Chinese leader Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea next week in first visit since 2019

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea next week, both countries announced Friday, in what will be his first visit in nearly seven years.

His trip will the latest in a series of steps by China to reinforce its close ties with its nuclear-armed neighbor, whose leader Kim Jong Un has reached out to Russia in recent years, notably by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine.

Kim has likewise been cozying up again to China, the North’s biggest trade partner and aid provider, in the past year.

“As North Korea builds closer ties with Russia, China seeks to use Xi’s trip to reassert its influence over Pyongyang and safeguard its strategic interests in northeast Asia,” said William Yang, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Xi will make a state visit from Monday to Tuesday, state media from both nations said in brief dispatches. His last visit was in June 2019.

The trip will come just weeks after Xi hosted U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in quick succession in Beijing.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has long been a major concern for the United States, which opposes it. The U.N. has imposed economic sanctions on North Korea because of its nuclear and missile development.

The announcement of the trip came a day after North Korea unveiled a new facility to produce the ingredients for nuclear bombs. South Korea’s military has assessed the new nuclear facility as a uranium enrichment plant.

During a visit to the plant, Kim announced plans to bolster the country’s nuclear forces “at an exponential rate.” Experts say the plant’s disclosure implies that Kim was eager to cement his country’s status as a nuclear weapons state ahead of Xi’s visit.

The experts say Kim wants international recognition as a nuclear state so that he can demand the lifting of the sanctions. They say Kim would ultimately push for arms reductions talks with the U.S. to win concessions in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability.

Kim has been focusing on expanding his nuclear arsenal since his high-stakes diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to restore diplomacy with Kim, but the North Korean leader has said the U.S. must first drop its demand for North Korea to denuclearize as a precondition for talks.

Xi and Kim met in Beijing in September and pledged mutual support and enhanced cooperation. Kim was in the Chinese capital to attend a Chinese military parade alongside other foreign leaders including Putin.

Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, have previously frustrated the U.S. and others’ efforts to toughen international sanctions on North Korea, despite its banned weapons tests.

At their meeting in Beijing last month, Putin and Xi expressed their opposition to “foreign policy isolation, economic sanctions, military pressure and other methods of creating threats to the security” of North Korea, according to a statement from the Kremlin.

Embracing the ideas of a “new Cold War” and a multipolar world, Kim has pushed for a more assertive foreign policy by expanding ties with countries locked in confrontations with the United States.

Xi, who traveled widely in his first years in power, has curtailed his international trips sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic. His last overseas trip was to South Korea last fall for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he talked with Trump.

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Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press writer Simina Mistreanu contributed from Taipei, Taiwan.