Kim Returns Home After Unannounced Visit to Dandong, China
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un returned home on Saturday after a day-long trip to the Chinese border city of Dandong, according to Beijing’s state media. The Kim Dandong visit was not announced in advance by either country, and its purpose was not immediately clear.
Kim is thought to have crossed into China via a major border bridge that officially opened last week, 12 years after its completion. South Korean lawmaker Youn Kun-young said Kim was understood to have met Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Saturday. A readout from China’s Xinhua news agency did not mention talks between Kim and President Xi Jinping or Li. Instead, it said Wang Huning, Beijing’s top political adviser, accompanied Kim in Dandong and saw him off at the bridge at the end of the trip.
Inside the Kim Dandong visit
The trip fell near the date both countries use to mark the entry of Chinese troops into the Korean War. Kim attended a memorial ceremony for fallen soldiers and visited an automobile factory, Xinhua said. China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, also took part in the events.
Xinhua quoted Wang Huning as saying the visit was significant for consolidating public goodwill towards the friendship, deepening political mutual trust and jointly pursuing cooperation and development. Wang also conveyed Xi’s cordial greetings and best wishes to the North Korean leader.
In Dandong late on Saturday, the bridge stood empty and the surrounding neighbourhood was quiet. One resident, Zhao, a 50-year-old driver, told AFP it was quite good that Kim had visited. He said a closer relationship between the two countries could benefit his city, adding that when the two countries engage with each other, it will naturally benefit border cities in China economically.
Why the bridge matters
The New Yalu River Bridge was completed in 2014, but its opening was delayed because connecting roads and customs facilities on the North Korean side were not ready, according to South Korean news reports. Its opening came just over a month after North Korea and Russia opened their first road bridge.
That timing is the heart of the story. China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and a vital source of diplomatic, economic and political support for Pyongyang. A working bridge at Dandong, the main crossing point between the two countries, could ease trade and travel after years of delay. For a country under long-running United Nations sanctions, that link carries real weight.
Analysts read the trip in the same light. Yang Moo-jin, former president of the South’s University of North Korean Studies, told AFP that Kim may have sought to press China to move more quickly on commitments agreed during Xi’s visit to North Korea this year. He added that Kim may also have sought Beijing’s active support and cooperation ahead of a possible summit with United States President Donald Trump in Shenzhen.
The wider tensions behind the trip
Hours before South Korea’s Yonhap news agency first reported Saturday’s visit, North Korean state media said Kim had urged his military at a major meeting in Pyongyang to train to become the strongest in the world. His call for what he dubbed a Korean-style military revolution came soon after Seoul’s military proposed talks to clarify the shared border with the North, following an explosion inside the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone.
Seoul’s military proposed the talks on Friday after it blamed the blast, which injured South Korean soldiers and severely strained bilateral relations, on North Korean landmines. Pyongyang strongly rejects the claim. North Korea has not responded to the proposal and previously rejected the South’s demand for an apology over the explosion. The two countries remain technically at war, as their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The nuclear question hangs over all of it. Despite long-running sanctions, North Korea has enshrined its status as a nuclear-armed state in law. South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung, who has repeatedly offered Pyongyang talks without preconditions, suggested in September that Washington seek a freeze, rather than the immediate elimination, of the North’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Critics say such an approach risks tacitly accepting North Korea as a nuclear-armed state while allowing Pyongyang to win sanctions relief without giving up its arsenal. Analysts say China has also appeared to move towards implicit acceptance, after Kim hosted Xi in Pyongyang in June and neither side mentioned denuclearisation in their official statements after that meeting.
