Kim Jong Un returns from China visit praising Xi as North Korea seeks closer ties with Beijing

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has concluded his surprise visit to China after receiving an “enthusiastic welcome” and expressing praise for Xi Jinping’s leadership as well as international influence.

Mr Kim was seen beaming ear to ear and warmly meeting Chinese officials on Friday in pictures released by KCNA state media.

The North Korean leader made his first visit in a year to China, travelling across a newly inaugurated bridge that links two countries.

The quick trip to its biggest international backer and trading partner symbolised a push by Pyongyang to expand trade ⁠ties and show a united front against the US while also bolstering ties with Russia.

Mr Kim arrived in the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday, the city's main conduit for North Korea’s trade with other countries, where he visited a war memorial that commemorates China’s support for North Korea and its fallen soldiers in the 1950-53 Korean War.

He met a handful of senior Beijing officials, including foreign minister Wang Yi. Though he did not meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the two leaders exchanged greetings through officials, with Mr Kim thanking Mr Xi for paying special attention to his visit.

Mr Kim also toured a bus factory in Dandong before receiving an elaborate send-off at the new four-lane bridge crossing the Yalu River.

Calling the friendship between the two countries as “invincible” that was “forged at the cost of blood,” Mr Kim vowed to expand cooperation with the powerful neighbour.

Mr Kim said that the North Korean people would "forever remember the glorious years of fighting alongside the Chinese people" and pass down "generational gratitude to the Chinese people who ‌helped our revolution with blood", state news agency KCNA reported.

He was guided by Wang Huning, the fourth-highest-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party, during the visit to Dandong's Memorial Hall of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.

The North Korean leader was accompanied by a high-level North Korean delegation that included his sister, Kim Yo Jong, and foreign minister Choe Son Hui, among several other high-ranking officials.

The Chinese officials, Mr Wang said China will work with North Korea to “unswervingly implement the important consensus reached by the top leaders” and “promote the further elevation and development of China-North Korea relations.”

He referred to the “common socialist cause as a bond” between the two countries.

During a tour of the memorial, Mr Kim was seen examining an archival photograph of his grandfather, North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung, alongside Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, according to footage broadcast by North Korean state television KRT.

Mr Kim also presented the museum with a commemorative plaque featuring Kim Il Sung before holding a formal meeting with Mr Wang and visiting a bus factory in Dandong.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said Russia was fuelling an arms race while China was enabling Mr Kim's distorted account of the Korean War and his rejection of Seoul's reconciliation efforts, rather than upholding UN Security Council resolutions.

“The New Yalu River Bridge reflects Chinese leaders’ belief that greater economic connectivity will contribute to regional stability, and they prioritise that logic over making benefits conditional on North Korean compliance with past international agreements,” Mr Easley said.

He said that, from South Korea's perspective, a shift in Pyongyang's priorities towards economic development rather than military expansion and threats would be a welcome development for regional security and diplomacy.

“But if Kim can extract ever more benefits from China and Russia, it is unclear what Seoul could offer that would be worth the political risks Pyongyang attaches to exchanges with a more prosperous, globalised, and free Korea,” he said.

The visit also came just days after China and North Korea opened a long-delayed bridge across the Yalu River, a project that had remained unused for more than a decade despite being completed in 2014.

The 3km-long, four-lane bridge, built with Chinese investment of more than $300m, connects Dandong with the North Korean city of Sinuiju. Its opening on 15 October marked a significant step towards expanding cross-border trade and transport between the two countries.

The crossing is expected to ease the movement of goods and people, although reports suggest customs delays have continued to hamper commercial traffic since its opening.

North Korea’s efforts to deepen ties with China, the US’s primary challenger, come at a time when the Trump administration has tested allies over trade, security and military spending.

The ties have expanded since the period when Beijing-Pyongyang ties were testy due to Mr Kim’s nuclear advances that had put China in a difficult diplomatic position.

However, North Korea’s close bonds with Russia and support for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine have given an extra push to Pyongyang to maintain ties with Moscow’s ally Beijing.

North Korea and China also resumed passenger train services connecting the two capitals.

Mr Kim last ‌visited Beijing in September 2025 for a ⁠military parade, and Mr Xi visited North Korea in June.