BEIJING: 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.
The announcement came a day after North Korea unveiled a new facility to produce the ingredients for nuclear bombs. Experts say the plant's disclosure implies that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is eager to cement his country's status as a nuclear weapons state ahead of Xi's visit.
Xi will make a state visit to the neighboring country 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 separately hosted U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing.
In recent years, Kim has placed a priority on developing relations with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine. But he's also recently been cozying up to China, the North's biggest trade partner and aid provider.
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.
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 Kim wants international recognition as a nuclear state so that he could demand the lifting of U.N. economic 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.
Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to resume diplomacy with Kim, but the North Korean leader responded the U.S. must first drop its demand for North Korea to denuclearize as a precondition for talks.
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.
