Kathmandu. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has arrived in China after a year.
According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, on Saturday, Kim reached the Chinese border city of Dandong. It is said that he entered China by crossing the newly built bridge that connects China and North Korea. However, there was no immediate official confirmation of the visit by Chinese and North Korean state media.
This bridge, which is about three kilometers long, was commissioned in October 2026. Although the construction was completed in 2014, its operation was stopped for a long time due to connecting roads and customs facilities. This bridge is seen as an important infrastructure to expand trade and economic relations between the two countries. This is expected to facilitate the movement of containers, heavy cargo trucks and other goods.
China is a traditional major ally and economic partner of North Korea. China has a large share of North Korea’s trade, and Beijing is important to Pyongyang in terms of diplomatic and economic cooperation.
In recent years, Kim has prioritized relations with Russia. After Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022, details of North Korea’s support to Moscow with military and conventional weapons have become public. It has been analyzed that North Korea may have received economic and military support in return.
Despite growing closer to Russia, Kim has recently been trying to re-strengthen ties with China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited North Korea’s capital Pyongyang in June 2026 and met with Kim. In the meeting, the issues of expanding bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, agriculture, construction and technology were discussed. Kim has called relations with China one of his country’s top strategic priorities.
This is Kim’s sixth visit to China since he assumed power in late 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. Earlier, he reached Beijing in September 2025. At the time, he watched a military parade with Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The visit coincided with the anniversary of the Korean War
Kim’s visit to China comes on the eve of the October 25 anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War. In 1950, Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River and entered the war in support of North Korea. The Korean War began in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. Then the United Nations-led coalition with the US joined the war in support of South Korea. North Korea was mainly supported by China and the air force of the then Soviet Union also supported it.
Although direct hostilities ceased after the armistice in 1953, no formal peace treaty was signed between the two Koreas. So technically, the Korean Peninsula is still considered to be in a state of war.
The possibility of US-North Korea talks
US President Donald Trump has been showing his willingness to resume diplomatic talks with North Korea. But Kim has yet to accept the US offer after talks stalled in 2019. Pyongyang has been demanding that the US abandon its hostile policy against it and not make denuclearization a precondition for talks.
South Korea’s intelligence agency briefed lawmakers last month on the possibility of a meeting between Trump and Kim during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China, in November. But according to the latest information, the officials estimate that the possibility of such a meeting this year is weak.