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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a one-day trip to China on Saturday, driving across a newly opened bridge into the border city of Dandong for his first visit to the country in more than a year.
Getting into it: Kim was hosted by Wang Huning, China’s fourth-highest-ranking official, who passed along greetings from Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two laid a wreath at a Korean War memorial in Dandong, toured a local car factory and promised to build up ties between the two countries, according to Chinese state media. The trip came the day before China marks the anniversary of its first big win in the Korean War, a battle fought days after its soldiers poured into the North in October 1950 to back Pyongyang against UN forces led by the US.
“We are grateful for China’s longstanding support and help for the socialist cause of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Kim said, according to Xinhua.
The bridge Kim crossed, the roughly two-mile, four-lane New Yalu River Bridge, opened Oct. 15 after sitting unused for about 12 years. China finished building it in 2014, but North Korea never built the roads and customs facilities needed on its side. It’s now set to run day and night, moving freight trucks and shipping containers back and forth, and Chinese experts say it should boost trade between the two countries. China already accounts for nearly all of North Korea’s outside trade after decades of international sanctions.
The visit also comes as Kim tries to rebalance after years of leaning hard on Russia, sending Moscow troops, artillery shells and missiles for its war in Ukraine in exchange for food, oil and military technology. It also showed Kim alive and well after rumors of his death spread online, claims Seoul’s intelligence service had already shot down.
This all comes as Trump heads to next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, where South Korea’s spy agency has put the odds of a Trump-Kim meeting at about 50%, even though Kim has so far turned down Trump’s offers to restart talks unless the US drops its demand that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.
