Xi and Kim pledge deeper ties a day after unprecedented show of unity with Putin at Chinese military parade

By Nectar Gan, Yoonjung Seo, Yong Xiong, CNN

(CNN) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un have pledged to deepen strategic coordination in their first formal summit in six years, after they put on an unprecedented show of unity against the West alongside Russia’s Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade.

Xi met Kim, who has sent troops to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday and hosted him for tea and dinner afterwards, according to Chinese state media.

The two leaders – who last met during Xi’s first state visit to North Korea in 2019 – reaffirmed that their commitment to bilateral friendship will not waver “no matter how the international situation changes.”

Hailing China and North Korea as “good neighbors, good friends and good comrades bound by shared destiny,” Xi said the two countries “should strengthen strategic coordination in international and regional affairs to safeguard common interests,” according to Chinese state media.

Kim told Xi that North Korea will “invariably support” China in defending Chinese sovereignty, territory and development interests, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The summit could hint at a restoration of ties between the two Communist states after they grew more distant in recent years as North Korea grew closer to Russia, analysts say.

For the first time, the “denuclearization of the Korea Peninsular” was not mentioned in the Chinese readout, in a major break with precedents of the two leaders’ four earlier summits, held between 2018 and 2019.

Kim’s illegal nuclear weapons program has transformed North Korea into the most heavily sanctioned state in the world. However Russia – and to a lesser extent China – have become less openly critical of that program in recent years as tensions with western powers have risen.

In 2022, China and Russia for the first time vetoed a US-led resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling for additional sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches.

Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said Kim’s summit with Xi represented a diplomatic victory for Pyongyang’s open embrace of nuclear weapons.

“Beijing and Pyongyang spoke warmly of friendship while leaving the issue of denuclearization untouched – effectively acquiescing to North Korea’s nuclear status,” he said.

Experts in South Korea are taking note, too. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said the readouts of the summit implied that North Korea had been given justification to continue holding onto its nuclear power.

“China’s support for North Korea’s core interests could be interpreted as a tacit acceptance of the country’s nuclear-power status in reality,” Lim added.

Hosted for tea

Xi, Putin and Kim took center stage at China’s military parade marking 80 years of the end of World War II on Wednesday.

The trio – who had never appeared together in public before – formed the defiant face of an emerging bloc of illiberal leaders determined to push back against Western rules and tilt the global balance of power in their favor.

The parade – attended by leaders of 26 countries including Iran, Pakistan and Belarus – gave the heavily sanctioned Kim a rare chance to stand alongside political heavyweights on the global stage.

Among the 26 foreign leaders, only Putin and Kim were hosted by Xi to tea and a banquet following their formal sit-downs at the Great Hall of the People – a further sign of their prominence in Xi’s diplomatic orbit.

While Chinese state media did not specify where the tea chats and banquets are held, Russian state media said Putin was invited to Xi’s residence in Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party’s secretive leadership compound.

Wednesday’s staggering show of China’s military might capped days of diplomacy and pageantry by Xi to tout his country as an alternative global leader to the United States, at a time when President Donald Trump is upending American alliances and waging a trade war.

After the parade, Kim and Putin met for two and a half hours on the sidelines, where they discussed “long-term” cooperation plans, according to North Korean state media. Putin praised North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces against Ukraine, invited Kim to visit Russia, and saw him off with a hug.

In his meeting with Xi on Thursday, Kim said he was “deeply moved” by China’s WWII commemoration.

“The commemoration not only highlighted the historic contributions of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people’s courageous struggle for world peace and stability, but also powerfully demonstrated China’s elevated international status and influence,” Kim said. “For this, I feel as happy as if it were my own matter.”

China has been the main political and economic patron for North Korea for decades, accounting for over 95% of its total trade and providing a crucial lifeline for its heavily sanctioned economy. North Korea is also China’s only formal ally, with a mutual defense treaty signed in 1961.

But as Pyongyang has greatly expanded its missile and nuclear programs since the early 2000s, some foreign policy analysts in Beijing increasingly saw North Korea as more of a liability than strategic ally.

Fighting for Russia

In recent years, North Korea has moved closer to Russia as Putin turned to Kim for weapons and troops to sustain his war on Ukraine. Last year, the two leaders signed a landmark mutual defense pact in Pyongyang, committing to provide immediate military assistance to each other if under attack – a move that has rattled the US and its Asian allies.

Officially, China dismissed the pact as a “bilateral matter” between Russia and North Korea. But analysts say Xi was likely watching warily as Putin and Kim forged a new alliance that could complicate East Asia’s fragile security balance, draw more US focus to the region, and undercut Beijing’s efforts to manage stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Beijing is worried that Moscow’s assistance to Pyongyang in return for its weapons and troops – especially on military technology – would further enable and embolden the erratic Kim regime, which has drastically accelerated the buildup of nuclear weapons and missile programs, analysts say.

Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford, said China is not “angry” at the rapprochement between North Korea and Russia, but “emetic, nauseous, and uneasy.”

“After all, prior to the Russia-North Korea (mutual defence) treaty… North Korea was the only country with whom China had a mutual defence pact, and vice versa,” he said.

Were China truly angry about the deepening cooperation, it could put an end to it by no longer helping North Korea evade sanctions or no longer enabling Russia’s war through trade in dual-use goods, Howell noted.

“China has done neither of these things, and will only continue to assist North Korea in evading sanctions whilst refraining from getting involved in any Russia-North Korea dynamics,” he said. “China wants to ensure that North Korea knows of Beijing’s desire to maintain influence over the Peninsula, but on the part of Pyongyang, it will keep trying to extract benefits from both Moscow and Beijing.”

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CNN’s Simone McCarthy contributed reporting.