North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will visit China on Tuesday, state-run news agency Xinhua reported. This will be Kim’s third visit to China in as many months.
The North Korean leader and United States President Donald Trump had met at a historic summit in Singapore on June 12, and signed a joint statement pledging to build a “lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula” and to work “toward the complete denuclearisation.”
Kim is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, and may discuss his summit with Trump, Sue Mi Terry, a Korea expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told the South China Morning Post.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week, and stressed the importance of “China being a constructive participant in the next steps” after the Trump-Kim summit. However, Chris Johnson, a former China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, said that Beijing was wary of its influence over Pyongyang eroding as a result of direct Trump-Kim talks.
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