The North Korea factor in the summit between Trump and Xi Jinping

Yesterday, images of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the UN General Assembly were circulating on the social media pages of several well-known Chinese tabloids. The videos emphasised the narrative of Zelensky’s precarious mental and physical stability, featuring a montage of all the times he touched his nose, reiterating the old Russian fake news story about the Ukrainian president being a cocaine addict. This is the climate in which U.S. President Donald Trump yesterday welcomed Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Washington with full honours, just a few hours after the meeting between Rubio and Lavrov and following yet another Russian drone attack on Kyiv. The summit between Trump and Xi also concerns the war in Ukraine, because Beijing continues to avoid discussing its influence over Russia, and above all over North Korea, whose role was mentioned by Zelensky just yesterday in his address to the UN General Assembly.

For days now, there has been talk of a renewed interest on Trump’s part in re-establishing channels of communication with Kim Jong Un. The last time they met was on 30 June 2019 on the 38th parallel – the famous summit at which the two discussed nothing, but Trump stepped over the border, posing for photographs as the first sitting US president to have formally entered North Korea. Then, following the collapse of the nuclear talks, relations between Washington and Pyongyang returned to a state of frostiness. According to various American media outlets, Trump has recently resumed pressing for a meeting with Kim with the aim of securing a foreign policy achievement to place at the top of his presidential record, and is said to have spoken privately about a handshake with the North Korean leader as early as his next trip to Asia, possibly in November for the APEC summit in Shenzhen. This is reportedly why he has (once again) suspended joint military exercises with South Korea, and why he has decided to set aside demands for denuclearisation. Beijing has recognised the president’s need, and today, during private talks between Trump and Xi, the Chinese leader is expected to offer to mediate with North Korea on his counterpart’s behalf.

The problem with re-establishing dialogue with the North Korean regime now, whilst the war in Iran has become bogged down, is that in the meantime the world has changed – above all, the North Korean leadership has changed thanks to its relationship with Russia and the support of China. Last Sunday, Kim Jong Un’s regime launched a new variant of the Hwasong-11 Ma-1 hypersonic missile, overseen by the leader himself and his daughter Ju Ae. According to the regime’s media, the test represents a step towards the operational deployment of hypersonic technology. International observers cannot verify whether this is genuinely a new weapon or merely propaganda, but there are signs of an increasingly alarming expansion of North Korea’s arsenal, and this is nothing new. The decisive factor is the war in Ukraine: North Korean soldiers are now serving under Putin, as are their weapons. Indeed, Pyongyang does not seem content merely to use Ukraine as a testing ground for missiles that have already been developed. The experience gained on the ground is contributing to the transformation of the entire North Korean military apparatus, with Russia’s help and the acceleration of industrial production. In recent days, Kim has visited several arms factories, calling for an increase in production capacity and the introduction of more automation and artificial intelligence. An analysis by NK Pro has identified a factory that Kim had previously presented as a manufacturer of transport lorries and which now appears to be engaged in the construction of new modular missile launchers. North Korean hackers are spying on the Ukrainians and those involved in the war in the Western world. Meanwhile, economic trade with Xi Jinping’s China is also on the rise. The theatres of war are closely linked: to stop the war in Ukraine, it is necessary to halt the aid coming from North Korea. Xi Jinping, who is sitting at the table with Trump today, has shown no intention of doing so, and has realised that what the American president is seeking above all is a photo opportunity.