After concluding a state visit to North Korea, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared in a message of thanks sent to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on the 9th that the two countries' relations had "embarked on a new historic journey." The remark is seen as formalizing a strategic alignment for an anti-U.S. front that goes beyond a simple restoration of friendship.
According to a compilation of major media reports on the 10th, Xi said in the message of thanks sent the previous day, the day he returned home, "Through an in-depth exchange of views between me and the general secretary comrade, we achieved important common understandings," adding, "China–North Korea relations have already embarked on a new historic journey." At the same time, he also indicated an intention to provide better welfare for the peoples of the two countries and contribute to world peace.
The focus of cooperation was set on expanding exchanges across the board. The two countries agreed to sharply increase not only practical areas such as the economy, trade, agriculture, construction, and science and technology, but also education, culture, and sports, as well as high-level strategic communication. North Korea, under heavy international economic sanctions, looked to China for an economic breakthrough through the normalization of trade and tourism. In particular, cooperation in the construction and agriculture sectors is cited as a practical step to ease North Korea's chronic food shortages and lack of infrastructure, which burden people's livelihoods.
China, for its part, put forward North Korea as a key partner in reshaping the Northeast Asian order to firmly counter the U.S.-led Asia-Pacific encirclement, aligning mutual interests. In response, North Korea reaffirmed that it firmly supports China's core interests, including on the Taiwan issue.
References to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula were absent from both the summit statement and the message of thanks. This means China put the North Korean nuclear issue on the back burner, effectively acquiescing to North Korea's current line and prioritizing alliance cohesion. Through this summit, North Korea effectively gained the benefit of tacit recognition of its status as a nuclear-armed state.
The United States, wary that this North Korea–China alignment could lead to the undermining of sanctions on the North, moved immediately to counter it. A U.S. State Department Spokesperson stressed in an official comment on the 9th that "in Beijing, President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping reaffirmed the shared goal of North Korea's denuclearization." By invoking the agreement reached during Trump's visit to China last month, Washington sent a strong warning against any possibility that China might tolerate North Korea's nuclear program. For the Trump administration, already grappling with major Middle East issues such as armed clashes with Iran, a North Korea–China united front in Northeast Asia could only pose a significant strategic burden.
Experts say a North Korea–China bond without the control mechanism of denuclearization will further complicate the regional security landscape. Sydney Seiler, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said in an interview with the Economic Times that "the sustainability of improved North Korea–China relations will have a direct and indirect impact on how long Kim Jong-un can ignore the United States and South Korea." A tight diplomatic battle is expected to intensify between the United States, which seeks to tighten denuclearization and the sanctions net on the North, and the North Korea–China alliance, which seeks to shake it.