Jinping appear at the same event. On Monday, Xi and Putin took turns criticizing the West during a gathering of Eurasian leaders in Tianjin, just south of Beijing. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) promotes itself as a non-Western style of collaboration among 10 countries in the region, aiming to be an alternative to traditional alliances.
Soo Kim, a geopolitical risk consultant and former CIA analyst, told AFP that Kim’s upcoming presence “formalizes the China-Russia-North Korea trilateral (relationship) to the public.” Kim had a brief period of high-profile international diplomacy starting around 2018, meeting with US President Donald Trump and then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in multiple times. However, he withdrew from the global scene after a 2019 summit with Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, collapsed. Kim remained in North Korea throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, but he did meet with Putin in Russia’s far east in 2023.
