Kim Jong-un Returns to China, This Time With Leverage

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North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, visited China in March and May this year. Chinese state media reported that he would make a two-day visit to China starting Tuesday.CreditKorean Central News Agency, via Reuters

By Jane Perlez

June 18, 2018

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BEIJING — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, arrived in China on Tuesday to begin a two-day visit, at which he was expected to brief Chinese leaders about his historic meeting with President Trump and use his enhanced position on the world stage to seek relief from international sanctions.

The surprise trip, just one week after Mr. Kim’s landmark summit meeting in Singapore with Mr. Trump, was his third visit to China since March. It was announced by Xinhua, China’s official news agency, on Tuesday morning; Mr. Kim’s previous trips to China were not made public until after they were over.

Mr. Kim’s visit comes as a trade conflict between the United States and China is intensifying, giving him an opening to play one power against the other — a tactic he appears ready to use as the United States presses him to dismantle his nuclear arsenal.

“The visit is taking place against the backdrop of the upcoming full-blown trade war,” said Cheng Xiaohe, a Korea expert at Renmin University in Beijing.

For his first visit to China, in March — also his first trip abroad, and his first meeting with a head of state, since becoming the North’s leader — Mr. Kim arrived in Beijing aboard an armored train, and he spent two days in the capital for talks with President Xi Jinping. In May, Mr. Kim visited the port city of Dalian, also spending time with Mr. Xi.

This time, Mr. Kim arrived much like any other foreign leader, landing at Beijing’s international airport and taking a stretch limousine into the city center.

After six years of never venturing abroad, and rarely accepting foreign visitors to his capital, Pyongyang, Mr. Kim almost appears to be making up for lost time. In addition to his Singapore meeting with Mr. Trump, the first between leaders of their two countries, he has been to South Korea twice this year. He has also accepted an invitation from Mr. Trump to visit Washington, and President Vladimir V. Putin has asked him to visit Russia in September.

Mr. Kim’s visit Tuesday, his third to China in less than three months, seemed to indicate that relations between the neighboring states were genuinely warming, after recent years of strain as the young leader accelerated the country’s nuclear and missile programs. One likely reason for Mr. Kim’s visit was to deliver a personal briefing about what happened behind closed doors during three hours of talks with Mr. Trump last week.

As the United States and China drift further into a trade war, Mr. Kim finds himself in what analysts see as an enviable position, with leverage over the region’s two great rivals. China has backed United Nations sanctions against North Korea, but it has recently indicated it is willing to offer Pyongyang economic assistance — a move some see as intended to anger Washington.

In the joint declaration they signed after meeting in Singapore, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim pledged to move ahead with the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But the wording of the agreement was vague and included no clear timelines.

The Americans insist that international sanctions imposed on the North will remain in place until Pyongyang completely dismantles its nuclear program. But China has suggested that the Singapore meeting alone was a good-will measure that should prompt the easing of those penalties.

As China pushes to ease sanctions, Mr. Kim, days after his apparent bonhomie with Mr. Trump, finds himself again pulled back into Beijing’s orbit.

“This could be regarded as an intuitive response to Trump’s escalation of the trade war,” Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, said about China’s courting of Mr. Kim.

Chinese officials indicated in May, after Mr. Kim’s visit to Dalian, that they were amenable to giving the North economic assistance. At Tuesday’s meeting in Beijing, China was expected to offer even more help to Mr. Kim, who has promised his people dramatic economic growth.

China is well positioned to advise the North on how to transform a rural economy into a modern one, experts said. A delegation of North Korean provincial leaders visited China recently to inspect major cities, where they saw glimmering skyscrapers and high-speed trains.

Mr. Kim has yet to visit most of China, but even its most advanced cities might pale in comparison to the night he spent in Singapore, inspecting the skyline and visiting a high-end casino complex.

China might propose some easing of sanctions and the opening of “a back door” to economic assistance, said Kim Byung-yeon, a professor at Seoul National University and author of a recent book, “Unveiling the North Korean Economy.”

But China shouldn’t risk its international reputation by going too far, Professor Kim said. “Sanctions were designed to bring the North to the negotiating table, and they came, but it’s not clear whether they want to negotiate or buy time,” Professor Kim said.

“If China wants to let up pressure on North Korea now, that would be a bad move,” he added. “They agreed to sanctions for the purpose of denuclearization. If they provide resources now, that is incompatible with their role at the U.N.”

Luz Ding contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Kim in China For 3rd Visit Since March. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe