North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited China six times since taking power in 2011, but this was the first trip on which he did not meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. Even so, analysts say he came away with diplomatic gains, citing Beijing's hospitality, its message of stronger economic cooperation and the international attention drawn by the unusual trip. The visit is read as an attempt to broaden his diplomatic standing by using China and Russia as leverage, building ties with Beijing after deepening military and economic links with Moscow.
The official who greeted Kim when he arrived on the 24th in Dandong, in China's Liaoning province, was Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Wang ranks fourth in China's power hierarchy and is a close associate of Xi. He also traveled to Pyongyang in July to mark the 65th anniversary of the North Korea-China friendship treaty, holding talks with Kim on economic cooperation and other matters. During that trip he toured the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist zone, a flagship project of Kim's.
Xi is scheduled to preside over the fifth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party, China's biggest political event, from the 26th, which analysts believe left little room for talks with Kim. But because Xi gave specific instructions to host a welcome banquet and kept high-level communication going through Wang, the absence of a summit alone is not enough to conclude that China gave Kim a cold reception, some analysts said.
China also made clear during the visit that it wants to expand economic cooperation with the North. According to China's Xinhua News Agency, Kim told Wang in their talks that "the prospects for cooperation between the two sides are very broad," adding that he wants "to carry forward our historic friendship with China, expand practical cooperation and bring tangible benefits to the people of both countries." Wang replied that Kim's visit carried "important significance in continuing the traditional friendship between China and North Korea, deepening political mutual trust and jointly pursuing cooperative development." He went on to propose expanding people-to-people exchanges and economic and trade cooperation now that the New Yalu River Bridge has opened.
The New Yalu River Bridge, a four-lane crossing completed in 2014 but opened only on the 15th, is expected to become the main channel for expanding freight traffic between the two countries. Until now the only overland route was the two-lane China-North Korea Friendship Bridge, which opened in 1943. China expects the new bridge to handle up to 20,000 vehicles and 50,000 passengers a day. Standing at the midpoint of the bridge, Kim said he expected it to "carry out without a doubt its historic mission of linking the two countries and binding our hearts together even more firmly."
North Korea's external links are expanding toward Russia as well as China. A road bridge across the Tumen River between North Korea and Russia opened in September, strengthening logistics networks on both fronts at once. Hwang Tae-yeon, director of the international strategy division at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the North "will seek to raise its external bargaining power and strategic autonomy by securing both the Sinuiju-Dandong economic and logistics axis in the west and the Rason-Khasan security and logistics axis in the east."
Kim also visited a bus factory in Dandong, signaling possible technological cooperation in manufacturing. Some analysts read the stop as reflecting plans to expand transport infrastructure ahead of group tours by Chinese visitors to the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist zone. Including an industrial site inspection in such a short trip is seen as a sign of both countries' willingness to broaden economic cooperation.
The results of the trip were also publicized heavily at home. Beyond the Korean Central News Agency, the Rodong Sinmun, a newspaper aimed at domestic readers, ran news of the visit along with 39 photographs, and Korean Central Television devoted 18 minutes of coverage to it.
The North appears set to accelerate economic exchanges with China. With military and economic ties between Pyongyang and Moscow at a record high since the North sent troops to Russia, Kim is holding a winning hand.
Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said Kim "reestablished the best possible diplomatic position, with both China and Russia at his back, by reaffirming the military and historical blood alliance with China on this trip." He added that the visit also appears intended "to show the international community a relationship close enough that Kim can travel to China whenever and wherever he wants to communicate with and meet senior officials in person."
Foreign media also focused on the North's strategy toward China and Russia. Peter Ward, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute, told the Financial Times that China fundamentally wants to improve relations with North Korea while preventing Pyongyang from drawing closer to Moscow, and that Kim will seek to improve ties with Beijing to extract more from that situation. Reuters assessed that the North, which has deepened military ties with Russia over the past two years, is pursuing a sophisticated diplomatic balancing strategy.