The Chinese government news agency Xinhua detailed in its coverage of dictator Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea this week that the Communist Party chief urged counterpart Kim Jong-un to consider deepening cooperation with his country on “military affairs,” among other issues.
Xi conducted a brief visit to Pyongyang on Monday and Tuesday, departing North Korea on Tuesday after being honored with a Kim family banquet and organized throngs of people cheering him on. In remarks shared by Chinese and North Korean state media, Xi emphasized his intention to generate “trust” between the two countries, an admission that bilateral ties had suffered significant damage in the past decade.
While once North Korea’s undisputed closest ally, to the point of North Korea being viewed as a Chinese proxy regime, Kim Jong-un began realigning his country’s diplomacy away from Beijing and towards Moscow during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, which Pyongyang hinted had affected the dictator’s health personally. Kim elevated ties to Russia most significantly in the military sector, signing a mutual defense treaty with visiting Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in 2024 that immediately preceded the large-scale deployment of North Korean soldiers to Europe where they are currently fighting on behalf of Russia in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Sharing Xi’s comments to Kim in Pyongyang, the Xinhua News Agency paraphrased Xi mentioning military cooperation as an area of potential development.
“Both sides should enhance exchanges in diplomacy, law enforcement, military affairs, and others, implement the important consensus reached between the two leaders, and pool wisdom and strength for the development of China-DPRK relations,” Xinhua relayed Xi as telling Kim. “Xi said that the two countries should strengthen strategic coordination, firmly safeguard their respective sovereignty, security, and development interests, and jointly uphold regional peace and development.”
The Xinhua report also summarized some of Kim’s comments to Xi, which did not include any mention of military support. Instead, Kim emphasized “cooperation in such areas as economy and trade, infrastructure, science and technology, education, as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges.”
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the main North Korean government news organization, shared on Tuesday that further conversations that day between the two leaders involved “international and regional issues,” including “security.” This corresponded with Xinhua coverage describing “in-depth discussions on safeguarding peace and stability in the region and the world.” The KCNA report did not specify if military cooperation was part of the security conversation, and discussion of North Korea’s illicit nuclear weapons program was entirely absent from KCNA coverage. The South Korean news agency Yonhap confirmed on Tuesday that it had not found any public statements from either side on the nuclear issue.
Yonhap reported on Tuesday that the government in Seoul had taken note of Xi suggesting greater involvement with the North Korean military. An anonymous official with the South Korean Unification Ministry told Yonhap that, to the organization’s knowledge, “it was the first known case in which the subject has been raised publicly.” The official likely meant in modern, post-armistice history, as China and North Korea infamously joined forces militarily to fight the South and America in the Korean War prior to the end of active hostilities in 1953. As the two Koreas and their allies are technically in a state of war given the lack of a formal peace treaty, Seoul considers discussion of expanded Chinese involvement with the North Korean military of particular interest to its national security.
In addition to Xi’s comments, Yonhap noted that Xi brought along in his Pyongyang entourage the nation’s defense minister, Dong Jun, suggesting that he expected to have conversations with the North Korean leadership on military matters. KCNA listed Dong as a guest at the lavish banquet that Kim threw for Xi Jinping on Monday night, but no state coverage shared any comments or activity by Dong besides his presence at the events.
While North Korea is known to possess dozens of nuclear warheads and regularly tests various ballistic missiles, prior to its dealings with Russia it appeared to struggle with improving military technology in other sectors. The Russian-North Korean cooperation on military issues publicly consists only of North Korea deploying troops to Kursk, a Russian region counter-invaded by Ukraine, and in signing the mutual defense treaty. Observers noted in late 2024, however, that Pyongyang appeared to rapidly upgrade some of its military technology after the Putin visit. Notably, Kim announced in November of that year that North Korea was now allegedly producing indigenous suicide drones.
South Korean technology observers noted that the photos of the alleged North Korean drones showed striking similarities to Iranian and Russian models, particularly the Iranian “Shahed” models known to be used in warfare against Ukraine. Others recalled that, upon Kim Jong-un’s visit to Russia in September 2023, the Russian government gifted him “five kamikaze drones and a ‘Geran-25’ reconnaissance drone with vertical takeoff,” an apparent violation of international sanctions on Pyongyang.
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