China's Xi Jinping to make rare visit to North Korea

Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea next week for his first visit in six years as Beijing looks to reassert ties with Pyongyang.

Xi will visit North Korea on June 8 and 9, state news agency Xinhuareported.

The trip will be Xi's second to North Korea. The Chinese president visited in 2019, before the COVID pandemic shut border crossings between the countries for years.

Xi's announcement came a day after North Korea unveiled a new facility to produce nuclear bomb fuels. During a visit to the plant, Kim detailed plans to bolster the country's nuclear forces "at an exponential rate."

South Korea's military has assessed the new nuclear facility as a uranium enrichment plant.

Experts say Kim wants international recognition as a nuclear state so that he could demand the lifting of UN economic sanctions. They say Kim would ultimately push for arms reductions talks with the US to win concessions in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to resume diplomacy with Kim, but the North Korean leader responded the US must first drop its demand for Pyongyang to denuclearise as a precondition for talks.

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

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.

Beijing has worked to draw Pyongyang back into its fold, after the COVID pandemic froze exchanges and Kim deepened relations with Moscow by sending troops and weapons to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"The message implicit from the Chinese side is ... we are still the principal actor when it comes to North Korea," said John Delury, a senior fellow of the Asia Society.

"One of the audiences is Russia," he said.

In September last year, Kim attended a military parade in Beijing commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

It was Kim's first attendance at a major multilateral event, appearing alongside Xi and Putin.

with AP and EFE