Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Pyongyang on Monday for a state visit, as Beijing looks to maintain its traditional role as its neighbor’s main benefactor and enlist North Korea in fighting attempts at “reviving militarism” — a veiled swipe at Japan.
Xi’s two-day trip, his first visit to Pyongyang in seven years and his inaugural foreign trip of this year — is being viewed as a symbol of the importance the 72-year-old leader has placed on China’s ties with its nuclear-armed neighbor amid North Korea’s embrace of Russia.
Xi and his entourage were welcomed at an airport by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, and later attended “a grand welcome ceremony” in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square that included a 21-gun salute and bilingual banners touting the countries’ “unbreakable” friendship, video released by China’s official Xinhua News Agency showed.
