Seoul – During a military parade in Beijing featuring new generation weapons from China, another important scene was exposed: Chinese President Xi Jinping standing side by side with Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korean chief Kim Jong Un.
Their joint appearance Wednesday during a parade commemorating the end of the Second World War, is the first time that the leaders of the three countries have appeared together in public. This comes in the midst of the growing concern of the growing collaboration of “the axis of upheavals”, a term which designates China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and their opposition to the world order led by the United States.
He marks Kim’s first incursion in multilateral diplomacy since taking power in 2011. While in the past, the Reclus leader tended to avoid travel abroad due to security problems, he arrived in Beijing on Tuesday on a highly armored train known as “The Sun”, leaving for welcome that Kim Kim Kim Kim Kim Kim of Kim.
“The trip was an undeniable political victory for Kim Jong Un,” said Park Won-Gon, professor of studies in North Korea at Womans University in Seoul. “Being seen standing in the shoulder with two superpowers in China is an incredibly powerful image of propaganda to show North Korean residents.”
Kim’s growing diplomatic ambitions have involved a defense pact in recent years with Russia and the deployment of North Korean soldiers to the war in Ukraine in exchange for technological and military assistance.
In a statement published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea one day before the parade, the Deputy Minister Pak Myong Ho accused the United States and other Western governments of having openly influenced “tyranny” against “countless countries in the world”, while expressing its support for a new balance of power led by Pékin.
Experts from the South Korea National Security Institute (INSS), a government reflection group, claim that Kim’s most urgent agenda in Beijing will relive its economic exchange with China, which has slowed down in recent years in the midst of Beijing’s frustrations with the current nuclear missile program in Pyongyang.
“In economic matters, the importance of the help of China is absolute,” wrote ISS researchers in a report published before the parade.
While Moscow would have violated the UN sanctions to provide northern aid from refined oil to military drones, China is by far the largest trading partner in North Korea, representing up to 98% of Korea in Seoul trade exports in 2023, according to an analysis of the Commerce promotion agency in Seoul.
Noting that trade between North Korea and China is currently around 80% of pre -pale levels, ISS researchers stressed that the shortage of Chinese economic support – and tourist flows once stimulated – was acute in places like the Wonsan Kalma Resort, a new holiday destination on the beach.
Despite the vocal embrace of North Korea of the so-called “new Cold War” order, Russia and China hesitated to do the same,, said analysts.
“China does not win anything by forming a block with North Korea,” said Park, the professor. “Xi Jinping knows too well that at most, any attempt of this kind will be at most a cowardly gathering of countries that are positioned against the United States without any real power or cohesion of a block.”
In a joint declaration published after a meeting in May 2024, Putin and Xi said that the Chinese-Russian partnership was “a more advanced form of interstate interaction compared to the political military alliances of the Cold War era and not a block or a conflict nature”.
Although a trilateral summit between the three leaders is largely considered to be unlikely for this reason, the appearance of Kim in Beijing can, on the other hand, provide the lever effect he needs for a second round of summits with President Trump.
“I think that North Korea could be willing to discuss a decline in its nuclear program and to demand in return things as a permanent end of any joint military exercise in South Korea or to stop the deployment of strategic assets,” said Park.
Although Trump expressed the desire to sit with Kim at a summit with the South Korean president Lee Jae Myung last month, Park says that Pyongyang no longer considers the long-standing objective of the North Korean denuclearization as a viable starting point-and that the appearance of the Kim parade is probably considered another justification for this position.
