Kim Jong Un makes ‘surprise’ visit to China

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has arrived in China for a “surprise” summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping, ahead of a possible meeting between Kim and Donald Trump.

State-run North Korean news services reported that Kim and his wife Ri Sol Ju will be in China to meet with Xi until Thursday, at the invitation of the Chinese president.

The Washington Post reports that the meetings between North Korea and China come as Kim and Trump are “negotiating over the location for a second summit meeting”.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“It will be announced probably in the not-too-distant future,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “They do want to meet and we want to meet and we'll see what happens.”

South Korea’s Yonhap news service says that Kim was accompanied on the trip by “Kim Yong Chol, a key nuclear negotiator with the US, and Ri Yong Ho and No Kwang Chol, the country's foreign and defence ministers, respectively”.

Kim and his entourage reportedly travelled in the North Korean leader’s heavily fortified personal train, with security at the border crossing site in Dandong said to be very tight while the train was passing through.

It is the fourth time Kim has travelled to China to meet with Xi, and comes at a delicate time for China as talks between Washington and Beijing get underway to address the ongoing trade war.