Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will join Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a military parade in Beijing next week, marking a rare joint appearance for the three in a show of unity amid growing Western pressure.
The parade, on 3 September, commemorates Japan’s formal surrender in 1945 and the end of the Second World War. China was forced to fight a long, bloody war against Japanese occupation from 1931 to 1945, making it a key front of the campaign against Axis powers.
The “Victory Day” parade in Tiananmen Square is expected to be one of China’s largest in years, featuring fighter jets, hypersonic missiles and other advanced weaponry. President Xi will review tens of thousands of troops alongside foreign dignitaries and senior Communist Party officials.
According to China’s foreign ministry, 26 foreign heads of state and government are set to attend. They include Masoud Pezashkian of Iran, Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia, Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus and Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia.
No leader from the US or another major Western country will take part, however, with Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico the only major representative from the EU.
The UN will be represented by undersecretary general for economic and social affairs Li Junhua, who was previously China’s ambassador to Italy, San Marino and Myanmar.
During his 14 years as North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un has made just a handful of notable foreign trips – four of them being to China. He has also visited Russia twice. The only other trips he has made were to Vietnam and Singapore, the latter for a summit with Donald Trump in 2018.
Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Kim’s presence at the parade in Beijing is unprecedented for being an opportunity to meet multiple world leaders in a single trip.
"It is quite unusual for Kim to attend a Victory Day ceremony, and it may be the first time Kim is attending a gathering of many heads of state, where he can meet Putin, Xi and Vietnam's Communist Party chief at once," said Mr Yang.
"Kim will seek to broaden his global status as a leader, and North Korea, China and Russia may seek to jointly respond to cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the US," said Mr Yang.
North Korea remains under strict international sanctions over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, developed in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
Experts and international officials say the sanctions have lost much of their bite amid growing economic, military, and political support from Russia and China.
Mr Xi and Mr Kim met several times in 2018 and 2019 but relations between North Korea and China have cooled since 2020 over issues such as Beijing pushing for the repatriation of North Korean labourers. China nonetheless remains North Korea’s main trading partner, accounting for about 97 per cent of its external trade in 2023.
During this period North Korea and Russia have become closer militarily and Pyongyang has sent an unprecedented number of armaments and troops to support Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Mr Putin last visited Beijing in 2024. His country has been targeted with a series of Western sanctions since it invaded Ukraine in 2022 and is looking to shore up relations with China, a key strategic partner.
North Korea’s state news agency confirmed that Mr Kim would travel at Mr Xi’s invitation, though it gave no details of whether he would hold bilateral talks with either Mr Xi or Mr Putin.
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