In a first, Kim Jong Un will attend a gathering of leaders with both Putin and Xi
SEOUL, South Korea — When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits China next week for a military parade, he’ll be gathering with foreign leaders for the first time, at a rare event with the heads of China, Russia and North Korea all together.
The Sept. 3 parade marks the end of World War II after Japan’s formal surrender to Allied forces. China’s Foreign Ministry says the event commemorates China’s victory
over “Japanese aggression.”
Kim’s decision to attend the event was reported by South Korean and North Korean news outlets.
China’s State Council this week published a list of 26 leaders it said would attend that would also include the leaders of Iran, Cuba, Belarus and Serbia. Slovakia is so far the only NATO member on the list.
North Korea rebalances ties with Moscow and Beijing
This will also be Kim’s first known visit to China since 2019. He and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met five times between 2018 and 2019.
But since then, Kim has drawn closer to Russia, signing a mutual defense treaty with the Kremlin and sending thousands of troops to Russia to fight Ukraine.
“This is a major mending of the fence, I would say, between China and North Korea,” says John Delury, a Seoul-based senior fellow at Asia Society, a nonprofit educational organization. “This puts the strategic relationship of the leaders back on some kind of even keel.”
With President Trump trying to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, Delury says that Kim may be anticipating that he will have less leverage with Moscow, and may want to consider resuming talks with the U.S.
Trump said this week at a summit meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung that he hopes to meet again with Kim, as he did three times in 2018 and 2019.
A possible opening for Trump
In addition to Kim seeing the need to improve ties with China, Delury says, the North Koreans could also be “looking over their shoulder at Donald Trump, and see what may be in play with the Americans.”
Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong has indicated that Pyongyang has no interest in resuming talks with the U.S. But she said in a statement in state media that Trump and Kim have a “special personal relationship” and can meet again if the U.S. drops its “outdated way of thinking.”
The South Korean government national security adviser Wi Sung-lac said in an interview with the country’s CBS radio that it would be best to keep expectations about engagement with North Korea low, for now. Although, he said, Kim’s China trip “is a development that requires close attention.”
South Korean President Lee will not attend the parade, but the government will be represented by Parliamentary Speaker Woo Won-shik.
Concerns of a new cold war grouping
Doo Jin-ho, senior researcher at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, is quoted by South Korea’s Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper as saying Kim’s attendance at the parade suggests the emergence of a “new Cold War structure,” with North Korea relying on Russia for military cooperation and China for economic relations.
China and Russia have cooperated in helping North Korea avoid international sanctions imposed because of its nuclear and missile programs.
And China and North Korea have helped Russia in different ways with its war in Ukraine. But the three countries’ loose alignment is not institutionalized, unlike the U.S., South Korea and Japan, which established a trilateral secretariat last year.
Nor have China, Russia and North Korea held trilateral military drills, as the U.S. and its allies have.
Chinese media, meanwhile, have focused on preparations for the parade, and China’s contributions to victory in World War II, officially known in the country as the “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”
That conflict started with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, a decade before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Some 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded in the conflict, according to official Chinese government figures.
The People’s Daily newspaper quoted leader Xi Jinping on a visit to a battlefield memorial last month, instructing the nation to “tell the story of the War of Resistance well, and pass on the great spirit of the War of Resistance from Generation to Generation.”
NPR’s Se Eun Gong contributed to this report in Seoul.
Transcript:
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
China will stage an elaborate military parade next Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Topping the guest list will be the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. While dozens of world leaders are expected to attend the event, President Trump is not one of them.
FADEL: To help us preview the big event, NPR’s Anthony Kuhn joins us from Seoul. Good morning, Anthony.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Morning, Leila.
FADEL: OK, so this is the first time ever the leaders of Russia, China and North Korea will meet. What can we expect from the meeting?
KUHN: Yeah. It’s not only the first meeting of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. It’s a meeting of the three nations’ leaders that we didn’t even see during the Cold War. So I think we can expect some pretty striking images of these three men atop the rostrum in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
In terms of concrete cooperation, there’s been some. Russia and China have, for example, helped North Korea defeat international sanctions. China and North Korea have helped Russia to differing degrees in its war in Ukraine. But they don’t have three-way military drills. They don’t have any three-way offices or institutions. It’s a loose coalition and this parade will tighten it somewhat. Also, all three of these nations fought fascist powers in World War II. Russia now claims it’s once again fighting fascists in Ukraine, and North Korea agrees with them, so they’re at least trying to link the past and present in some sort of narrative.
FADEL: OK. So President Trump won’t be in attendance. Who will be?
KUHN: There’ll be heads of state and government from 26 nations. Many are aligned with North Korea and China and Russia, such as Iran, Cuba, Vietnam and Myanmar. The Serbian president and the Slovak prime minister are the only Western leaders there. Also, South Korea’s president will be notably absent, but I guess if Kim wants to reach out to South Korea, their parliamentary speaker will be there for him to speak to.
FADEL: Now, this is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first big multilateral event. How will he approach it?
KUHN: Well, historically, North Korea’s main ally has been China, but Kim Jong Un has recently drawn closer to Vladimir Putin, signing a mutual defense treaty last year with Russia, sending some 12,000 troops to help them fight Ukraine. But with peace talks now beginning, Kim may be starting to look past Ukraine. I spoke about this with Asia Society senior fellow John Delury, and here’s what he said.
JOHN DELURY: We can certainly read this as Kim Jong Un realizing, OK, I can’t put all my eggs in the Russian basket and, again, need to kind of improve the ties with China, but also looking beyond China at Donald Trump and see what may be in play with the Americans.
KUHN: Remember that Trump met with Kim three times in 2018 to 2019. He says he’d like to meet with Kim again this year, and if that happens, Kim will be in a stronger position with Moscow and Beijing’s backing.
FADEL: OK, what message is China looking to send at this event?
KUHN: Well, they’re positioning themselves as leader of a multipolar alternative to the U.S.-led order. They’ll be rolling a lot of military hardware through Tiananmen Square, and they’ll be highlighting their contribution as being on the right side and the winning side of World War II, where they suffered 35 million people killed and wounded. And that’s a message they can send both domestically and internationally.
FADEL: That’s NPR’s Anthony Kuhn. Thank you for your reporting, Anthony.
KUHN: You’re welcome.
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